Macartney

Macartney, George, Earl (1737-1806), born in Ireland, and educated at Trinity College, Dublin, studied law at the Temple. He was appointed envoy-extraordinary to Russia in 1764, and then became secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland and K.C.B. Being appointed governor of the Caribbean Isles, Grenada, etc., on the capture of Grenada by the French he was sent as a prisoner to France. On his release he was made an Irish peer and governor of Madras. In 1792 he conducted our first embassy to China with distinguished tact and success. He gained his British earldom after a confidential mission to Italy in 1796, and in the same year became governor of the Cape of Good Hope, but retired from ill-health in 1798.