Peake, R[ichard] B[rinsley]
The Embassy to China. A New Game of Cards. Reynolds & Sons, By Appointment to His Majesty, 27, 28, 29, & 30, Vere Street, [?c.1830s-40s]. 35 cards in org. paper wrappers, 17 question cards labelled A-Q (lacking R) and 18 answer cards A-R with illustrations.
A trick-taking game in which the holder of question A starts the rhyming story by asking the question, to be answered by the holder of the appropriate answer. This continues through the story, the winner being the first to play out their hand. The tribulations of the two Ambassadors, and their less-than-flattering opinions on elements of Chinese society like foot binding and educational methods, are revealed through play, along with the ultimate fate of the Embassy.

There is no obvious date to the item, and it has not been possible to track it via contextual evidence. Reynolds and Son operated from around 1809-1885. R.B. Peake is likely to be the playwright and Treasurer of the Lyceum, who lived from 1792-1847. He was a prolific publisher and author and was articled to an engraver in his youth, so may well have done the illustrations. A contemporary reviewer of his Frankenstein said that the pun to Peake 'was like liquor to the sot,-"meat, drink, washing, and lodging"', and several answers deploy puns and word play. Whilst this would suggest a date earlier than his death (at least for first publication), it does not prevent this from having been published later.

The suggested dating above is based on current events in relations between Britain and China at that time. 1834 saw the Napier Affair, when Lord Napier travelled to China as British superintendent of trade in support of the opium trade. He attempted to bypass traditional Chinese controls on contact with foreign emmissaries by sending a letter direct to the Viceroy of Canton. The Viceroy refused to engage with Napier, so Napier ordered his ships to bombard Chinese forts on the Pearl River. War was only narrowly avoided when Napier fell ill. This may be reflected in the final answers, which see the British ignored by the Grand Choulagh, before the Ambassadors 'having fail'd quite/In their object of setting our commerce all right.' declare war on China. Only a few years after Napier's disastrous visit, Lin-Zexu's efforts to curb the drug trade would lead to the First Opium War. A fascinating ephemeral glimpse of satirical feelings about the nature of British-Chinese relations during the Qing dynasty.