The following is a word for word transcription of two articles of the same name, originally published as Piracy in the South China Seas I in The Naval Review 13(4):628-647 (Nov 1925) and Piracy in the South China Seas II in The Naval Review 14(1):34-47 (Feb 1926). Both original articles are unattributed.
These articles should be read in conjunction with the articles on the:
FROM time immemorial the coast of the province of Kuang-Tung has had a bad reputation among those inhabitants of China who, from habit or convenience, have lived a law abiding life. The junkman and the merchant whose goods he carried had reason to fear for their lives and cargoes from the time the Hainan Straits were reached until Amoy was made in safety. Of course there were pirates wherever there was trade; but the features of the southern coast with its off-lying islands and numberless secluded bays, the lawless disposition of the fishermen and coast-wise inhabitants, and the great distance from the central authority at Peking, all tended to make the evil more wide spread in the province of Kuang-Tung than anywhere else on the 3,000 miles of Chinese coast.
Early history has little to say on the subject beyond noting the occasional rise to power and ultimate overthrow, or absorption into the Imperial forces, of various notable pirate chiefs, until we come to the days when foreign ships began to suffer. During the 19th century and into the 20th, we find records of many daring and well-executed attacks. Times and methods change and ship can no longer fight with ship in the open sea, but during the past four years half a dozen piracies have been carried out on British ships near British territory. Pirate gangs coming on board as passengers await a favourable time to seize the ship and take it, steaming by night without lights to a prearranged rendezvous where junks await to remove the victors and their spoil. In this way vessels have been captured, officers and men killed and wounded, and the prizes secured within 50 miles of Hongkong.
The main natural feature of the 600 miles of provincial coast is the vast delta formed by the confluence of three big streams, the North, East and West rivers, which unite some eighty miles from the sea and flow together through the delta and down the wide estuary of the Pearl river. Canton at the head of the Pearl river estuary, generally regarded as the southern capital and the second city of the old Chinese Empire, was until ten years ago a walled town with a population variously estimated at between one and two million inhabitants. It was the seat of a Viceroy appointed by the Peking Government to rule two Kuangs, Kuang-Tung and Kuang-Si, and a notoriously difficult and unpleasant post it was too. Under a powerful and energetic ruler no doubt the provinces were well and efficiently governed; but, as in the north and west of China where vast populations live always on the verge of starvation the relaxation of the hand of authority means an immediate increase in brigandage, so in the south do the hardy fishermen and coastwise cultivators take naturally to piracy as soon as it becomes more profitable than their lawful occupations, knowing well that the risk of being brought to book is small.
The whole coast of Kuang-Tung is steep and deeply indented with many bays and harbours. Westward from Hongkong, islands. and difficult navigation render the coastal inlets secure against all but those with local knowledge. In the middle or this stretch of rugged coast line is the estuary of the Pearl river, the natural outlet for a great city and a hinterland with fifteen to twenty million inhabitants. This estuary constitutes a well-marked trade route of the first importance. It is not surprising then, that the men who by fishing and a little rice cultivation eke out a precarious existence on either side of this artery, should in times of trouble turn their eyes and wits towards levying a toll on the rich cargoes of silks, rice, spices, oil and other products of the river valleys, which passed on their way to Swatow, Amoy and the north. That there was thus engendered a constant sense of insecurity among those who sailed the seas upon their lawful occasions is not surprising; and the result, which may be seen to this day in Hongkong harbour, was that all vessels went armed and the peaceful fisher carried an assortment of weapons, which though doubtless primarily intended for defence, could in a bad season be of great use in preying on smaller vessels. Here we have a vicious circle. The number of genuine whole time pirates must always have been limited; but, when the arm of the law was weakened or crops were unusually bad, one or two powerful craft with determined leaders would capture and man half a dozen of these smaller junks, and around this nucleus collect fleets of fifty or a hundred sail who were able to laugh at the authorities, and establishing themselves on a trade route such as that between Singapore and Canton, levy a toll on all traffic. To this problem there was but one solution. When returning prosperity brought law and order on the coast, the leader of such a fleet after a Chinese battle (an exchange of cash and a plentiful display of fireworks) with the mandarin junks, would surrender honourably and receiving the military button of the fourth rank, bring his original band of braves back to the imperial fold. The lesser lights would overhaul their fishing nets and return to their accustomed occupations.
The greatest of these pirates of whom we find mention in Chinese history was Kochinga. When the Tartar "Ching" dynasty conquered China in the 17th century this man with a huge fleet was the terror of the South China coast. The officers of the new regime tried in vain to subdue him, but had eventually to resort to the old method. A secretary for Chinese affairs in Hongkong in a memo to the Governor on the subject of piracy, noted that Kochinga's descendants were in that year (1852) still enjoying the title and possessions conferred upon their distinguished ancestor. It is said, however, that the first Ching Emperor made great efforts to subdue him and once succeeded for a time in curtailing his raiding activities. The method employed was to issue an imperial edict commanding all the dwellers on the ravaged sea coasts to retire with their flocks and possessions a certain distance inland. This is held up as an example of astonishing wisdom. But its success presupposes that the pirates through long residence on the watery element had become web-footed and were unable to follow their victims, and, what seems to me a greater objection, that the South China peasant could be induced by a North China edict to leave his ancestral home and holding, and migrate en masse to new pastures. But still, like much Chinese history it makes a good story.
History shows clearly that at all times these successive waves of piracy coincided with periods of disorder on land, and this is borne out by the more accurate records of the past hundred years.
In 1810 with the assistance of a Portuguese squadron equipped at Macao, the Provincial Government brought a pirate fleet to terms, but even then they were allowed to make peace on most favourable conditions. Their numbers were estimated by an Englishman sometime in their custody at 70,000 men, sailing a fleet of 1,800 vessels great and small. Those who surrendered were 25,000; they gave up 360 vessels, 1,200 guns and more than 7,000 stand of arms. The remainder were doubtless fishing junks which returned to their ordinary occupations. To-day with Sun Yat Sen's party in Canton and half a dozen other leaders fighting over the revenues of the Province, Hongkong has to expend something like half a million dollars a year on the protection of her local shipping; and then would not be surprised on any fine morning, to see a battered and ransacked steamer lying in the harbour with the police flag at the yard-arm and a corpse or two on board.
Up to the time of the cession of Hongkong (1841) there must have been many a clash with pirates, but accounts of these are hard to unearth. There was during the first forty years of the 19th century a growing trade with South China. The silks, spices and porcelain of Canton found a ready market in the West, and as we had the much desired opium to give in return for those graceful commodities everything was very satisfactory. But opium is a valuable and very portable article and with the increasing value of the trade, piracy became more rife until the wel1-armed gangs did not fear to attack large foreign vessels if they could manage to catch them at a disadvantage. The story of the capture and pillage of the barque Troughton by two pirate junks off the Ladrone Islands, is typical of this period, and as the proceedings of the subsequent court of inquiry are in existence I will devote some space to the affair.
The British barque Troughton, James Thompson master, was bound from London to Canton in the summer of 1835. She touched at Singapore and made a comfortable passage up the China Sea with the south west monsoon. On the 3rd of July, when about 90 miles south of the Great Ladrone (one of a group of islands which includes Hongkong and not to be confounded with the Marianne or Ladrone Group further east), the centre of a typhoon passed very close to the vessel which was totally dismasted by a wind of hurricane force. Having succeeded in rigging jury masts and putting the vessel to rights, sail was made and on the 6th when off Mandarin's Cap a very considerable number of fishing boats hovered around the barque and several people came on board, perhaps in the whole day about twelve. They came in their sampans (small boats) and were perfectly civil but seemed inquisitive. Beyond asking whether a pilot was required they did not appear to speak or understand English. Captain Thompson tried to make an arrangement with two of the boats to tow his vessel towards Macao, for in the light winds prevailing the jury rig had but little effect. They did tow for half an hour on the evening of the 6th, but it was of little use and they cast off on their own accord. The whole of the next day the wind continued light and by the evening they were still 30 miles from Macao. Rolling about in a post typhoon swell under a burning sun, the captain was getting rather suspicious of the native craft; he had plenty of time to remember their reputation, but beyond loading the firearms in the cabin he took no action, and as there was little communication between the barque and the junks on the second day, he probably looked forward to reaching Macao in safety. A man who had offered his services as pilot on the previous day came on board again and this man took a prominent part in the subsequent happenings.
A short time before six p.m. on the 7th, two large junks which had lain a mile or two distant all day commenced pulling leisurely across the stern of the Troughton. When close to her their helms were put hard over and pulling at full speed with perhaps forty sweeps a side they dashed alongside, one on each quarter, and the barque was instantly boarded by about 300 men. No great lookout had been kept astern and by the time the pirates intentions were realised the ship was in their possession. The pirates were all armed, principally with pikes and short swords; no firearms were seen or heard, but the brightness of the steel and the ribbons of various colours that streamed from the shafts left no doubt as to the object of the visit. The captain had been sitting in the companionway smoking and he remarks "It occurred to me when I saw the condition of their arms and the ferocity of their countenances that these people could hardly be peaceful fishermen." As soon as the ship was boarded he retired to the cabin with the mate. The steward was already there and they were shortly afterwards joined by one of the seamen.
The pirates lost no time in commencing the work of pillage and outrage, thrusting spears down hatchways and skylights. The skipper and mate kept up a fire with their pistols. The former was very soon wounded by a spear thrust in the right side. After a few minutes a fire ball was thrown into the cabin which took fire immediately. The captain had then received several wounds and in the circumstances under which the ship was placed, expecting no mercy from the hordes of ruffians on board, he and the mate attempted to blow the ship up by emptying three kegs of gunpowder on to the flames. Owing to the hatches being off the only result seems to have been that they burnt themselves severely and very soon afterwards the mate jumped overboard through the stern galleries. The captain's strength was rapidly declining and when the second mate who was brought to the hatchway by the Chinese, told him that the pirates would spare his life if he came on deck, he readily agreed and though wounded once again as soon as he showed himself, he was seized and lashed to the chains and not molested further. The pirates then released one of the boys, John Pollock, and sent him below to extinguish the fire, handing him down buckets of water for that purpose; they were evidently not going to risk any more surprise packets in the shape of kegs of powder. As soon as the fire was out great numbers of pirates went below to ransack the ship, sentries, however, were left to watch over the crew who were lashed up in different places. These sentries manifested a degree of order and method in their proceedings not to be looked for in fishermen.
The mate was picked up by a sampan from one of the pirate vessels and brought on board the Troughton where after some argument as to whether he would not be better thrown back into the sea again, he was lashed up with the captain. The pirates left the ship about 10 p.m., first releasing one of the crew. Sail was got on the vessel. as soon as possible and Macao reached on the following day. Owing to wounds and loss of blood the captain was able to give little account of this disastrous transaction. The mate and two seamen were suffering from wounds and the steward from burns received in the explosion.
The British and Portuguese communities made the strongest representations to the Chinese authorities, but in spite of promises of assistance and instructions to the local magistrates no captures were made.
By the year 1845 the colony of Hongkong had weathered its early troubles and though still unimportant in comparison with the old established trading centres of Macao and Canton, year by year more ships came to make use of its harbour and to enjoy the security afforded by the British flag. At that time the population of the island was between 10 and 20 thousand and branches of several firms were established in the city of Victoria. With prosperity came the newspaper and there is scarcely an issue of the "China Mail" that has not some reference to local piracy, for in those early days, as in these times of supposed law and order, the editors of the Hongkong papers were beholden to the local pirates for the provision of much readable news.
In February 1845 the shipping in Macao Roads was treated to a display of piratical impudence only three miles away. A trading junk of about 100 tons, with a broadside of six 12 pounder guns, was attacked and plundered by a flotilla of 12 pirate boats. The weather was calm and the attackers pulled rapidly up under oars, firing their one or two pounder bow guns. The hapless quarry was boarded with a loss to the pirates of only one boat and plundered at leisure, the attackers making off with the loot in the direction of the Ladrone Islands. "What a chance for the little steamer had she been here," wrote a correspondent who witnessed the affair. This was presumably the East India Company's steamer Corsair, used for towing and odd jobs in Hongkong waters, whose apparently miraculous power of proceeding against wind and tide was to be the undoing of many a Chinese pirate.
The "Peking Gazette" - most venerable of regular publications - reported about this time. "... Piracies in all the waters of Kuang-Tung province continue to be of frequent occurrence ..." And again in a later issue "… It is said that there have been 219 piracies within the last three months reported to the provincial authorities in the jurisdiction of Kwang-Tung." About this time there is the earliest mention of what may be designated internal piracy which has become the recognised method in modern times. By this a pirate crew take their tickets as ordinary passengers, smuggle their arms on board and when the ship is clear of a harbour, take possession of her. The schooner Ariel was bound from Amoy to Hongkong carrying a general cargo and $100,000 specie. Early in the voyage the officers became suspicious of their crew, who were Chinese shipped at Hongkong, and when two days out decided to barricade themselves under the poop and keep constant watch against surprise. There were only three white men on board, the captain, the mate and the gunner. On the third day while all these were below, the crew rose and declared their intention of taking the ship to Singapore. Fortunately all the arms were in the cabin and by keeping a watch on door and skylight, the three officers were able to hold their crew at bay. Early in the morning of the fifth day the mate, whose watch it was, became drowsy, and with his musket beside him, slept, unfortunately almost directly beneath the skylight. The crew saw their chance and killed him with a blow from a heavy gun rammer, at the same time swarming down through the skylight. After a desperate hand to hand fight the two remaining officers beat their assailants back, and some of the crew declaring their loyalty, the mutineers were driven under hatches and course once more set for Hongkong where the vessel arrived safely on April 26th.
Throughout the rest of the year 1845, frequent piracies are reported, usually carried out by single junks against traders of their own nationality. The Chinese authorities were loud in protestations, but the Mandarin junks though much in evidence with their gorgeous paint and fluttering banners, seem to have relied more on the terror that their presence should inspire than on any active measures. The Viceroy of Canton reported to Peking that "a great number of buccaneers had lately been beheaded, but that piracies were still frequent." In January 1846 the schooner Celestial from Macao to Hongkong while anchored off the Brothers waiting for the ebb tide, fell an easy prey to two large junks who brought up, one on each quarter, and after throwing fire balls, boarded and looted the vessel without resistance, although the crew consisted of five Europeans and six Lascars. A week afterwards two junks probably those mentioned above, emboldened by their easy success, attempted to capture the lorcha Margaret bound for Canton. Here their reception was very different and the Margaret with the fire of her muskets and two 16 pounder guns drove them off.
The next victim of any importance was the schooner Privateer which left Hongkong at daybreak on June 17th 1846, bound for Cum Sing Mun and having on board 202 chests of opium. At 3 p.m. when 4 or 5 miles North of Lintin Island, a fishing boat with lines of nets over her weather side was overhauled. According to the evidence of a seaman named Todd the only European survivor, the helmsman of the junk waved to the schooner to pass to leeward. There was little wind at the time and the Privateer coming under the junk's lee lay becalmed while the two ships drifted closer together. The captain seeing this, signed to the junk to keep off, but she put her helm hard up and bore down on the schooner. "The captain fired a pistol and in reply at least 50 spears were hurled into us. Before I could get up the muskets, stinkpots were thrown and the pirates were aboard." With the cook, a European passenger and a Manilaman, Todd took refuge in one of the berths, an uncomfortable retreat, for the pirates pricked at them with long Bamboo spears from the deck. "The pirates came down and threatened murder - one speaking good English. I was sent on deck to work the schooner, there was blood about and I could see no sign of the captain.
"The steward and the captain's boy were dressed in their master's clothes and talking and laughing with the pirates." There were about 40 pirates on board, in complete command of her and making free with the stores and provisions. When an English vessel passed and hailed, the sailor Todd was sent below, and the pirate who spoke English replied to the hail, "Captain down below asleep." The pirates promised Todd and the Manilaman their lives if they would agree not to take the schooner to Hongkong until the following morning. The pirates then left the ship, accompanied by the Chinese crew, taking with them the valuable haul of opium and four guns. The rigging had been much cut up, but when the pirates were out of sight the foresail was hoisted and course set for Cum Sing Mun.
As soon as news of this outrage reached Hongkong the steamer Corsair towing H.M.S. Vestal's barge left for the scene and searched all suspicious boats but no captures were made.
This affair gave evidence of careful planning and probable co-operation between the Chinese crew of the Privateer and the main body of the pirates in the fishing junk. The two hundred chests of opium with a total value of about $120,000 constituted a valuable booty. The evidence of Reynaldo Gonsalves, a Manilaman, indicates the fate of those of the crew who were not in with the pirates. After the captain fell, mortally wounded by a spear, Gonsalves and the mate were thrown overboard but were picked up by the boat towing astern in which there were already three Manilamen. They cast off and had pulled away a quarter of a mile when the pirates saw, pursued and overtook them. They were then shut down in the hold. About midnight they were brought up and thrown overboard one by one with their hands bound. He alone managed to free his hands and after several hours in the water was washed ashore and eventually made his way to Macao. It would appear that this man Gonsalves, the seaman Todd and one other Manilaman were the only survivors.
At the session of the Court of Admiralty held in January 1847 one Chun Teen Soong was tried and convicted of complicity in this affair, and condemned to death. Having embraced Christianity while in prison he was attended on the scaffold by a priest. He kept a stout heart until he observed a large number of his relatives and friends among the crowd round the gallows. This appeared to affect him considerably and though he had hitherto protested his innocence he now confessed to this and a large number of other piracies, nine of them with murder. He then exhorted his friends and relations if they had any crimes on their consciences to leave the colony of Hongkong for the larger mesh of Chinese law or assuredly they would follow him to the gallows. It is not known how many took advantage of this excellent advice. In July, the Government gunboat while cruising near the Nine Islands, between Hongkong and Macao, encountered three suspicions looking junks who, refusing to answer to a hail, were fired upon. All three junks were armed with muskets and cannon and a running fight was kept up as far as Cum Sing Mun, although without much damage being done. Here the brig Valiant replenished the gunboat's exhausted magazines and she started once more in pursuit; but though the boats were again sighted, they escaped for good at dusk.
A week after this episode, Macao reported that the three junks were not pirates at all but perfectly peaceful opium traders from an out of the way district near Yeung Kong, who did not recognise the Government gunboat and doubtless took her for a pirate (she was native rigged). This occasioned much delight in the Hongkong papers who were continually complaining of the uselessness of the gunboat. "Better if the three junks had captured her," they said, "and then something more efficient might have been provided."
In September, the Chinese Commodore of the Kowloon Mandarin junks reported that he had been nearly captured by a large and well armed piratical vessel. The Commodore and several of his crew were wounded. From his description the junk was identified at anchor off East Point, in Hongkong Harbour, and she was boarded and seized by an Inspector and a party of police. The 23 men on board her were taken prisoners, but the Captain and majority of the crew were ashore.
The following weapons of war were found on board :-
Several Mandarin flags and large lanthorns with characters on them, evidently the plunder from some Mandarin junk.
The newspaper comments on the above were that "the junk appeared to be exceptionally well fitted and a fast sailer; it was lucky that the Government gunboat never encountered her."
The foregoing instances, selected from many simi1ar accounts, give an idea of the state of insecurity which existed in Hongkong waters during the early days of the colony. The Chinese Government had no intention, even if it had the power, of rendering assistance. On paper there was peace and mutual good will. In the heart of China there was contempt and hatred for the foreigner who had established himself by force of arms within the sacred bounds of the Middle Kingdom. The news of a typhoon, which caused some damage to the shipping of the port in 1842, reached Peking in such an exaggerated form as to prompt the issue of an Imperial edict announcing that the Dragon God of the Sea had been pleased to swallow up the presumptuous barbarian, a statement which was, no doubt, well received by officials and people throughout the empire.
One further piracy from this decade is interesting by reason of the boldness and success of the attack.
In February 1847 the schooners Omega (Captain MacFarlane) and Caroline (Captain Chamberlain) were lying in Chimmo Bay waiting for a fair wind to take them up the coast. Two large Canton rigged fishing junks had followed them into the bay and anchored not far off. The schooners carried valuable cargoes of opium and treasure and consequently regarded native craft with more than usual suspicion. Boats were sent to examine the junks and, though heavily armed, one with five and one with six guns, and each with many gingalls, they passed as salt traders. As only a few men appeared on deck the Malay Serang wished to open up the hatches for a more thorough search, but the junkmen were truculent and the mate of the Caroline thought it better not to insist.
For two days there was no wind. Each morning the junks moved out at sunrise under oars, and returned to their anchorage again at sunset passing close by the schooners. This apparently peaceful behaviour seems to have lulled the two captains into a sense of security; for, when the junks pulled in at dusk on the evening of the third day they found both vessels entirely unprepared. Passing one each side of the Omega a shower of fire balls and spears warned that unlucky ship that the hitherto peaceful junks had not come to sell fish. The smaller of the two laid aboard the Omega while her consort stood on for the Caroline, who was as yet undisturbed by any gun fire. The surprise in the Omega was complete. Those on deck had just time to shout a warning to their comrades below before the rain of fire balls drove them overboard. Those below led by the mate rushed on deck. The mate was at once transfixed by many spears and the remainder, then fully aware of what had befallen the ship, were, on going below for arms, forthwith battened down. Still there had been no firing, but the noise awoke the captain who came from the cabin and seeing the ship apparently on fire he called to the crew to lower the gig. It cannot have taken him long to realise that the fifty odd villains on deck were not his crew and he retired hastily to his cabin where the gunner, two Chinese servants and two lascar seamen, who had come in through the quarter galleries, were assembled. While still in the fore cabin both the captain and gunner were wounded by spears thrust through the poop windows. They then retired to the after cabin to load their firearms but were again driven out by fire balls hurled through the skylight. The gunner and the Chinese servants returned to the fore cabin where they concealed themselves. The two lascars escaped on deck by the quarter galleries and found safety in the rigging. Captain MacFarlane was last heard calling over the stern for the long boat to come alongside, but it had been cut adrift and he was probably driven by the fire balls to jump overboard. The pirates seem to have fancied that they could now loot the vessel undisturbed and all hands set to work in the fore hold to remove the chests of opium. The crew, who were battened down in the after hold, were able to join the gunner in the poop cabin by means of a trap hatch directly between the cabin and the hold. Having secured firearms they sallied out on the unsuspecting pirates who retreated in disorder to their vessel crying "The Malays are upon us!" The crew found all the guns but one had been spiked, that one being slung ready for removal. It was brought into action as soon as possible but did no damage to the pirates who lay off in the darkness and cried out that they would come back and murder the Malays; at which the Malays, now thoroughly heartened, bade them come and try.
The want of vigilance in the Omega was even more remarkable in the Caroline. It was reported to the captain that the Omega was on fire and he ordered all hands to be called on deck ready to go to her assistance. When it was seen that a strange vessel lay alongside her, the men were sent below for arms, but before these could be procured the second junk had come alongside the Caroline and the pirates swarmed on board. The captain instead of attending to the defence of his ship ordered the boats to be lowered, but the gig capsized and the jolly boat was crushed between the schooner and the pirate junk. At that the captain, two mates and nine lascar seamen, jumped overboard and were either drowned or speared in attempting to regain the ship. A "sea-cunny" [A steersman in vessels manned by Lascars in the East India Country trade.] advised them to remain on board saying "You are fools to jump into the water." One seaman considered this advice sound for he and the sea-cunny took to the rigging and were the only survivors of the crew. The pirates plundered the ship until warned by the beating of a gong, when they retired hurriedly to their own vessel leaving some of the opium behind. In spite of this the booty of opium and treasure amounted to about $160,000.
This piracy was reported to the Viceroy at Canton and later in the year nine alleged pirates were captured in Hongkong and handed over to the Chinese authorities. The evidence against them rested chiefly on the word of one Too Ah Poo who turned Queen's evidence and secured not only a pardon but a responsible position in the police force, where it was considered that his knowledge of the local pirates would be invaluable. Of the eight who were sent to Canton one Kuo Ah Mang confessed to being a ringleader and was sentenced to the "Ling chih," the death by a thousand cuts. The others were to be beheaded and exposed, but three forestalled justice by dying in prison,- probably as a result of torture. One man, the owner of a boat who declared he was forced to help the pirates, was let off with a sentence of perpetual military slavery on the Turkistan frontier.
The career of Too Ah Poo, the informer, came to an abrupt end in April of the following year. He found his services were so much appreciated that he never failed to produce a pirate or two at every criminal session and the majority of these were convicted on his word alone. However, the one or two who escaped did not let matters rest and thanks to their efforts Too Ah Poo was in turn convicted of threatening and sentenced to five years' imprisonment to be followed by banishment. There was little doubt at the time that he used his official position almost entirely for his private gain and to score off those who had offended him or refused to pay tribute to him.
Throughout the year 1848 the piracy question on the whole China Coast became rapidly worse. The independent raiders, were collecting into fleets under powerful leaders, who, from their headquarters among the off-lying islands or in unfrequented bays, made short work of any unprotected trader, and grew powerful enough to attack the rice and silk convoys sailing from the big river deltas and even the junks bearing tribute to Peking. There came a time when traders would only sail in large convoys and then they preferred the company of an armed vessel flying a foreign flag. Thus we find many schooners and lorchas under the British, Portuguese and American flags, usually owned and run by Chinese merchants and provided with an unscrupulous European captain to comply with the regulations and generally lend a tone to the proceedings. During the year complaints about these vessels began to be heard, and in the autumn both the Hongkong and Macao Governments issued proclamations warning shipping that these irregularities must cease; and at the same time making regulations to ensure that the owners and masters of the vessels were properly registered. No doubt the escorts employed by the big guilds and merchants were above suspicion, but in many cases there was more than a likelihood of foul play. Not content with securing the immunity of his convoy, the escort sometimes did a little pirating on his own account, and having held up some peaceful coaster on suspicion of being a pirate, would skim the cream off the cargo and cover his tracks by leaving the hapless craft to be looted by the convoy, who needed only to be told that she was a pirate and to see that she did not belong to their own part of the country, to have no scruples in the matter.
In August the schooner Spec engaged in this business was taken under suspicious circumstances by H.M.S. Daedalus in the Chusan Archipelago [Just to the south of the entrance to the Yang-tsze-Kiang] and sent to Hongkong in charge of a prize crew. The evidence at the time must have been very strong to persuade the captain into sending her in custody such a long distance. Opinion in Hongkong was against her, but the case seems to have been badly mismanaged. The only witness to an alleged attack on a junk was allowed to escape. It was hinted that the Spec's lawyers paid handsomely to have him removed. The rest of the prosecution was founded on the master's evidence which, as he had not been cautioned, was held by the court to be of no account. That these irregular armed craft did not have it all their own way is shewn by the fact of a Portuguese lorcha chartered by the Chinese Government for convoy work, being blown up and lost with all hands while in action with a pirate fleet. Nevertheless the evil existed for some years and it was only with the destruction by the Navy of the large pirate fleets, whose activities were the cause of the convoy system, that this form of buccaneering was put down.
In 1849 trade in South Chinese waters was being seriously hampered by the growing activity of large fleets of piratical junks. We have seen that this peril led native traders to adopt the convoy system and that the armed escorts, usually under a foreign flag, were not always free from the suspicion of being pirates themselves.
The first definite action by the pirate fleet against a foreign vessel occurred in August, 1849, when a British vessel owned by Singapore Chinese, the Kim Hok Tye, Captain David Tay1or, put in to the port of Hoi-How [The port of Kieu Chu, the capital of the Island of Hainan, which latter became treaty port in 1876] in the Hainan Straits, where about 40 native craft were loading for Shanghai. A fleet of large well armed junks under one Shap Ng Tsai arrived the following day, and despoiled the merchantmen, including the British vessel of their cargoes and valuables. The pirates sailed away immediately, half the fleet to the north and half to the southward.
H.M.S. Medea, a steam sloop, was sent in search of the offenders. Anchoring off Tien Pak (100 miles west of Hongkong) Captain Lockyer pulled into the harbour in his gig. He observed a very large fleet of junks, and strongly suspected that they were Shap Ng Tsai's vessels. Owing to the difficulty of distinguishing a pirate from a trader at the distance which prudence demanded he should keep, and seeing no signs of the Sylph and the Cowasjee Family - two British ships thought to be in the hands of the pirates - Captain Lockyer returned to his ship and stood off to search the neighbouring islands. At Taya Island the Medea fell in with a junk whose master said his consort was in the hands of the pirates and that the fleet in Tien Pak was Shap Ng Tsai's. The Medea returned to the harbour at full speed. The boats were manned and armed and sent in with a view to reconnoitring the position and cutting off any stragglers who were out of gunshot of the main fleet. Five junks were observed up a side creek and the four boats pulled in to attack. The junks, who were lying with springs on their cables, brought their broadsides to bear, but they were boarded and captured before they could fire more than a round or two. It was then seen that the pirate fleet had weighed and was bearing up to intercept the boats as they came down the creek. This necessitated the hurried destruction of the prizes and a hard pull back to the ship. Even so the party came under a heavy fire and lost one seaman killed, one officer and seven seamen and marines wounded. The Medea was then short of fuel and had to return to Hongkong.
The owners of the Sylph, a British clipper carrying treasure to Calcutta, were very anxious about her. As soon as the Medea returned with news of the pirate fleet, they hired the steamer Canton, reinforced her with a lieutenant and 40 men from H.M.S. Amazon and a collection of local volunteers and sent her off in search of the pirates. During the first night the Canton steamed through a large fleet of junks. They were doubtless alarmed by this firebreathing monster who snorted her way through them regardless of the dragons of wind and tide who ruled their simple comings and goings. Several craft were hailed by the Canton's Chinese interpreter and they gave themselves out to be traders keeping company as a protection against pirates. Subsequent information shewed conclusively that this was actually the pirate fleet. On arrival at Tien Pak, where Shap had last been reported, the boats were sent to three junks at anchor off the harbour. The junks opened fire and kept the boats at a distance, but when the Canton brought her long guns into action the pirates abandoned their craft and rowed ashore where they had the misfortune to be speared by the inhabitants, who had suffered severely from the depredations of Shap and his merry men. The next day two suspicious junks were chased and sunk, their crews being brought prisoners to Hongkong where they were handed over to the magistrate. The niceties of legal jurisdiction were not held to be of much account in those days, but this capture of Chinese subjects on the high seas, on evidence that seems only to have amounted to suspicion (probably "the ferocity of their countenances" told against them) did occasion some remark in the Hongkong papers.
That interesting specimen, the female pirate, comes into the picture about this time. Six heavily armed junks anchored at Cum Sing Min, near the opium receiving ship. Captain Jamieson, who was in charge, was doubtful as to their character and boarded the largest. He was met by a woman named Ah Kieu who had an extensive and shady reputation among the traders of the delta. She appears to have been a woman of spirit and education for she "sassed" the officer, saying "Captain Ja-mi-son, my no care for you" and refused to answer his questions. Her junk was found to contain large quantities of cargo which had been in vessels captured by the pirates. When brought up for trial she pleaded that she was an honest trader, but that her vessels had been detained and plundered by Shap Ng Tsai. She went to his headquarters and begged for the return of her ship and goods, which constituted her entire livelihood. Shap's heart had been moved by her eloquent appeal and he regretted that he was unable to trace her own cargo, but he would give her other merchandise of equal value. This accounted for a poor honest woman being found in possession of stolen property. The court was unable to convict her though it was common knowledge that she was one of Shap's agents for the distribution of his plunder.
On the return of the Canton from her unsuccessful search, the Honourable East India Company's steamer Phlegethon, with three armed boats from H.M.S. Amazon, took up the chase. They found four wrecks on the shore of one island. The inhabitants said the pirate fleet had ridden out the typhoon of September 14th there and had lost seventeen vessels. The remainder of the fleet had sailed for Sha Pa, near Tien Pak, to refit. Enquiry at the latter place shewed that after calling in and exacting a thoroughly piratical vengeance for the spearing of his three crews a fortnight before, Shap had sailed for the Island of Hainan. The Phlegethon had then to abandon the chase owing to lack of fuel.
Meanwhile Ping Hoi, forty miles east of Hongkong, was getting a bad name. A fisherman, who had escaped by dragging his boat over the sandy isthmus joining Ping Hoi to the mainland, reported that a large fishing fleet was blockaded by 20 pirate junks, who intended to extract a ransom before allowing the fleet to go to sea. The pirates were under one Chiu Apoo, a native of Hongkong who was wanted by the police for the murder of two British officers in his village near the Stanley peninsula, the site of our original military encampment. H.M.S. Columbine was sent to cruise in the neighbourhood. She fell in with some suspicious looking junks and pursued them, but in the light wind they would have escaped had not the steamer Canton taken her in tow. The tow was slipped within musket shot of a large pirate mounting 19 guns and there ensued a heavy exchange of fire with much damage to both vessels, until Columbine unfortunately grounded when the junk drew out of range in shallow water. The pinnace and cutter were sent in to attack, and manoeuvring to avoid a broadside, they advanced under cover of the fire of their bow guns. The junk's fire was unusually well directed and not until they had nearly expended their ammunition could the boats run alongside only to find that most of the pirates had abandoned their ship. The boats went in pursuit leaving a lieutenant, two midshipmen and a few seamen and marines on board the prize. One of the pirates who had remained on board was seen to go below with a lighted joss stick. Divining his purpose Midshipman Goddard and one marine rushed after him, but were too late to prevent the ignition of the powder magazine. The junk blew up, killing Goddard, one seaman and two marines; and wounding eight others.
The steamer Canton returned to Hongkong and reported that she had left Columbine engaged with a pirate and that others were probably in the vicinity. Admiral Collier raised steam in H.M.S. Fury with a promptitude that seems to have surprised Hongkong. The Fury joined Columbine in Bias Bay and the two men-of-war soon discovered the main body of the pirate fleet anchored at the head of that inlet. After a cannonade in which the junks were soon silenced, all boats were sent away. The pirates abandoned their vessels without waiting for the boarding parties, some of whom remained to destroy the junks while others pressed on to the shore where they joined the natives in a wholesale slaughter of the common enemy. It was estimated that four or five hundred pirates were killed, while our casualties amounted to one man wounded! Chiu Apoo escaped, but he was disposed of for the time being.
Shap Ng Tsai was now the terror of the Kuang-Tung, Hainan and Tonquin coasts. A Captain Howard of the ship Caroline, had anchored near his fleet in 1848 and reported it well appointed and the crews drilled every morning in gunnery. So long as he did not molest us his activities were undisturbed by our men-of-war. But when casualties to British ships between Hongkong and Singapore began to exceed the numbers usually expected through ordinary marine risks; and when portions of their cargoes would subsequently find their way to Hongkong through native channels, it was thought that piracy was being carried a little too far.
There was first of all a correspondence between the Governor of Hongkong and the Viceroy at Canton. The farmer announced for the nth time that he was tired of this continual trouble, and that he proposed to take strong measures, whether the Viceroy liked it or not. The Viceroy replied imploring him not to think of wasting England's men and money on a task which China was quite able to carry out. The truth of the matter was that Shap had grown so powerful that negotiations were being carried on with a view to his absorption into the Imperial fold, which was the usual reward of the successful pirate. The poor Viceroy saw that the interference of these cursed barbarians jeopardised the customary money payment which would be given by Shap in return for a pardon and the conferring of official rank.
On October 8th, 1849, an expedition consisting of H.M. Sloops Columbine and Fury with officers, men and boats from H.M.S. Hastings, and the Hon. East India Coy.'s Phlegethon, all under Commander John C. Dalrymple Hay, sailed from Hongkong. The end of Shap Ng Tsai and his fleet is best recounted in Commander Hay's despatch.
"After leaving Hongkong on the 8th October I proceeded to Now Chou. From information received there, I determined to proceed to Hoi-how in Hainan, inside the shoals and through the junk passage, for I found good pilots and junks with 14ft. draught going through and we drew little more that 15ft.; moreover Shap Ng Tsai had boasted that he would go where English ships dared not follow him. This I determined to belie. We reached Hoi-haw on the 13th and found Governor-General Ho, whom I visited at the capital, in great fear of the pirates and with a most friendly feeling for the English nation. He immediately ordered a mandarin named Wong to proceed with me, taking with him eight war junks, and I gave him a passage, to prevent delay on board the Fury. On the 16th we reached Chook Shan (Chok Shan) [On the border of Tong King] which the pirate fleet had left five days before, and we found the same sad story of towns destroyed, men murdered and women taken away that mark his track along the coast. On Thursday 18th we fell in with one of his look-out vessels, which, having got into shallow water, was overtaken by the Phlegethon and destroyed by her boats under command of Mr. Simpson, first officer. On the 19th we reached Hoo Nong, his reported haunt, and found he had gone about twelve miles further, and I feared we had lost him; but that invaluable officer Mr. Caldwell (of the Hongkong police) impressed me so strongly with the correctness of his information, that I decided on a reconnaissance in Phlegethon in spite of the shortness of our fuel. Proceeding into Chokeum for that purpose on Saturday morning the 20th, we saw 37 of the fleet under way. From 7 until 4 p.m., like terriers at a rat hole, we hunted for the channel. Then a pilot managed to escape from the shore. I proceeded in Phlegethon with Fury astern and Columbine in tow, over the bar (14 feet, mud) and at 4.40 had the pleasure of finding all the ships warmly engaged. At 5.5 Shap Ng Tsai's junk blew up with a tremendous crash and at 5.30 they had ceased firing. Before 8 o'clock twenty-seven were in flames and the squadron in a position to blockade the river. On the twenty-first of October the steamers and boats destroyed 24 more. Nine of them gave Lieutenant George Hancock in a paddle box boat of H.M.S. Fury, an opportunity of distinguishing himself. Two large junks turned to bay, to defend the retreat of the rest, but Mr. Hancock so handled his boat and her gun that after an hour and twenty minutes he had beaten them from their guns and carried them by boarding without loss. He then pursued and destroyed the other seven. Mr. Hancock's boldness in attacking and correct judgment in managing this affair are worthy of the highest praise.
"On Monday I proceeded with Phlegethon and boats to destroy all that were left. We found that the Mandarins had destroyed four and we finished two others. The low flat islands at the mouth of the river were at times covered with men deserted from the junks, yet afraid of the Cochin Chinese, who had assembled in great numbers to attack them. The ships' boats and small-arm men harassed and destroyed many by constant fire of shell and grape, whilst the Cochin Chinese destroyed or captured the rest. From the best information the fleet appears to have consisted of 64 vessels of war:- one of the first class mounting 42 guns, 16 of the second with 28-32 guns, 42 of the third 12-19 guns and 5 of the fourth with 6 guns each. The total of the crews is about 3,150 men. Of these, two of the 3rd class and four of the 4th have escaped with Shap Ng Tsai, but without much ammunition; and the Mandarin assures me he will shortly destroy him, now an easy prey. He took with him about 400 men, so that 1,700 having been killed about 1,000 more remain to be finished by the Cochin Chinese, who have already sent some prisoners to the Mandarins."
Governor Bonham sent news of the destruction to Viceroy Su, suggesting at the same time that we should now deal with the pirates of the Canton delta as we had dealt with Shap. Su put as good a face on it as he could and thanked us for our trouble, remarking that "although Shap Ng Tsai has for the time being delayed the sword of punishment, now that he is as a fish in the bottom of the kettle, there will be, I imagine, no difficulty in apprehending him." He went on to beg the Governor not to worry about the small fry of delta pirates, with which he, Su, was fully able to cope.
There is no record of the ultimate fate of the pirate leader. The distribution of headmoney, which amounted to about £30,000 for this action and that against Chiu Apoo, caused a good deal of squabbling. There were those who said that the tremendous slaughter was due to the prospect of headmoney, and that many innocent traders suffered with the pirates; that only pirate caught "in ftagrante delicto" should be summarily dealt with; if the evidence was only suspicion they should be brought before the Hongkong courts or handed over to the Chinese. At this distance it is hard to weigh the rights and wrongs of such a case. There is no doubt that the fleet was a pirate fleet and deserved all it got. In those days the commander of an expedition probably erred on the side of safety and severity, whereas nowadays with wireless communication and a series of yet more august authorities to be consulted before action is taken, if a decision can be arrived at in time it will probably err on the side of leniency.
Chiu Apoo, part of whose fleet had been destroyed in 1849, made a further and final appearance in the following year. The Kowloon Mandarin reported that sixteen pirate junks had anchored off Kat (now in British territory) at the head of Mirs Bay. With the strong N.E. monsoon his sailing boats were no good. Would we send a steamer? H.M.S. Medea sailed at once with a detachment of officers and men from H.M.S. Hastings. She picked up the mandarin's representative, one Fan, "a sergeant of some intelligence and deportment." It appeared that he had held the rank of Major in the Chinese army, but was degraded after a visit to Hongkong in the retinue of a mandarin. On that occasion he had so far forgotten himself when asked by his host to take a seat, as to sit down before this superior. Medea sighted the junks at 5 p.m., but they were then being abandoned by their crews. A few shells from the 68 pdr. bursting among them, hurried their retreat. Next morning at daylight, parties were sent out to scour the hills assisted by local volunteers armed with spears and pitch forks. One man bearing an enormous shield, a sword and a dagger and acting in a very warlike manner led the pursuit of a solitary fugitive. When the latter though unarmed turned on his pursuers they stopped, aghast at behaviour so contrary to the rules of Chinese good taste; and there both parties remained until a marine walked up and arrested the poor pirate. Chiu Apoo himself was wounded and is heard of no more.
WITH the destruction of the fleets of Shap Ng Tsai and Chiu Apoo the good old days of ship to ship piracy may be said to have ended. The net result was not very beneficial to the native trader, for instead of the "squeeze" that he had grown accustomed to paying to the commanders of the large fleets who patrolled each trade route, he now became the victim of the scattered remnants of those fleets, as well as of a number of independent practitioners who took the field as soon as the big combines were broken. Immunity for foreign flags had been secured, however, and as long as the prevalence of native piracy did not seriously threaten Hongkong's trade, the British authorities were satisfied. The next thirty years were comparatively quiet and it was not until the steam launch began to appear on the river and in the delta that piracy took a new lease of life.
This time the complaints came from the other side. The following, extracted from a despatch of Viceroy Li Han Chan's, addressed to the British Consul General at Canton in the year 1890, states the position from the Chinese point of view.
"I have the honour to inform you that Colonel Cheng, in charge of the Shunte garrison, and T'ao, acting magistrate of the Shunte district, represent that the pirates in Kwang Tung are both numerous and fearless and unlike the pirates ordinarily met with elsewhere. These pirates for the most part make their nests in Hongkong and Macao, and to this fact is to be attributed the frequency of piracies on the river. The river in the jurisdiction of the magistrate is indented with creeks connecting with the sea and communicating with Hongkong and Macao waters. These waters can be reached even by a small boat, and bad characters can at pleasure come forward and retire, and their pursuit and arrest are fraught with difficulty."
"The Colonel and the magistrate have ascertained that on the 21st day of the 11th moon, pirates misrepresented themselves at a locality in the Shunte district known as Ta Pa T'on, as braves entrusted with the apprehension of smugglers, and proceeded in a steam launch to commit depredations on passenger boats and kill any of the crews who offered resistance. The commission of the act of piracy in broad daylight by pirates from native vessels is in itself bold and lawless. But the audacity to proceed in a steam launch and in a public manner obstruct the free navigation of the river and join with others to make piratical attacks resulting even in the murder of such of the crew offering resistance, is, in point of fact, a more serious disregard of the law. Ordinary pirate boats can be spied from a distance by the soldiers sent after them and can be circumvented and arrested. But steam launches progress at a speed tantamount to flying and could not very well be stopped, so that not only cannot their characters be detected at a glance, but even pursuit is out of the question. Moreover, the mercantile class cannot very well get out of the way of pirates on board launches, so that the harm they suffer is considerable and if no surveillance be exercised to prevent the use of launches it will be found impossible in the future to put a stop to piracy and to maintain the peaceful continuance of trade. The colonel and the magistrate, in their joint deliberations consider that bad characters who depend upon piratical attacks for a living, cannot possibly accumulate such large sums as to purchase launches on their own account, and that foreigners in Hongkong and Macao repeatedly charter their steam launches to native trades people, making these charters a source of profit."
The colonel and the magistrate, having thus got together, put their spies on the trail and discovered that the name of the launch was "Piwen" and further that there was in Hongkong a Frenchman of that very name (actually Captain Pitman, an Englishman) "who reaps profit from the purchase of old launches which he leases to the Chinese to carry cargo." The Viceroy asked that in future all launches hired out by foreigners should be made to obtain a licence from his yamen and to enter into a bond for their good behaviour while in Chinese waters. "Internal piracy" was now the accepted method. The gang boarded the launch or steamer as passengers. At a given signal they would produce arms and take possession of the bridge and engine room. If the prize was a launch she would generally be used by her captors to secure and plunder as many junks as possible before the authorities were thoroughly aroused. When this happened the pirates sunk or abandoned the launch and dispersed to their own homes with the booty.
In 1890 the SS. Namoa, a coasting steamer of about a thousand tons, was the first important victim of these tactics. While the passengers and officers were at lunch the pirates rose and overcame the crew. They fired several shots and threw stinkpots into the saloon and called to the captain to come on deck. He went up and was immediately shot dead. Several of the crew and passengers were killed or wounded. The vessel was taken into Ping Hoj, [A large village at S.E. corner of Bias Bay about 40 miles East of Hongkong] that notorious nest of pirates, at dusk. Six junks were waiting there for the plunder which amounted to several thousand dollars. Before leaving, the pirates knocked holes in the boats and drew the boiler fires.
The affair created a great stir in Hongkong which was by this time over its early troubles and rather fancied itself as a law-abiding colony and a desirable place of residence. H.M.S. Linnet went off with all despatch and arrived on the spot within 18 hours of the outrage. The good people of Ping Hoi were astonished to hear that the pirates had made use of their city and harbour as a base of operations. A military officer was discovered who regretted that the civil mandarin was away at Canton. He promised to make all enquiries though he did not anticipate any result under several days, and, indeed, thought it would take a month or two to enquire fully into the matter!
The Viceroy on being informed of the occurrence wrote to the Consul General in true viceregal style. "That these criminals should have had the audacity to plunder a British ship of money and valuables on the high seas is truly the extremity of lawlessness, and it urgently behoves me to give peremptory orders for their capture and trial." This did not take anybody in. We kept a ship off Ping Hoi for some time to convince the inhabitants that we were really interested in the matter. One of the ringleaders was caught by the Macao police, but committed suicide in prison. Four men were beheaded by the Chinese authorities in Kowloon six months after the piracy. There the matter ended. Junks still suffered from the attacks of their fellow junks. In September 1899 Ngan I Ha reported a fight with pirates off Bias Bay. "On the 5th of the 8th moon I sailed with 25 passengers and a cargo of sugar, pigs, salt, vegetables and garlic from Cheung Sha, for Hongkong. When off Ping Hoi a boat of about 100 piculs capacity and with about 15 men on board, came within 1100 feet of my junk and opened fire with muskets and rifles. The pirates came alongside and threw stinkpots and tried to board. I and my crew repelled them with spears and they retired." He reports nine casualties on board his vessel, including his son shot through the body but not killed. The two most seriously injured passengers were put ashore as soon as possible "... as I was afraid of them dying on board."
Towards the end of the nineties, the river traffic on which Hongkong depends for meat, firewood and much of her export trade, was seriously interfered with by piracy. Even the ferry boats plying across Hongkong harbour would fail to turn up at their destinations having been pirated midway between the island and the mainland. They would be found some days later abandoned on a sandbank, after a short life and a gay one among the silk and rice junks and the passenger boats of the delta. Chinese pleasure parties including one or two gaily dressed young women, would hire a launch for a day's outing and go off on a piratical picnic very different from that form of innocent enjoyment which is so popular on Saturday afternoons in Hongkong.
Canton was getting into a bad state of misgovernment again. A series of weak or anti-foreign viceroys had let matters drift into the hands of subordinates. All our protests were answered with stereotyped expressions of dismay and promises of improvement in the future; but it was very rarely that a genuine pirate lost his head as a result of official enterprise. All this was changed when the Dowager Empress, tired of the lawlessness of the Cantonese, sent the aged statesman Li Hung Chang to be her Viceroy in the south. In spite of his 80 odd years Li was full of vigour, and though Chinese to the core, his wide experience and able brain allowed him to see that disregard and contempt for the foreigner and his ways were not the surest road to his own and his country's security.
Our co-operation in suppressing piracy was at last sanctioned, and a British Naval captain undertook a tour of the West River and delta to report on the state of the Chinese patrols. His remarks were not complimentary. The gunboat Kung 0 was found at Kongmoon, where she had lain for six weeks during which time her commander had not been on board and her only occupation had been the levying of "squeeze" on the passing traffic.
Li's term of office brought about an improvement in the Chinese patrols, but his successor let things slide back into the old groove. From 1902 till 1908 there seemed to be no remedy against continual petty annoyance to our trade. When in July of the latter year the river steamer Sai-Nam, owned by a British company in Hongkong, was pirated while on her run between Canton and Wuchow, public indignation demanded that something should be done. The Sai-Nam was a stern-wheel passenger steamer of about 400 tons, with a British captain and engineer and four armed Indian watchmen as a protection against pirates. She was also fitted with steel grill doors to shut off the wheelhouse and captain's cabin from the remainder of the ship. After dinner Captain Joslin, the engineer and Dr. Macdonald (a medical missionary and the only European passenger an board), were talking on deck outside the saloon door. One of the Indian watchmen came running forward pursued by an armed Chinese. The captain knocked the latter down, but received a bullet in the stomach. A number of armed men rushed up the ladder from the main deck and when the three Europeans and the watchman made for the ladder to the boat deck, they found themselves headed off by a second band who had come from forward. They took refuge in the saloon under the table to avoid the fire poured in through the portholes. A stink pot thrown in rendered this position untenable. Dr. Macdonald, the captain and the watchman bolted out by the starboard door, the engineer by the port. The latter ran the gauntlet of several Chinese who fired wildly at him. He reached the stokehold unscathed and remained concealed behind the boiler in spite of a determined search. Captain Joslin, faint from his wound, fell down in the cabin forward of the saloon. Dr. Macdonald who was probably also wounded, at once proceeded to attend to him, but the pirates entered and shot the doctor through the head. The captain feigned death and after kicking him and removing a ring the pirates left him. The watchman was wounded but escaped to the boiler room. The ship was then taken to Fu Wan a small village a few miles from Tai Ping, a well-known stronghold of pirates. After the pirates had gone, the captain in spite of his wound was able to bring his ship back to Canton.
An inquiry by the Consul General brought out the following points.
Our Consul General at Canton gave the Viceroy no peace. He drew up a list of things to be done and claims to be met and even chased the poor old man down to his country residence at Whampoa, whither he had fled to escape the worries of office. The British representative declared that foreign powers were really shocked at this latest example of Chinese inefficiency and unless some drastic steps were taken they would be forced to intervene. Definite and permanent measures were necessary to put down robbery and piracy. Viceroy Ts'en, a little hurt by such direct speaking replied "have I not already decapitated over 15,000 robbers since my appointment, I executed 50 only two days ago and this does not include many shot and otherwise destroyed. Am I not honestly doing my best?"
In spite of the greatest opposition both active and passive, a strong British patrol was put on the rivers until such a time as all our claims had been satisfied. There was an officially inspired outcry in the native press at first, but that soon subsided. It did not take long for the cultivator and merchant, who pursue their business as little disturbed as possible by governments and high imperial considerations, to realise the blessings of law and order, even though brought to them by foreigners. China's national pride was roused, however, and the Viceroy produced, probably from his private purse, the £20,000 indemnity that we demanded.
Attacks on large ships were unpopular for some time after that, but when the revolution broke out in 1911 unrest and disorder were again rife and as usual found an outlet in piracy. Having carried out half a dozen successful ventures in a small way, junks, river launches and such like, one gang tried for bigger game and captured the Tai On, a river steamer of 500 tons. The $25,000 booty was easy money, the one person who offered any resistance being a lady missionary who locked herself in her cabin and was only dislodged by the introduction of a stink pot through the port hole. Since she spoke Chinese she was then called upon to act as an intermediary between the officers and the pirates. The captain declared that they owed their lives to her calmness and courage. She was presented by the government with a Bible and a travelling clock.
The Tai On was such an easy prey that ten days later another attempt was to have been made and was only foiled by the customs officers discovering three baskets containing 11 fully loaded revolvers with spare ammunition attached to each, amongst the Chinese baggage on board. Further search unearthed 14 more, but the alarm had been given and the owners of the luggage were not to be found. One of the gang responsible for both these attempts turned King's evidence. He doesn't seem to have benefited much, for he was forwarded to the Canton police authorities who promptly popped him into gaol for a large number of crimes to which he had not confessed. He petitioned the Hongkong Government as follows:
"Strange to tell, the Hongkong and Canton administrations, so far from giving the promised reward for the arrest of these men, have actually had Lau Tin detained in the common gaol, thus doing a terrible injustice. Lau Tin, though ready to die, must needs air his grievance; and so, knowing his Excellency the Governor to be a just man, who gives reward for merit and punishment for crime and scorns to go back on his word and lose the faith of men, Lau Tin now makes this petition to state the grievance he has in being detained in gaol after having brought criminals to justice. He begs His Excellency to telegraph to the military governor of Canton requesting Lau Tin's early release. Lau Tin will be extremely gratefu1."
During 1912 and 1913, in addition to many small captures, half a dozen river and coasting craft were seized and very large hauls made from them. No British ships suffered; precautions had been strictly observed since the Tai On affair. Among other foreign vessels the Norwegian SS. Childar was pirated, an affair which was not without its humorous side. When the ship was three hours' steaming from Hongkong no less than 170 out of the 250 souls on board declared themselves pirates. The ship was taken into Bias Bay where the unwelcome passengers decamped with a miserable $5,000 worth of plunder, and very little of that in hard cash.
Lou Mei was arrested in connection with this piracy. He made the following statement. "I was the ringleader, I brought 33 men. Chan Wan Po brought 44. Chan Ah Kot brought about 50. Wong Man Tsai brought about 50. In all there about 170 men, each provided with a cloth badge, but a few without badges joined in. We first went to Wai Tak Tsoi Lan (tea house) in Yaumati to consult and assemble before going on board. When the time arrived we split up according to our languages [The leaders were probably not from the same district, and their followers might speak the hakka, hoklo or punti dialects.] to buy tickets and go on board." Lou Mei was very disappointed for he and the other ringleaders lost over $300 each on the affair. "My original idea was to pirate a Douglas ship; but, since the boarding house people said this ship had put up its prices and no one was willing to travel by it, it was thought that the ship would not sail. The only other ship sailing was the Childar, and we had no option but to buy tickets and pirate that. Consequently we got no dividend. Had we succeeded in taking the Douglas ship we might have got $300,000 and the jewellery of a large number of passengers. It would have been a big haul and we could have started a revolution." Lou Mei also confessed to being implicated in several other piracies. He was only 24 years old and his youthful enthusiasm and a tendency to bring in too many of his friends, undoubtedly reduced his chances of rising to any eminence in his profession.
On April 27th 1914 occurred the last of the series of piracies that began with the attack on the Tai On in the previous year. This time the Tai On suffered again. She sailed from Kongmoon under Capt. Robert Weatherall, the mate and chief engineer were the only other British Officers on board. She also carried four armed Portuguese guards. According to the official figures there were 433 native passengers, but with the miscellaneous hangers-on who travel in all Chinese ships there were probably well over 500 souls on board.
At ten p.m. when the ship was clear of the narrow delta channels and was crossing the wide estuary of the Pearl river, the chief officer, who was on watch, heard shouting and shots. The captain, coming out of his room with a loaded shot gun, found a Chinese attacking the chief engineer. He shot the Chinese dead. The Tai On's bridge was divided from the rest of the ship by locked steel gratings, in accordance with the regulations then in force. The officers and the two guards on duty found themselves within the grill and the pirates found themselves outside and so unable to obtain control of the helm though they had possession of the engine room. This was a serious matter for the ship was stopped, and though all the lights had been cut off at the dynamo, Captain Weatherall was busy on the bridge sending up rockets and burning blue flares, while the other steamers on the Kongmoon run were fast coming up to see what was the matter. The pirates realising that unless they took the bridge they would be caught like rats in a trap made some determined rushes, but the defenders firing from behind the steel dodgers at the side of the wheelhouse held them at bay. In despair, the pirates set fire to the ship and then it was every man, pirate and passenger for himself. The captain climbed down to the fo'c's'le and let go both anchors when the ship swung round head to wind and was soon enveloped in flames from stem to stern. One hundred and eighty survivors were rescued, including the captain. Fifty-three bodies were picked up at sea and the remainder perished in the flames.
It is obvious that the rescued included pirates and passengers alike, and on return to Hongkong a searching investigation was made. Six wounded were sent to hospital and eight other suspicious cases were detained, they having no clansmen or business friends to speak for them. Ten of the fourteen were finally held on suspicion of being pirates. Two of these died of their wounds and the remaining eight were sent to Canton where they confessed to their crime. Two of them turned informers. On their information four more arrests were made at Hollywood road in Hongkong, including Koh Ah Kau, the "Fagin" of the gang. The informers then went to Macao where nine more arrests were made.
The gang responsible for this outrage was the same generally as that which had in the last twelve months plundered the Tai On (first piracy), and the American Chung Wah and Shing Tai-the latter only a month previously, when $40,000 plunder had been easily obtained. For an account of the hatching of the plot we are indebted to one of the informers, Li Fat, who was responsible for bringing many of his accomplices to justice. Li Fat, a fisherman from the delta district of Shun Tak, was born and brought up in a fishing junk. Since his marriage he had lived with his wife at 8 Shui Tai Wai-a street in Macao. About three weeks before the piracy one Leung Yeung invited him to his house, number 15 in the same street. They had previously had dealings over the piracy of the Shing Tai, when Li Fat was in charge of an accomplice junk. Leung Yeung asked him, as he was acquainted with the sea in the neighbourhood of Macao and the West River, to join their enterprise as pilot, his duty being to take the Tai On to a place within three hours' sail of Macao where a junk would be waiting. He was also to engage a junk to take the arms across to Hongkong. This he did on April 4th. The following day 20 of the pirates including Leung Yeung, came to Hongkong by the steamer Sui Tai and stayed at a water front boarding house. Li Fat was taken to Ko Kau's house in Hollywood road, where the latter interrogated him as to his knowledge of the sea near Macao and his past record, which seems to have been sufficiently grimy. On April 5th, Ko Kau came to the boarding house to confer with Leung Yeung. The rest of the gang were then told that owing to the ship being still in dock the attempt was off for the present and they must all return to Macao. It had been their intention to put the arms on board on a Sunday night. The ship when on her normal run arrived at her wharf on Saturday morning and remained there until 7 p.m. on Monday. Sunday night was therefore the best time in the week to smuggle arms on board. During the ensuing fortnight the pirates hung about the house in Shui Tai Wai waiting for orders. On Sunday 19th, Leung Yeung brought them to Hongkong again and they stayed at the same boarding house. Next day Ko Kau called and after he had left, Leung had to inform his braves that once again there was a hitch. Chan Fo, the lamp trimmer of the Tai On, who had been entrusted with the task of putting the arms on board, had bungled the business and aroused one of the Portuguese watchmen, with the result that the arms had to be hastily dumped into the sea to avoid discovery.
The party broke up again after that, but on April 27th, Li Fat came to Hongkong with two others by the steamer Tai Shan. They met Leung and the rest of the gang at the water front boarding house. Leung gave them money and told them to travel in the Tai On that night as third class passengers. There were to be ten of them on the lower deck while Leung with 14 others would travel first and second class. The piracy was to commence three hours after leaving the wharf, and when the ship was under the pirates' control Li Fat was to pilot them to the agreed rendezvous, where the junk was to be waiting. The last meeting of the gang seems to have taken place three days before the piracy at Leung's house in Macao. Ko Kau came over from Hongkong for it. The delays must have disheartened the pirates, for Leung had to exhort them by saying "Do not fear. Did not the Kwong Chu Wan and Shing Tai pass through my hands?" Li Fat finished his tale by saying that when Leung and several of the pirates had been shot by the captain, and other ships were seen coming to the rescue, one So Wa set the ship on fire crying "Ngo ti tai ka sze tok" (Let us all die together.).
Thanks to the captain's brave defence it is almost certain that every pirate on board paid the final penalty. Seventeen were shot outside the east gate of Canton city. Several charred bodies were found in the chain locker of the Tai On. One of these was identified as Chan Fo the ship's lamp trimmer who had been in league with the pirates, and five other bodies bore bullet wounds. The headquarters of the gang was also thoroughly smoked out owing to the prompt action and cooperation of the Hongkong, Canton and Macao police.
There was not another serious outbreak of piracy until 1922. Captain Weatherall could have given up his ship and saved the lives of all on board, but by his brave defence he removed a menace from Hongkong and set an example of the highest bravery and devotion to duty. After the piracy of the Tai On in 1914 there was a period of comparative quiet lasting for eight years. The pirates had received a lesson they were not likely to forget. The only break in this peaceful period occurred in 1916 when the S.S. Kochow (350 tons) was captured near Samshui. [A port of call on the West River between Canton and Wuchow below the Shui Ring Gorge.] The main objective was an official of the Native Customs who came on board with $8,000 in cash. The pirates came with him and had no difficulty in shooting the captain, the only European on board, and obtaining control of the engine room. The captain, who received five bullet wounds, lost the sight of one eye and the use of one hand as well as all his personal belongings. His so-called British owners, Hongkong Chinese, thought they were treating him handsomely in paying his hospital bill and re-engaging him, on his discharge, at an even lower wage than before.
In 1922 commenced a series of piracies that reflect discredit on our methods of piracy prevention. The SS. Sui An (1,040 tons), a river steamer running from Hongkong to Macao, was the first victim. One Sunday evening the usual holiday crowd was returning from a day at the "fan tan" tables. When the ship was clear of the Macao channel, the captain left the bridge in charge of the chief officer, and went aft with some of the passengers to admire the sunset. Firing started on the main deck where some eight or ten pirates travelling as second class passengers, attacked the two Indian guards stationed on that deck. One of the guards was shot dead and the other retired to the boat deck pursued by the pirates. The captain ran towards the bridge, calling to the two guards on the boat deck to follow him, but he and one guard were shot down near the engine room skylight; the other guard was wounded but managed to reach the bridge. The chief officer was unarmed and the wounded guard was trying to load his rifle (which he carried unloaded at the master's order), when the pirates came on the bridge. They snapped their revolvers, but the ammunition was finished. They then put the chief officer and the guard out of action with blows from their butt ends. The ship was taken to Bias Bay and the loot transferred to Junks the following morning.
A commission was appointed to inquire into the piracy. Their report is interesting, and, to a mind accustomed to order and discipline, is incomprehensible. Several of the piracy prevention regulations were proved to have been broken, but this was not held to be anybody's fault. Indeed the regulations were so framed that they could be easily evaded, and it was so long since shipping had been troubled by a piracy that there was little or no attempt at enforcement. The commission recommended that the regulations should be revised and indicated the lines which this revision should take.
Two years later the new regulations came into force. During those two years Hongkong learned a lot more about piracy. Several British ships suffered including S.S. Hydrangea, an ex-flower class sloop. The regulations were opposed throughout by the Mercantile Officers' Guild, who held that the matter should rest entirely in the hands of the Navy, and that the ship's officers and the Hongkong Government had nothing to do with the protection of ships from piracy on the high seas. I think this rather extraordinary attitude may be attributed to two main causes. First the very low standard of officer employed in the river trade. Secondly the slack way in which the regulations for the prevention of piracy had been drawn up and administered, and the fact that the police had the largest say in matters concerning the protection of the ships. To take the first cause. Every waterfront bum and drunkard in the Far East considered Hongkong as a happy hunting ground where, if the worst came to the worst, he could get a job on one of the river steamers. To understand the conditions which brought about this state of affairs, the Hongkong Shipping Regulations and the mentality of the Chinese business man must be considered. The Chinese are perfectly capable of running the river traffic themselves, in their own way. This way means that, to the western mariner, the ship becomes a loathsome mass of putrescence and corruption, but somehow continues to run until the bottom drops out or the pirates get her and she ends her ignorable career by drowning all her company. But while she runs large profits are made and the owners have nothing to complain of. To combat this state of things it was ordained that no passengers should be carried unless the vessel submitted to annual survey by the harbour authorities and sailed under British officers and engineers. At first the Chinese owners took what officers they could find. But it was soon obvious to both owners and officers that British and Chinese ideas of how a ship should be run were not the same thing. The owners discovered that there was one type of officer who gave no trouble and suited them admirably.
This was the waterfront dead beat. Drink had usually brought him down, but occasionally a sober man would he forced into the unpleasant trade when old age or general incompetence had made it impossible for him to get another job. These men are paid a miserable wage and are expected to leave the running of the ship entirely to the pilots and compradors. They sign an agreement for twenty-four hours' notice on either side and they know that if they thwart the owners in the least thing, out they go, and half a dozen other wrecks are waiting in the sailors' home to step into the vacant berth. Here was material that was not likely to command a pirate proof ship.
I have drawn the picture in its worst light, for careful consideration of the piracies of the last twenty years shews that the slack ship is marked down and falls an easy prey. The notable exception was the attempt on the Tai On, under Captain Weatherall, when the pirates got more than they bargained for. A good proportion of the river trade is run by a British company, British in name at all events. Their ships are kept clean; their officers are well paid and have a prospect of pension. Yet it was one of these ships, the Sui An, that was the first victim of the recent outbreak of piracy. What an easy prize she was too! Grills to the bridge unlocked, officers unarmed, guards with their rifles unloaded. All these things were well known to the pirates.
The second cause for complaint, the impracticability of the regulations and the supervision of shipping matters by the police. There is one outstanding case. Both the old and the revised regulations for the prevention of piracy laid down that certain parts of the ship should be grilled off. They also omitted to state that the doors of these grills should be kept locked. When this little oversight was discovered, the inspector or sergeant in charge of the police who search passengers and ships for arms, received orders personally to lock all grills and turn the keys over to the captain before the ship might leave the wharf. Now most of the river steamers in 1923 were like a complicated wire puzzle. The grills that the regulations required had gradually been added to as each new piracy shewed some new weakness in the defence. When the policeman had locked all these grills they were supposed to remain locked until the end of the voyage. Take one case. It was one of the 39 articles of shoregoing bureaucratic faith that every deck must be grilled off from every other deck. That meant that the hatch between the fo'cs'le and the capstan flat below was grilled and locked. If the chief officer while leaving harbour wanted to let go an anchor in a hurry he could not send his men below to tend the capstan and compressors without getting the keys from the bridge. Similarly the men letting go aft could not reach their quarters forward without climbing round the grills, a bad example to possible pirates. Of course none of these things happened. The grills were opened by the captain immediately the policeman had gone, or else the crew had their own private keys. The problem is undoubtedly a thorny one, but in my opinion it has been badly mismanaged.
One further complaint by the merchant officers guild deserves notice. When piracy is rife the coast and river trade is undoubtedly a dangerous trade. In the years 1922-23-24 the casualties to officers through piracy were very severe. One would expect that in recognition of this fact there would be some scheme for insurance or compensation. But there is no Employers' Liability Act in Hongkong, and until the government took belated action in 1924, officers had no financial incentive to attempt the defence of their ships against piracy. They stood to lose all, for they were always the first to be shot, and to gain nothing.
I hold it as the basic principle in piracy prevention that no ship commanded and officered by average mercantile officers who are paid as they should be, who are in fact and not in name in charge of their ships and who are kept up to the mark by a minimum of official supervision and regulation, will ever be pirated. It is, then, the Government's duty to bring such pressure on the owners as shall ensure their putting the larger view of the security of trade under the British flag before the immediate advantage of their own pockets. In view of the small number of officers borne, the government must also insist on such structural alterations as shall ensure the bridge and engine room against surprise. They should also provide, on repayment, a sufficient number of reliable armed watchmen to enable the officers to attend to their navigational duties without any worry as to the security of the entrances to the bridge.
To sum up I advocate -
NOTE BY THE HON EDITOR. - It will be noted that the Navy will always have to deal with piracies in Chinese seas and rivers until the policing is so effective that piracy is not worth the risk. It is hoped that members of the Naval Society who have had experience of such matters on the China Station will suggest remedies. A general discussion of the problem would be valuable to officers serving on the Station, but any proposals made must bear in mind that rules can only be enforced if agreed to by ship owners and masters on the one hand and international sanction on the other.
Taishan Genealogy
Copyright: ©2008 Jon Kehrer, Canberra