Second and best edition: the Alceste brought Lord Amherst to China to serve as ambassador, and specifically to negotiate the China trade, at the time a matter of dispute between China and Great Britain. M'Leod, who was surgeon on the ship, describes the voyage out, the various calls in the East Indies including touching at Batavia, surveying off Korea, the visit to Okinawa, another to Manila, and the shipwreck off the coast of Sumatra and subsequent rescue from Malay pirates. A brief but interesting interview with Napoleon at St. Helena is also included in the narrative.

Second and best edition: the Alceste brought Lord Amherst to China to serve as ambassador, and specifically to negotiate the China trade, at the time a matter of dispute between China and Great Britain. M'Leod, who was surgeon on the ship, describes the voyage out, the various calls in the East Indies including touching at Batavia, surveying off Korea, the visit to Okinawa, another to Manila, and the shipwreck off the coast of Sumatra and subsequent rescue from Malay pirates. A brief but interesting interview with Napoleon at St. Helena is also included in the narrative.

This was one of the most popular travel books of its time, portraying the Far East to a much wider audience than had been reached by earlier accounts. The idyllic descriptions of Lewchew undoubtedly appealed to the romantic sensibilities of the era. Indeed, buoyed by its success, M'Leod published another work recounting his time as a slaver, A Voyage to Africa, with some Account of the Manners and Customs of the Dahomian People.