information to Your Lordships
Therefore, after communication with the Commodore and ascertaining that he would not, even with a Mandarin on board, despatch any of his Gunboats to look after the supposed Pirates, although they might have been met in waters within Admiralty jurisdiction, I determined to put in force a stratagem which I had formerly proposed, but which it had not been necessary to resort to as our cruisers had then swept the adjacent seas nearly clear of Piratical craft.
My plan had been to send one or more vessels, apparently ordinary fishing boats, to the places most frequented by suspected Piratical craft, in anticipation of their attacking them, in which case they would find themselves unexpectedly opposed by men on board and would not be warned off by the build of the vessel seeking them, and the smoke which is so notable a signal to them in the case of a Gunboat.
I therefore resolved to test the information received by trying my former proposed experiment, but as far as possible without committing this Government.