At the time of Lord George Macartney's mission to China, the EIC was beginning to grow opium in India to sell in China. The company made a concerted effort starting in the 1780s to finance the tea trade with opium. Macartney, who had served in India as Governor of Madras (present-day Chennai), was ambivalent about selling the drug to the Chinese, preferring to substitute "rice or any better production in its place". An official embassy would provide an opportunity to introduce new British products to the Chinese market, which the EIC had been criticised for failing to do.

Macartney was instructed to negotiate a relaxation of the Canton System, such that British traders could operate in more ports and markets, and to obtain a small island on the Chinese coast from which British merchants could operate under British jurisdiction. He was also to establish a permanent embassy in Beijing so as to create a direct line of communication between the two governments, cutting out the Cantonese merchants who had served as middlemen. Finally, he was to gather intelligence on the Chinese government and society, about which little was known in Europe at the time.

Although the Macartney Embassy returned to London without obtaining any concession from China, the mission could be termed a success in that it brought back detailed observations of a great empire. Sir George Staunton was charged with producing the official account of the expedition after their return. This multi-volume work was taken chiefly from the papers of Macartney and from the papers of Sir Erasmus Gower, who was Commander of the expedition.