Narrative of the Earl of Elgin's Mission to China and Japan in the Years 1857, '58, '59. - 1859

Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons,, 1859. An important eyewitness to the events of the Second Opium War First edition, uncommon in the original cloth, with the armorial bookplate of Samuel Briggs (1776-1868), a key British diplomatic and mercantile presence in Egypt throughout the first half of the 19th century. He was appointed consul at Alexandria by the Levant Company during the seventh Earl of Eligin's tenure as British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Laurence Oliphant (1829-1888) first joined the Earl of Elgin's suite in 1853 when the latter was governor-in-chief of British North America, accompanying him to Washington for the negotiation of a treaty of economic reciprocity with Canada. In 1857, Oliphant was again private secretary to Elgin on his visit to China as high commissioner and plenipotentiary during the Second Opium War. Oliphant "accompanied Elgin to Hong Kong, was present at the bombardment of Canton (Guangzhou), and helped to storm Tientsin (Tianjin). He was employed in several minor missions, and visited Japan with the expedition barely eighteen months after the American Townsend Harris had been accredited as the first foreign diplomat to the shogun's government" (ODNB). Provenance: the design of the finely engraved bookplate on the front pastedown of volume I gives many clues to the identity of its owner. In 1835, during a return to Britain from Egypt, Briggs married Camilla Larking (1798-1872). Camilla was the sister of John Wingfield Larking (1802-1891), the British consul in Alexandria (appointed 1839), a friend of Richard Burton, and the dedicatee of volume VII of Burton's Arabian Nights. The bookplate pairs the Briggs pelican in its piety and the "sola virtus invicta" motto with the three wildcats on an ermine background found in the Larking coat of arms. In 1810, Briggs "was the main organizer of a project for a commercial treaty between Mehmet Ali and the Indian government which would have boosted British trade in the Red Sea, and which was actually signed on behalf of the Indian government by an agent at Mocha, but never ratified" (ODNB). After stepping away from the position of consul, Briggs remained a energetic figure in British relations with Mehmet Ali and frequently funnelled information to the Foreign Office. With his specialist knowledge of the Middle East, he was a natural appointee to the Oriental Translation Committee on its formation in 1828. Octavo. Original blue cloth, spines lettered in gilt, boards blocked in gilt and blind, cream-coated endpapers, edges untrimmed. Housed in custom slipcase. With lithographic frontispieces, 18 similar plates, 5 folding maps, woodcut illustrations in text. Binding sturdy, spines faded, cloth somewhat marked and soiled, extremities bumped, moderate foxing internally, vol. I pp. 319-34 neatly consolidated with adhesive at gutter, large folding map with professionally repaired 60 mm stub tear. A very good copy. Cordier (2nd edition) 2376; Löwendahl 1224.