The Third Burmese Empire, ruled by the Konbaung dynasty (1752–1885), had grown to become the East India Company’s most powerful neighbour in South Asia, particularly after King Bodawpaya's conquest of Arakan (Rakhine) in 1784 gave the two an ill-defined land border. In 1795, the East India Company officer Michael Symes was commissioned by the Governor-General of India, John Shore, to undertake a diplomatic mission to Burma (now Myanmar) to try and improve relations with Bodawpaya. The embassy proved successful for the Company and the Burmese gave permission for a Residency to be established at Rangoon (now Yangon). The agent to be selected by the Company was, at the request of the Hluttaw (the Burmese Council of Ministers), to occupy an economic role and to maintain good relations. Shore decided that the agent selected would not be an ambassador but would serve as a resident, a lower-ranking post. They would have strict limitations on their authority and were to serve as a mediator between Burmese officials and British traders active in the country. Shore also tasked the agent with the mission to secretly persuade Burmese officials to end their relationship with the French and to encourage the establishment of a Burmese embassy at Calcutta (now Kolkata). Such goals were to be undertaken in a quiet and unobtrusive manner so as not to risk antagonising the country.
The man selected for the role was Hiram Cox, a captain in the Bengal Army. This book contains an account of his mission, published by his son Henry Cox in 1821. According to an article on Cox by G. P. Ramachandra (Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, v. 12 no. 2 (September 1981)), soon after his arrival at Rangoon, he began to act well beyond his orders and sent various letters requesting meetings with ministers (Mingyi). On travelling to the capital, Amarapura, to meet with the Hluttaw Cox demanded special rights beyond those which had been accorded to Symes. When he was not greeted in the same manner as his predecessor, Cox wrote in his journal that it was because of anti-British sentiment in the country. 
In reality, Burmese officials made several concessions to his requests and permitted him to have an audience with Bodawpaya, an honour not granted to Symes’s embassy. Conflicting reports also stated that Bodawpaya accorded Cox with ministerial status, or the right to have such a status, indicating that the king was well-disposed to maintaining good relations with Britain.
Cox met with the Hluttaw in March 1797 and over the following months made increasingly unacceptable demands for the establishment of British monopolies on Burmese goods and openly made requests for expulsion of French merchants from the country. Such behaviour, and a disregard for Burmese customs, led to increasing resentment in the Hluttaw towards Cox and they gradually began to make fewer concessions to his demands. In April 1798, Cox left Burma having damaged diplomatic relations for several years until Symes’s return embassy of 1802. On his return to Bengal, Cox was employed in assisting with the resettlement of Rakhine refugees who had fled their homes following the Burmese invasion of 1784. The city of Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh was named in his honour.
While Cox's belief of anti-British sentiment in Burma were false, they became increasingly popular at the time of the book's publication following news of the Burmese invasion of Assam under King Bagyidaw, which, as in Arakan, resulted in the displacement of thousands of people, and would lead to the outbreak of the First Anglo-Burmese War in 1824.