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The practice has hitherto been to proceed in all such cases before the Colonial Courts. This we have no doubt we have the power to do legally. A pirate being subject to the jurisdiction of any Sovereign within whose power he is brought: but I think it unwise to exercise this right in cases where neither British nor Colonial interests are directly concerned.
I find that during the last five years 244 persons have been tried before the Supreme Court of this Colony for offences of a piratical nature; of these 157 have been convicted, and 87 acquitted. Of the convicted, 30 have been sentenced to death, and 127 to penal servitude for life, and for various periods.
The annual burden this imposed on this Colony is very considerable, and piracy is largely on the increase in the neighbourhood. A large proportion of the piratical cases tried in our Courts come within the category where both the pirates, and the persons upon whom the depredations have been committed, are generally residents on the main land, and the offences are mostly perpetrated either in Chinese Waters, or upon high Seas.
The reason I believe is that the daring robbers who now infest these waters care little for the risk which they incur, in the pursuit of their calling, of being sent for trial, if apprehended, before British Tribunals. They know by experience that the administration...