| Description | The contents of this file were originally contained in three separate files, two of which appear in William D. Brown's Catalogue of 1791, under the following titles:
Mrs. Montague's Letters, &c. Glass, viz. Mackay, Mackintosh, Seddon, and Wyatt. 1780, 1781.
Silk Reels.
The file relating to Lord Macartney's Embassy had not been opened at this date.
The three files were later placed together in one portfolio, entitled:
Mrs Montague's Glass Silk Reels China Trade
Ld. Macartney's Embassy
1771 to 1792
This is the title recorded in the Inventory compiled by the Assay Office in 1921, but unfortunately the portfolio was subsequently discarded. Roughly the same title appears in M. R. Boulton's rough catalogue, where the file is listed among the contents of Box H. I; it was still in the same box in 1921.
The first few items do not appear to have formed part of the original contents of Mrs. Montagu's file, and were probably extracted by from the General Correspondence files, either at the time of M. R. Boulton's re-arrangement, or by the Assay Master. On the other hand, it is possible that some of them were placed with other letters from Mrs. Montagu in the file Familiarum Epistolae et Selectae, as some show signs of having been folded to fit a portfolio; but none of them have dockets by Zaccheus Walker Jr. The letters of 1782 and 1786 were probably transferred to this file by the Assay Office.
The original wrapper of the Silk Reels file survives; it is marked, "Silk Reels, 1779-1785."
Lord Macartney's Embassy set sail from Spithead on 26 Sep. 1792; it returned to England on 6 Sep. 1794. See Ritual and Diplomacy: the Macartney Mission to China (1792-1794), ed. Robert A. Bickers.
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