This article re-examines John Barrow's Travels in China (1804), an account of the Macartney embassy seen as having contributed to the emergence of Britain's derogatory attitude to China. By drawing connections between his cross-cultural comparisons and conjectural history, it demonstrates how Barrow employs China's cultural differences not only to sophisticate stadial theory but also to present a complex view of Chinese civilisation that does not lend itself to an evaluative judgement of superiority. Through a comparison of Barrow's travelogue and other contemporary writings, it aims to show that British opinion on China continued to fluctuate in the early nineteenth century.The late eighteenth century marks a critical period in Anglo-Chinese relations, during which the negative shift in Britain's outlook on China is often argued to have taken place. In concert with the political tensions that rose because of the strict regulations the Chinese government enforced on British trade and the grievances British merchants increasingly suffered at the hands of Chinese officials, all of which Lord Macartney failed to alleviate during his embassy to Beijing in 1792-4, 1 critics claim there was a corresponding change in the way the British perceived Chinese civilisation. 2 While they do not attribute such a shift solely to Britain's frustration with China's lack of interest in British manufactured goodsin that they also suggest other internal factors, such as the developing consciousness of social class 3 and the changing notions of taste 4they nonetheless agree that 'the prevailing attitude toward China gradually evolved from one of reverential awe to one of increasingly dismissive contempt' during this period. 5 As critics such as
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