A popular history of British India, commercial intercourse with China, and the insular possessions of England in the Eastern Seas.

London : James Madden & Co., 1842. Octavo, publisher’s green cloth (rebacked, preserving original spine with is rubbed), remnants of gilt lettering to spine, pp. viii; 508, internally clean, many leaves remaining unopened (a few have been roughly opened), a very good copy.

With a detailed contemporary account of the war with China which saw the ceding of Hong Kong. 

A detailed account of the significance of India to the British Empire, with an outline of the pre-colonial history and conquest by the Afghans and Mongols, the Empire of Delhi, and colonial history under the Portuguese. The bulk of the text concerns India under British control, the various wars and skirmishes of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and different colonial administrations.

Approximately 60 pages are devoted to the history of British commercial trade with China, including again a potted history of European engagement, the Macartney Embassy, trade in Canton and the establishment of the Second Embassy under Amherst, skirmishes and military encounters in Macao and Canton which resulted in the First China War (First Opium War) of 1839 – 1842, which resulted in the ceding of Hong Kong to Great Britain and the opening up of the Treaty Ports.

“One of the first authentic accounts of the beginning of trade with the China.” – contemporary review in Tait’s Edinburgh, 10, no. 110 (February 1843), pp. 130–33.

The final section concerns the English dependencies in Ceylon, Singapore, Malacca, Penang, and Mauritius.

Surprisingly rare in both institutional holdings and in commerce.