Staunton was appointed principal secretary to Lord Macartney’s embassy to China in 1792 which sought “to improve commercial relations with China, through Canton (Guangzhou), and to establish regular diplomatic relations between the two countries. Though Macartney and Staunton had an audience with the emperor their proposals were rebuffed In China [Staunton] closely observed and noted all that he saw, and during expeditions he was able to collect botanical specimens. His son, George Thomas, then just twelve years old, accompanied him to China as page to Lord Macartney, and was the only member of the mission who bothered to learn Chinese” (DNB). Staunton’s account of this important, but ultimately unsuccessful mission, conceived on a grand scale, takes in numerous places visited en route: Madeira, Tenerife, Rio de Janeiro, Java, Sumatra, Cochin-China. The result is “a most interesting account of Chinese manners and customs at the close of the eighteenth century” (Cox I, 197)

Bookbinders label of ‘Robert Seton Stationer & Bookbinder to the King, The Mound, Edinburgh’. Robert Seton used this particular address from 1833-37. This particular example was rebound by Robert Seton on behalf of the ‘Northern Light Board’, whose crest appears at the head of the spine of each volume. The Northern Light Board, now the Northern Lighthouse Board (NLB), was formed in 1786 to oversee the construction of Scottish lighthouses, its most famous engineer was Robert Stevenson. Seton also bound a copy of the Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle for the NLB, see Bauman Rare Books Catalogue, 2011, No. 8.