The Amherst Embassy was Britain’s second attempt to build an official relationship with the Qing court on an equal footing，yet it failed as the Emperor declined to meet the British delegates who did not perform the kow-tow protocol in Beijing. Nevertheless，the Chinese authorities appointed some local men to serve the embassy as interpreters for the simple fact that they had been working at the foreign trade in Canton with foreigners. Such men，called Canton linguists in the foreign archives even though they could not speak any foreign languages properly，were of course not qualified nor willing to interpret. However reluctant they were，two of them actually made their way to the North and accompanied the embassy to return to the South，while others stayed in Canton to take charge of the communication.

Strange enough，the Chinese official records keep stating that “the Canton linguists haven’t arrived（at the North）yet” whereas the British and the American sources showed otherwise. What happened to the Canton linguists？Who are they by their real names and alias？How different were they from their British counterparts such as Robert Morrison？What role did interpreting and translation play for the embassy in particular and for the Canton trade in general？Why are they lesser-known figures not only back then but at present as well？This paper attempts to answer these questions by cross-referencing with the Chinese and English archives.