China
Macartney Expedition
Born in Ireland on May 14, 1737, George Macartney, Earl Macartney, studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and went on to become envoy-extraordinary to St. Petersburg, where he concluded a commercial treaty with the Empress Catherine. In 1775 he became Governor of the Caribbee Islands, and was captured by the French in 1779 when Grenada was attacked. In 1780, he was appointed by the East India Company as governor of Fort St. George in Madras (India), at the time of the Mahratta War, and remained in India until 1786, when he resigned. In 1792, he was sent as Ambassador to China, the first British embassy to that country. He embarked upon the "Lion" and traveled to China with a large contingent of soldiers, scientists, secretaries, and artists. Although they did not succeed in their primary goal of securing permission to have a British minister in China, the embassy collected much important and valuable information relating to conditions in China, trade, customs, and practices. In 1795, Macartney became governor of the newly-captured colony of the Cape of Good Hope (South Africa). He died in 1806.
His Majesty's Ship Lion (1793-1794)
This is the original ship journal, signed by the commander, Sir Erasmus Gower. Lord Macartney voyaged to China in this ship when he became the ambassador there. The first entry reads:
August 1793 ... Light breezes and clear weather; employ'd removing the Ambassador's baggage and clearing the tackal. ... kill'd a bullock weighing 340 lbs. ...Saluted his Lordship with 3 cheers and 15 Guns as did the Hindostan.
This volume features full-page watercolor drawings of the scenery on the coast of China.
Gift of Charles Wason.
Log of H. M. S. Belleisle
This log covers the sea journey of Major General Lord Saltoun and staff of H. M. 98th Regiment, departing from England in December, 1841, and disembarking at Hong Kong in February, 1843. It then chronicles the ship's embarkation for India, on the final evacuation of the island of Chusan, July 21, 1846.
Photograph Album of Shanghai and Environs, c. 1890
Yongle da dian: The Great Standard of Yongle or Encyclopedia Maxima
These volumes constitute five of the surviving 400 volumes of the original Yongle da dian, the Encyclopedia Maxima, bearing the emperor Yongle's (1402-1424) reign name. The original edition of this large work was comprised of 917,480 pages—in 11,100 bound volumes divided into 22,877 sections . Produced by a commission of over two thousand scholars in 1408, it purported to record all knowledge of the Confucian canon, Buddhism, history, philosophy, astronomy, geography, medicine, and the arts. The subject headings are written on the outer edges of the pages. Although a printed edition was intended—indeed, the Chinese had been printing block books since the tenth century—multiple production of such a massive text proved prohibitive. Instead, two manuscript copies were made in 1567.
In the 17th century, the original and one copy of the text were lost in a fire. Then, during the Boxer Rebellion (the Siege of Peking) in 1900, the Han-Lin Academy, where the first copy had been housed since the late Ming dynasty, was set on fire. Its library—along with the Yongle da dian—was almost entirely destroyed.
Gift of Charles Wason.
Qing dai ming ren shu zha zhen ji
This book includes nine original letters by Qing scholars and government officials, with one from 1832 by Lin Zexu among the most prominent. Other authors include Wang Shizhen and Ruan Yuan. The Wason collection holds sixteen of these volumes, containing nearly one hundred previously unpublished original letters. Some of the letters include annotations by Hu Shi , who also compiled a content overview. Among the most prominent entries is an 1832 letter by Lin Zexu, who was sent to Canton in 1840 to suppress the influx of opium coming to China from India on British ships.
On loan from Tsu-wang Hu.
Zeng ding Guang yu ji (1686)
This revised, enlarged edition of Guangyu ji was compiled on behalf of emperor Kangxi (who reigned from 1662-1722), to describe in text and maps the geography of all regions known to have been under Chinese influence at the time. The original text was first compiled during the Ming dynasty, between 1600 and 1620.
Da Ming yi tong zhi (1461)
These are fragments of a comprehensive geographic survey, undertaken during the reign of Ming Yingzong, emperor of China (1457-1465). Only a few incomplete copies of the original printed version have survived.
Yu shu: Jade Book of Emperor Kangxi
Emperor Kangxi compiled the Jade Book in 1661 to commemorate Shi Zu (1644-1661), his recently deceased grandfather and founding father of the Qing dynasty. The "book" is comprised of a series of ten jade tablets, each weighing approximately one pound, which are strung together with yellow silk straps. The text is engraved in blue and gold: tablets two through four are written in Chinese, while tablets five through nine contain similar text in Manchu. The first and last tablets present identical designs of two dragons in gold. At one time, the case and tablets were housed in the ancestral hall of the imperial family in Beijing.
Yu yin: Jade Seal
The Jade Seal, which accompanies the Jade Book, is also attributed to emperor Kangxi (1662-1722). Similar in design, it was also part of the ancestral "estate" of the imperial family.