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its guard launch will pass and can make their plans to pirate
a tow before or afterwards in perfect safety.
(c)
Armed Guards on board ships. When piracy became
serious it was obvious that some means of protection had to
The be provided and against internal piracy in particular. danger of any well-found ship being successfully attacked from the outside was, and in my opinion is, very small indeed,
I should provided she was in the hands of efficient officers.
be very sorry to try an atack on any of the river steamers by means of launches or junks as long as the river steamer was under weigh and under control and the officers wide awake.
It therefore came to a question of convoys or armed guards, To convoy the regular river steamer traffic and also the sea-going ship traffic to Canton and Kongmun means a very
Also large number of fast convoy craft continuously employed. as the speed of the convoy is that of its slowest ship a great deal of inconvenience is caused to the better found vessels. On the other hand to let all ships proceed independently and yet be safe means a large number of armed guarda on each ship. At the time no convoying launches were available and
I
it was found quite impracticable to get the necessary Naval Officers and ratings to man any large number of launches. therefore suggested that the cheapest and safest method to adopt was to make the Canton and Kongmun River Steamers sail
in convoy,
a large and efficient armed guard being placed on one steamer in each convoy. These were to be armed with machine guns and be available not only to protect their own Vessels but also to go to the help of any vessel belonging to
the convoy if attacked.
This system was adopted and continues
to