MACARTNEY, George Macartney, Earl of (1737- 1806), was descended from an old Scotch family, the Macartneys of Auchinleck, who had settled in 1649 at Lissanoure, Antrim, Ireland, where he was born May 13, 1737. After graduating at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1759, he became a student of the Inner Temple, London. Appointed envoy-extraordinary to Russia in 1764, he succeeded in negotiating an alliance between England and that country. After for some time occupying a seat in the English parliament, he was in 1769 returned for Armagh in the Irish parliament, in order to discharge the duties of chief secretary for Ireland. On resigning this office he received the honour of knighthood. In 1775 he became governor of Granada, in 1780 governor of Madras, and in 1785 he was appointed governor general of Bengal, but, his health demanding his return to England, he declined to accept office. After being created earl of Macartney in the Irish peerage, he was appointed in 1792 the first envoy of Britain to China» On his return from a confidential mission to Italy he was raised to the English peerage in 1796, and in the end of the same year was appointed governor of the newly acquired territory of the Cape of Good Hope, where he remained till ill health compelled him to resign in November 1798. He died at Chiswick, Surrey, 31st March 1806.

An account of Macartney’s embassy to China, by Sir George Staunton, was published in 1797, and has been frequently reprinted. See also Life and Writings of Lord Macartney, by Barrow, 2 vols., London, 1807.