AMHERST, EARL (WILLIAM PITT AMHERST), born in 1773, was the nephew of Jeffery Amherst, who, for his services in America, where he was commander-in-chief at the time of the conquest of Canada, was raised to the peerage as ,Baron Amherst in 1776. The patent of nobility was renewed in 1788 with remainder to the subject of this notice, who succeeded to the title in 1797. In 1816 he was sent as ambassador extraordinary to the court of China, with the view of establishing more satisfactory commercial relations between that country and Great Britain. On arriving in the Peiho, he was given to understand that he could only be admitted to the emperor's presence on condition of performing the ko-tou, a ceremony which Western nations have always considered degrading, and which is,. indeed, a homage exacted by the Chinese sovereign from his tributaries. This Lord Amherst, following the advice of Sir George T. Staunton, who accompanied him as second commissioner, refused to consent to, as Lord Macartney had done in 1793, unless the admission was made that his sovereign was entitled to the same show of reverence from a mandarin of his rank. In consequence of this he was not allowed to enter Peking, and the object of his mission was frustrated. His ship, the " Alceste," after a cruise along the coast of Corea and to the Loo-Choo Islands, on proceeding homewards was totally wrecked on a sunken rock in Gaspar Strait. Lord Amherst and part of his shipwrecked companions escaped in the ship's boats to Batavia, whence relief was sent to the rest. The ship in which he returned to England in 1817 having touched at St Helena, he had several interviews with the Emperor Napoleon (Ellis's Proceedings of the Late Embassy to China, 1817; M`Leod's Narrative of a Voyage in ILIV.S. "Alceste," 1817). Lord Amherst held the office of governor-general of India from August 1823 to February 1828. The principal event of his government was the Burmese war, resulting in the cession of Aracan and Tenasserim to Great Britain. He was created Earl Amherst of Aracan in 1826. On his return to England he lived in retirement till his death in March 1857.