Instruments as Cargo in the China Trade

Goldsmith Oliver , Citizen of the world (1762; 2 vols, London, 1794), ii, 141–2.

van Helden Albert Hankins Thomas L. , “Introduction: Instruments in the history of science”, Osiris, ix (1994), 1–6, p. 6.

For Goldsmith's China, see Spence Jonathan , The Chan's great continent: China in western minds (New York, 1998), 73–79.

Boyle Robert , “Hydrostatical discourse” (1672); “Free enquiry into the vulgarly receiv'd notion of nature” (1686); and “Disquisition about the final causes of natural things” (1688); in Hunter Michael Davies Edward B. (eds), The works of Robert Boyle (14 vols, London, 1999–2000), vii, 184; x, 520; xi, 150. Boyle's story about the watch is discussed in Dear Peter , Discipline and experience: The mathematical way in the Scientific Revolution (Chicago, 1995), 153. Gulliver's watch and Brobdingnagian clockwork are mentioned in Swift Jonathan , Gulliver's travels, ed. by Hayward John (1726; London, 1968), 30, 99.

Desaguliers John Theophilus , A course of experimental philosophy (2 vols, London, 1734, 1744), i, 127. See Stewart Larry , “Public lectures and private patronage in Newtonian England”, Isis, lxxvii (1986), 47–58.

Cargo and cultural transmission are discussed in Dening Greg , Performances (Melbourne, 1996), 46–47; for cargo's shifting sense in Pacific commodity culture see Jebens Holger (ed.), Cargo, cult and culture critique (Honolulu, 2004).

Bivins Roberta , “Expectations and expertise: Early British responses to Chinese medicine”, History of science, xxxvii (1999), 459–89, p. 460.

Qianlong's “Ode to a self-sounding bell”, in Pagani Catherine , ‘Eastern magnificence and European ingenuity’: Clocks of late imperial China (Ann Arbor, 2001), 66–67.

Sivin Nathan , “Copernicus in China”, first published in Colloquia Copernicana II: Études sur l'audience de la théorie héliocentrique (Warsaw, 1973) and republished as chap. 4 of Sivin , Science in ancient China: Researches and reflections (Aldershot, 1995), 1–53, pp. 45–46; Elman Benjamin , “Western learning and evidential research in the eighteenth century”, National Palace Museum research quarterly, xxi (2003), 65–100, pp. 84–90.

Cranmer-Byng J. L. , An embassy to China: Being the journal kept by Lord Macartney during his embassy to the Emperor Ch'ien-lung 1793–1794 (London, 1962), 237. On performance and the Smithian market, see Agnew Jean-Christophe , Worlds apart: The market and the theater in Anglo-American thought, 1550–1750 (Cambridge, 1986), 177–88. On national identity, commerce and the embassy's fate see Hevia James L. , Cherishing men from afar: Qing guest ritual and the Macartney embassy of 1793 (Durham, N.C., 1995), 57–60; Min Eun Kyung , “Narrating the Far East: Commerce, civility and ceremony in the Amherst embassy to China”, Studies on Voltaire and the 18^th century, 2004, no. 9, 160–80, pp. 166–9.

Smith Bernard , Imagining the Pacific: In the wake of the Cook voyages (New Haven, 1992), 209.

For very thorough analysis, see Cranmer-Byng J. L. Levere Trevor , “A case study in cultural collision: Scientific apparatus in the Macartney embassy to China 1793”, Annals of science, xxxviii (1981), 503–25.

Staunton George , An authentic account of an embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China (3 vols, London, 1797), i, 43.

The tapestry is reproduced as figure 7.4 in Hevia James L. , “Diplomatic encounters: Europe and Asia”, in Jackson Anna Jaffer Amin (eds), Encounters: The meeting of Asia and Europe (London, 2004), 92–99, p. 96.

“Catalogue of Presents sent by His Britannic Majesty to the Emperor of China delivered on the 2 August 1793”, India Office Records MSS G/12/92, pp. 155–68; Cranmer-Byng J. L. Levere Trevor , “A case study in cultural collision: Scientific apparatus in the Macartney embassy to China 1793”, Annals of science, xxxviii (1981), 503–25, pp. 520–3; Pritchard Earl H. , The crucial years of early Anglo-Chinese relations 1750–1800 (Pullman WA., 1936), 293.

Marshall P. J. , “Britain and China in the late eighteenth century”, in Bickers Robert A. (ed.), Ritual and diplomacy: The Macartney mission to China 1792–1794 (London, 1993), 14.

Cranmer-Byng J. L. , An embassy to China: Being the journal kept by Lord Macartney during his embassy to the Emperor Ch'ien-lung 1793–1794 (London, 1962), 17–23; Fraser T. G. , “India 1780–86”, in Roebuck Peter (ed.), Macartney of Lisanoure 1737–1806: Essays in biography (Belfast, 1983), 154–215.

Cranmer-Byng , Embassy to China (ref. 17), 35–38; Waley-Cohen Joanna , “China and western technology in the late eighteenth century”, American historical review, xcviii/5 (1993), 1525–44; Zurndorfer Harriet T. , “Comment la science et la technologie se vendaient à la Chine au XVIIIe siècle”, Études chinoises, vii/2 (1988), 60–90.

Pritchard Earl H. , “The instructions of the East India Company to Lord Macartney on his embassy to China and his reports to the Company”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1938, 201–30, 375–96, 493–509, pp. 379–80, 498–9.

Cranmer-Byng Levere , “Case study in cultural collision” (ref. 12), 503–25; Peyrefitte Alain , L'Empire immobile: Récit historique (Paris, 1989); Porter David , “A peculiar but uninteresting nation: China and the discourse of commerce in eighteenth-century England”, Eighteenth-century studies, xxxiii (2000), 181–99. For Smith's critique of China see Smith Adam , Inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations (2 vols, 1776; London, 1904), ii, 301. For the historiography of the expedition, see Zurndorfer Harriet T. , “La sinologie immobile”, Études chinoises, viii/2 (1989), 99–120.

Cranmer-Byng J. L. , “Lord Macartney's embassy to Peking in 1793 from official Chinese documents”, Journal of oriental studies, iv (1957–58), 118–87, pp. 136–7.

The poem and the tapestry are reproduced in Needham Joseph Ling Wang , Science and civilisation in China, iv: Physics and physical technology, Part 2 (Cambridge, 1965), 477, fig. 662, plate 257; I have followed the translation in Hevia, “Diplomatic encounters” (ref. 14), 96 and commentary in Hevia , Cherishing men from afar (ref. 10), 177–8.

Hevia James L. , “The Macartney embassy in the history of Sino-Western relations”, in Bickers (ed.), Ritual and diplomacy (ref. 16), 69–75.

Cranmer-Byng , An embassy to China (ref. 17), 69; Cranmer-Byng , “Lord Macartney's embassy” (ref. 7), 123; Hevia , Cherishing men from afar (ref. 10), 135.

Boda Yang , “The development of the Qianlong painting academy”, in Murck Alfreda Fong Wen (eds), Words and images: Chinese poetry, calligraphy and painting (New York, 1991), 131–50; Pagani , Eastern magnificence (ref. 8), 181–4.

Needham , op. cit. (ref. 22), 475–7; Hevia , Cherishing men from afar (ref. 10), 177 n. 13; Cranmer-Byng Levere , “Case-study in cultural collision” (ref. 12), 518.

Medley Margaret , Illustrated regulations for ceremonial paraphernalia of the Ching dynasty (London, 1982), 6, for the Victoria and Albert Museum copy; Huang chao li qi tu shi (Taipei, 1984), 656/169 (armillary) and 656/152 (celestial globe). The image of the celestial globe in the Illustrated regulations is also reproduced in Needham Joseph Ling Wang , Science and civilisation in China, iii: Mathematics and the sciences of the heavens and the earth (Cambridge, 1959), 388, and the armillary sphere and celestial globe extant on the roof of the Beijing Observatory are shown in a 1925 photograph, ibid., plate 67.

Golvers Noel , “Ferdinand Verbiest and the Astronomical Bureau in Beijing”, Review of culture, 2nd ser., xx (1994), 65–83; Witek John (ed.), Ferdinand Verbiest: Jesuit missionary, scientist, engineer and diplomat (Nettetal, 1994), 96–99, 166.

Golvers Noel (ed.), The Astronomia Europaea of Ferdinand Verbiest (Nettetal, 1993), 97–98. For Tycho's devices and Verbiest's instruments, see Iannaccone I. , “From Tycho Brahe to Isaac Newton: Ferdinand Verbiest's astronomical instruments in the acient observatory of Beijing”, Memorie della Societa Astronomica Italiana, lx (1989), 889–906; Witek , Ferdinand Verbiest (ref. 28), 85–121; and Chapman Allan , “Tycho Brahe in China: The Jesuit mission to Peking and the iconography of European instrument-making processes”, Annals of science, xli (1984), 417–43.

Comte Louis Le , Memoirs and observations … made in a late journey through the Empire of China (3rd English edn, London, 1699), 64–68.

Baichun Zhang , “The introduction of European astronomical instruments and related technology into China during the seventeenth century”, East Asian science, technology and medicine, xx (2003), 99–131.

For comparable controversies on the relation between Jesuits, Tycho and absolutist patronage see Biagioli Mario , Galileo courtier: The practice of science in the culture of absolutism (Chicago, 1993), 284–8.

Golvers , Astronomia Europaea (ref. 29), 101. For the construction of the globe and its dated quality, see Witek , Ferdinand Verbiest (ref. 28), 174–5, and Chapman , “Tycho Brahe in China” (ref. 29), 435–40. For military enterprise see Witek , Ferdinand Verbiest (ref. 28), 215–24, and Waley-Cohen Joanna , “China and western technology in the late eighteenth century”, American historical review, xcviii/5 (1993), 1525–44, pp. 1531–2. For imperial patronage of Jesuit astronomers, see Ellman Benjamin , “Jesuit scientia and natural studies in late Imperial China 1600–1800”, Journal of early modern history, vi/3 (2002), 209–32, p. 223. For European readership of Verbiest's reports see Golvers , Astronomia Europaea (ref. 29), 43. Macartney's reading of Jesuit reports is recorded in Cranmer-Byng , An embassy to China (ref. 10), 42.

Anachronism has been used to condemn Chinese response to the entire embassy: Shunhong Zhang , “Historical anachronism: The Qing court's perception of and reaction to the Macartney embassy”, in Bickers , Ritual and diplomacy (ref. 16), 31–42, pp. 41–42.

Cranmer-Byng , Embassy to China (ref. 10), 265, 93, and idem, “Lord Macartney's embassy” (ref. 21), 150; Pritchard E. H. , “Letters from missionaries at Peking relating to the Macartney embassy”, T'oung Pao, xxxi (1935), 1–57, p. 11n.

Needham , op. cit. (ref. 22), 436–7, figs 641 and 642, plates 248 and 249.

Golvers Noel , “A Chinese imitation of a Flemish allegorical picture representing the muses of European sciences”, T'oung Pao, lxxxi (1995), 303–14; Standen Edith , “The story of the Emperor of China: A Beauvais tapestry series”, Metropolitan Museum journal, xi (1976), 103–17, pp. 106–9, 117. For Beauvais tapestries hung in the Summer Palace at Yuanming yuan, see Pirazzoli-T'Serstevens Michèle (ed.), Le Yuanmingyuan: Jeux d'eau et palais européens du XVlIIe siècle à la cour de Chine (Paris, 1987), 9.

Macartney to Dundas, 9 November 1793, India Office Records G/12/92, p. 45.

Cranmer-Byng , Embassy to China (ref. 10), 114, and Proudfoot William , Biographical memoir of James Dinwiddie (Liverpool, 1868), 51.

Needham Joseph Ling Wang de Solla Price Derek J. , Heavenly clockwork: The great astronomical clocks of medieval China (2nd edn, Cambridge, 1986), 149; Pagani , Eastern magnificence (ref. 8), 54; Waley-Cohen , “China and western technology” (ref. 8), 1533; Porter Jonathan , “Bureaucracy and science in early modern China: The Imperial Astronomical Bureau in the Ch'ing Period”, Journal of oriental studies, xviii (1980), 61–76.

Cranmer-Byng , Embassy to China (ref. 10), 125, 261 (my stress); Proudfoot , James Dinwiddie (ref. 39), 45.

Pirazzoli-T'Serstevens , Le Yuanmingyuan (ref. 37), 8–9; Malone Carroll , History of the Peking Summer Palace under the Ch'ing dynasty (Urbana, 1934), 160; Uitzinger Ellen , “For the man who has everything: Western-style exotica in birthday celebrations at the court of Ch'ien Lung”, in Blusse Leonard Zurndorfer Harriet T. (eds), Conflict and accommodation in early modern East Asia (Leiden, 1993), 216–39; Pagani , Eastern magnificence (ref. 8), 40–41, 82–83, 227 n.100.

van Braam André Everard , Voyage de l'ambassade de la Compagnie des Indes Orientales Hollandaises vers l'Empereur de la Chine (2 vols, Philadelphia, 1798), i, 182–3, translated in An authentic account of the embassy of the Dutch East India Company to the court of the Emperor of China (2 vols, London, 1798), i, 243.

Needham Wang Price , Heavenly clockwork (ref. 40), 149.

For astronomical machinery and patrons' authorship, see Biagioli , Galileo courtier (ref. 32), 149–57.

Sivin , “Copernicus in China” (ref. 9), 45 n.72, 49; Henderson John , “Ch'ing scholars' views of western astronomy”, Harvard journal of Asian studies, xlvi (1986), 121–48; Elman Benjamin , “Western learning and evidential research in the eighteenth century”, National Palace Museum Research quarterly, xxi/1 (2003), 65–100, pp. 85–90; Chu Pingyi , “Remembering our grand tradition: Historical memory of the scientific exchange between China and Europe”, History of science, xli (2003), 193–215.

Van Braam , Voyage (ref. 43), i, 231–4, translated in Account (ref. 43), ii, 20–23. For Petitpierre and the Dutch embassy's hardware, see Chapuis Alfred , Relations de l'horlogerie suisse avec la Chine (Neuchâtel, 1919), 49–50; Duyvendak J. J. L. , “The last Dutch embassy to the Chinese court”, T'oung Pao, xxxiv (1939), 1–137, pp. 41, 59–60.

Pointon Marcia , “Dealer in magic: James Cox's jewelry museum and the economics of luxurious spectacle in late eighteenth-century London”, History of political economy, supplement to vol. xxxi (1999), 423–51, p. 440; Macartney to Dundas, 9 November 1793, India Office Records MSS G/12/92, p. 44.

Altick Richard D. , The shows of London (Cambridge MA, 1978), 70–72, 351; Ord-Hume W. J. G. , Clockwork music (London, 1973), 45.

Anson George , A voyage round the world (1748), in Spence , The Chan's great continent (ref. 3), 54–55; Barrow John , Travels in China (London, 1804), 307; Alexander William , “Journal of a voyage to Pekin”, British Library MSS Add 35174, fol. 35r (13 December 1793); Cranmer-Byng , Embassy to China (ref. 10), 124.

Kowalewski-Wallace Beth , “Tea, gender and domesticity in eighteenth-century England”, Studies in eighteenth-century culture, xxiii (1994), 131–45; Marshall , “Britain and China” (ref. 16), 16–17.

Pritchard , Crucial years (ref. 15), 236–64.

Pritchard , Crucial years (ref. 15), 292; Staunton , Authentic account (ref. 13), 38–42.

Dundas Ewart to , 20 February 1792, India Office Records MSS G/12/91, fol. 76; Cranmer-Byng Levere , “Case study in cultural collision” (ref. 12), 505 n.2. See also Hevia , Cherishing men from afar (ref. 10), 77–78. A fine example of the Company's memoranda on prior embassies to China is Cobb James , “Sketches respecting China and the Embassies sent there”, India Office Records MSS G/12/20, fols. 40–102. For orientalism and London masquerades see Castle Terry , Masquerade and civilization (London, 1986), 60–62.

Staunton , Authentic account (ref. 13), 491, a version of Macartney to Dundas, 9 November 1793, India Office Records MSS G/12/92 p. 45. The stress is mine.

Marshall , “Britain and China” (ref. 16), 25.

Pritchard , Crucial years (ref. 15), 393–4, Priestley Joseph , History and present state of electricity, 3rd edn (2 vols, London, 1777), i, p. xi. For Herschel's telescope business, see Spaight John Tracy , “For the good of astronomy: The manufacture, sale and distant use of William Herschel's telescopes”, Journal for the history of astronomy, xxxv (2004), 45–69. Dinwiddie saw and admired Herschel's reflectors in situ at Slough in May 1787: Dinwiddie MSS 2–726, C-22 para.73.

Cranmer-Byng , Embassy to China (ref. 10), 191.

The lecture of Matthew Turner is cited in Rutt J. T. (ed.), Theological and miscellaneous works of Joseph Priestley (25 vols, London, 1817–32), i, 76; the mandarin response is cited in Proudfoot, James Dinwiddie (ref. 39), 50.

Cranmer-Byng , “Lord Macartney's embassy” (ref. 21), 139.

[Albert Mylius], Description of a planetarium or astronomical machine invented by Phil. Matthew Hahn (London, 1791), 1, 29; King Henry Millburn John R. , Geared to the stars: The evolution of planetariums, orreries and astronomical clocks (Bristol, 1978), 233–8.

Paulus Rudolf , “Pansophie und Technik bei Phillipp Matthäus Hahn”, Technikgeschichte, xxxvii (1970), 243–53; Fehle Isabella Gutekunst Eberhard , “Hahn — Theologe und Ingenieur”, in Väterlein Christian (ed.), Philipp Matthäus Hahn 1739–1790 (Stuttgart, 1989), 241–75.

Fischer G. F. , Beschreibung mechanischer Kunstwerke welche unter … Philipp Matth. Hahn … verfertiget sind (Stuttgart, 1774); Munz Alfred , Philipp Mathhäus Hahn (Sigmaringen, 1977); Leiter Alfred , Die Pforzheimer Uhrenmanufaktur von 1760–1790 (Kornwestheim, 1993), 25, 44–45, 50–61, for dealings with Pforzheim. Lavater Johann , Physiognomische Fragmente (Leipzig, 1777), 273 is cited in Munz , Hahn, 7.

Munz , Hahn (ref. 63), 34–38; Müller-Scherf Angelika , “Weltmaschine” (Catalogue no. 3.02) in Väterlein (ed.), Hahn (ref. 62), 383–91; King Millburn , Geared to the stars (ref. 54), 238–40. Dinwiddie's copy of the planetarium description is at Dalhousie University Library, Dinwiddie MSS 2–726, H.I. For Dinwiddie's proposal that the East India Company buy the machine, see Pritchard , Crucial years (ref. 15), 293. It is certainly false that the planetarium was that ordered by the Company in 1714 (Zurndorfer, “Comment la science et la technologie se vendaient” (ref. 18), 61). Needham , op. cit. (ref. 22), 474–5, remarks that the Hahn planetarium shows how “the high value traditionally placed upon astronomical science in Chinese culture imposed itself on European diplomacy”.

Dinwiddie , “Planetarium”, in Dinwiddie MSS 2–726, C-38; Walker William , An account of the eidouranion (Manchester (?), 1790), 3–4; Dundas to Macartney , 8 September 1792, India Office Records G/12/20, fol. 28r. For Pope's orrery see Cohen I. Bernard , Some early tools of American science (Cambridge MA, 1950), 157, and Wheatland David , The apparatus of science at Harvard 1765–1800 (Cambridge MA, 1968), 57–59. For impractical orreries as polite machines, see Walters Alice , “Conversation pieces: Science and politeness in eighteenth-century England”, History of science, xxxv (1997), 122–54, pp. 143–6. Dinwiddie's lectures on planetaria are mentioned in his Syllabus of a course of lectures on experimental philosophy (London, 1789), 12–13.

Vulliamy's account for altering the planetarium is in “Account of sundry articles purchased by Francis Baring Esq., 8 September 1792”, India Office Records MSS G/12/20, fols. 596–7. Smith's remarks are in Essays on philosophical subjects, ed. by Wightman W. P. D. Bryce J. C. Ross I. S. (Oxford, 1980), 66. The description of the planetarium is in Cranmer-Byng and Levere, “Case study in cultural collision” (ref. 12), 524, and of Herschel's reflector in Staunton , Authentic account (ref. 44), 493; its purchase is recorded in Cranmer-Byng , Embassy to China (ref. 10), 69 and Pritchard , “Instructions of the East India Company” (ref. 19), 393.

India Office Records MSS G/12/20 fols. 142–4 and Cranmer-Byng , “Lord Macartney's embassy” (ref. 21), 140. For differences in translation see Hevia , Cherishing men from afar (ref. 10), 147–8, and Zurndorfer , “Comment la science” (ref. 18), 71. A French version of the Chinese translation of the inventory is given in Peyrefitte Alain , Un choc de cultures: La vision des chinois (Paris, 1991), 128–31.

Cranmer-Byng , Embassy to China (ref. 10), 146; Hevia , Cherishing men from afar (ref. 10), 154; Barrow , Travels in China (ref. 50), 110–11; Cranmer-Byng , “Lord Macartney's embassy” (ref. 21), 131–2, 150–1.

Cranmer-Byng , “Lord Macartney's embassy” (ref. 21), 150–2; Hevia , “Macartney embassy” (ref. 23), 71.

Cranmer-Byng , Embassy to China (ref. 10), 264; Dinwiddie MSS 2–726, B13, 9 March 1794; Barrow , Travels in China (ref. 50), 566, 355. For the planetarium repair, see also Proudfoot , James Dinwiddie (ref. 39), 49–50; Barrow , Travels in China (ref. 40), 306; and Staunton , Authentic account (ref. 13), 287–9. For remarks on glass manufacture see Alexander , “Journal” (ref. 50), fol. 16. For doubts about the story, see Proudfoot William , Barrow's travels in China: An investigation (London, 1861), 24.

Van Braam , Voyage (ref. 43), ii, pp. v–vi. The text was published in Philadelphia in 1798 by a French emigré and patronized by Talleyrand and Volney. For the publication details see Duyvendaak , “Last Dutch embassy” (ref. 47), 99. Petitpierre is cited as source. He was in Beijing with the author van Braam. For Portugese missionaries' presence at the planetarium show in the Summer Palace, see Pritchard , “Letters from missionaries” (ref. 35), 22; for doubt cast on Portuguese enmity to Macartney see ibid., 43; for van Braam's earlier opposition to Macartney see Pritchard , Crucial years (ref. 15), 319.

Dinwiddie , Syllabus (ref. 65), 14–16; Proudfoot , James Dinwiddie (ref. 39), 128; Lunney Linde , “The celebrated Mr Dinwiddie: An eighteenth-century scientist in Ireland”, Eighteenth-century Ireland, iii (1988), 69–83, pp. 78–79. For notes for Dinwiddie's natural philosophy lectures in China, see Dinwiddie MSS 2–726, C-16 (14 October 1793).

Proudfoot , James Dinwiddie (ref. 39), 130–1, 47–48. The stress is mine. Dinwiddie records a furious argument with Macartney at Macao about the protocol and reportage of the instrument shows: Dinwiddie MSS 2–726, B13, 7 March 1794.

Proudfoot , James Dinwiddie (ref. 39), 53, 46. The Emperor's view that the British instruments were childish is also reported in Barrow , Travels in China (ref. 40), 312, and Alexander , “Journal” (ref. 50), fol. 26. For perceptive discussion of infantilization see Bivins , “Expectations and expertise” (ref. 7), 482. The comparison with infants became common: See Van Braam , Voyage (ref. 43), i, 252, translated in Account (ref. 43), ii, 47.

Proudfoot , James Dinwiddie (ref. 39), 97–113. For Dinwiddie's employment at Calcutta, see also Pritchard , “Instructions of the East India Company” (ref. 19), 502.

Cranmer-Byng , “Lord Macartney's embassy” (ref. 21), 171; Cranmer-Byng , Embassy to China (ref. 10), 127.

Leask Nigel , “Kubla Khan and orientalism”, Romanticism, iv (1998), 1–21.

Pindar Peter , A pair of lyric epistles to Lord Macartney and his ship (Dublin, 1793), 10; Mathias Thomas , The imperial epistle from Kien Long Emperor of China to George the Third (London, 1795), 35.

Wright Thomas Evans R. H. , Historical and descriptive account of the caricatures of James Gillray (London, 1851), 47. For technology and British aggression in the Opium War see Headrick Daniel , The tools of empire (Oxford, 1981), 43–57.

Borges Jorge Luis , Other inquisitions (London, 1973), 103.

King Millburn , Geared to the stars (ref. 61), 237; for shows of Handwerkerkultur in the later nineteenth century see Jackson Myles , Spectrum of belief (Cambridge MA, 2000), 194–210.