story in sufficient detail; though it consists merely of hasty jottings, sorely needing the revision of the author. He appears to have been disgusted with the official treatment he received ; and when he returned to Calcutta, he would give no one any particulars of his journey. After a short stay, he went back to Canton by sea, and again took up his residence in the factory. Charles Lamb continued to correspond with him, often urging him to come home. On the 25th December, 1815, he writes: "Still in China! Down with idols — Ching-chang-fo and all his foolish priesthood. Come out of Babylon, O my friend ! "
In 1817, Thomas Manning joined Lord Amherst's Embassy as Chinese interpreter, and proceeded to Peking.[1] The Ambassador objected at first to his beard, as incongruous in a British Embassy, but consented to his joining the mission on his agreeing to change his Chinese dress for an English one. On the voyage home, H.M.S. 'Alceste,' carrying the Embassy, was wrecked in the Straits of Gaspar, and its members, reaching Batavia, were taken home in the 'Caesar,' of London. In July, 1817, Manning had an interview with Napoleon, at St. Helena, reminding the Emperor that he was the only Englishman to whom he had granted a passport in 1803. Sir John Davis, who was a member of Lord Amherst's mission, thus writes of Mr. Manning:
"I knew Manning well, and liked him much. His eccentricities were quite harmless, and concerned only himself personally. His beard was merely continued from his first adoption of it previous to his journey to Lhasa, and gratified his natural indolence. He was not liable to the ridicule of the great epigrammatist:
'Εἰ τὸ τρέφειν πύγωνα δοκει σοφίαν περιπυιεῖν,
Καὶ τράγος ευπώγων εὔστοχος ἐστι Πλάτων.'
'If a beard of dimensions true wisdom declare,
Then Plato his claims with a he-goat must share.'
- ↑ See 'Journal of Lord Amherst's Embassy to China,' by Henry Ellis (London, 1817.) At p. 58 Mr. Manning is mentioned as having joined the Embassy at Macao; and at p. 61 his name occurs as one of the Chinese Secretaries, in a list of members of the Embassy.
