OSBORN, Sherard.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

The Past and Future of British Relations in China. First edition. Osborn served on HMS Hyacinth during the crucial Battle of Wusong (1842), which set the stage for the capitulation of Shanghai. During the Second Opium War, he captained the paddle-ship HMS Furious, escorting Lord Elgin, the British plenipotentiary, to Shanghai and later to the signing of the Treaty of Tientsin.Having returned to England in 1859, Osborn published a number of articles on Chinese affairs in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine and revised and supplemented them for this work. He soon "agreed to the Chinese government's request to take command of a squadron fitted out in England for the suppression of piracy on the Chinese coast. In 1863 he went out with six specially built steamers. It had been expressly stipulated that Osborn was to receive his orders from the imperial government alone, independent of the local authorities; but on his arrival in China he found that the government had determined that the squadron was to be under the command of the mandarins at the several ports. Osborn refused to accept this, resigned, and returned to England" (ODNB).

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