AMHERST, WILLIAM PITT AMHERST, EARL (I 773 1857), governor-general of India, was the nephew of Jeffrey, Baron Amherst, and succeeded to his title in 1797. Upon his return from an abortive mission to China in 1816, his the "Alceste," after a cruise along the coast of Korea and to the Luchu Islands, was wrecked on a sunken rock in Gaspar Strait.
The ship in which he returned to England in 1817 touched at St. Helena, and he had several interviews with the Emperor Napoleon (see Ellis's Proceedings of the Late Embassy to China, 1817 ; McLeod's Narrative of a Voyage in H.M.S. "Alceste," 1817). Lord Amherst held the office of governor-general of India from Aug. 1823 to Feb. 1828. The principal event of his govern ment was the first Burmese war of 1824, resulting in the cession of Arakan and Tenasserim to Great Britain. He was created Earl Amherst of Arakan in 1826. Upon his return to England, he lived in retirement till his death in March See A. Thackeray and R. Evans, Lord Amherst ("Rulers of India" series) ,