Satire on Lord Macartney's mission to China in 1792 to negotiate trade terms for the East India Company.
Print shows the Emperor of China reclining on a mattress and smoking a long pipe as he receives Lord Macartney and his entourage. Macartney, wearing the insignia of the Bath, kneels in profile to the left, indicating with his left hand a number of presents which have been placed at the Emperor's feet. Five members of his suite prostrate themselves behind Macartney, their heads touching the floor. Behind are others bringing presents, the two most prominent are identified as Sir George Staunton, secretary to the Embassy, and Huttner, who published a German account of the expedition. Staunton stands behind Macartney, holding the string of a toy balloon decorated with the royal arms, to which is attached, in place of a basket, a cock standing on a pair of breeches. Huttner holds a magpie in a wicker cage. Men crowd behind them carrying, one, a toy coach complete with six horses, driver, postilion, &c, the whole on a small wheeled platform; another, a rocking-horse; a third holds a weathercock in one hand, a British flag in the other. The objects on the ground are: a volume of 'Boydell's Shakespeare' on which is a rat-trap; a bat, trap, and ball, dice-box and dice, a battledore and shuttlecock (on which is a crown); an oval miniature of George III, to which is attached a child's coral and bells; a toy windmill; a magic-lantern; the model of a man-of-war flying a British flag, and an E.O. table.