CO129-406 - Public Offices - 1913 — Page 353

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and looking very suspicious. In the meantime a man

and a woman had got ashore with another basket, which

-

I presume contained arms; however, they got away

without our catching them.

His Majesty's Ship "Robin" being in port, I at

once informed the Commander, who placed an armed guard

on board consisting of three Bluejackets and an officer in

charge, who proceeded with the ship to Hong Kong where

we arrived at 5 a.m. on the present instant.

During the

passage to Hong Kong, a Colt's automatic pistol fully

loaded was found hidden away in one of the cabins, evident-

i

ly placed there by one of the passengers, so as not to

be discovered on his person when the general search took

place. I may say that if the Custons authorities had

not made a search for contraband tea, we should have known

nothing about the matter and there is no doubt that we

should have been again attacked; it is clearly evident that

the guns were brought on board by women, as we found a

large number of fully loaded pistols concealed in the

cushioned seats of the deck chairs. We had several rich

Chinese passengers on board and a lot of valuables, I

should say about $12,000 or $13,000 worth.

the pirates' principal object.

This was

Everybody is of opinion that the ship was to be

held up in the same waters as before, on her return

voyage to Hong Kong, that is between Wangmoon Customs

station, on the entrances to the Canton Delta and West

River and Hong Kong, and I may say it is a splendid

ground for piracy, there being no gunboats of any

nationality cruising in these waters. On the passage

we saw what we thought to be a suspicious looking

craft, flashing lights as we approached, but as no

signals were returned from the "Tai On" she did not

come close to us. The Chinese Customs do not arrest

anyone for smuggling, they only confiscate the gocds.

I am enclosing an official extract from my log

book which bears out the above statement.

Yours faithfully,

(Signed)

H.W. Holmes,

Commanding Steam Ship "Tai On"

should