LORD AMHERST
CHAPTER 1
Family, Early Career and Embassy to China
The Amherst country lies in that delightful region where the North Downs slope from Sevenoaks to Tunbridge and the Weald of Kent. The place which bears the name is in the parish of Pembury, within a few miles of Tunbridge, and from the Pipe Rolls of 1215 down to the Tudor period we find mention of those who took their description from the spot. The Reverend Jeffery Amherst was, in the time of the Commonwealth, Rector of Horsmonden, a parish east of Pembury, and about eight miles east of Tunbridge Wells. The son, the grandson, and the great grandson of that worthy were successively barristers and benchers of Gray's Inn. The second of these legal dignitaries, who died in 1713, fixed his seat at Riverhead, a pleasant village close to Sevenoaks, and about fifteen miles to the north-east of the original Pembury home. The third of the line of benchers, who also
