116
JAMES HAYES
This did not mean, however, that local villagers were not averse to minor piracy and smuggling, and generally to taking advantage of opportunities for gain. There are too many accounts of villainy from the surrounding waters for us to rule out the occasional initiative. In this connection, the remarks of a Chinese brigade general ordered by his superiors to cooperate with two young British naval officers against pirates thought to belong to villages in the present day Yuen Long area of the New Territories, has to my ears the ring of truth to it:
"Having seen these eighteen villages we have, becomingly and properly, together admonished the people thereof, and I think that they will be compliant and obey our orders. But this is merely an affair of vagabonds who rob with violence and make forays, who are not in the same category with confirmed rebels and pirates.”37
The English officer in charge commented:
"It must clearly be borne in mind that piracy in China differs from piracy elsewhere in this respect that there the pirates live on the land and only put to sea occasionally to carry on their depredations... Nor is this state of things confined in this vicinity to the neighbourhood of Deep Bay. Piratical villages exist along the whole coast wherever the native traffic is sufficient to render such an occupation remunerative."38
+39
Writing specifically of Hong Kong itself on 11th April 1846 to the Secretary of State for the Colonies in his annual despatch on the state of the Colony, Sir John Davis observed that “A principal obstacle to the Chinese commerce of the place is the system of piracy which infests the approaches from the east and west. In another despatch dated 26 February 1848, Davis commented on the subject as follows: "The former prevalence of piracy has been checked (as appears best proved by the increase of native trade) through the active exertions of Captain Loring of HM's ship 'Scout', by whom nearly 300 pirates were captured in the last year, and delivered over to the Chinese government.
1540
Whether the Hong Kong villagers joined in such behaviour
116
JAMES HAYES
This did not mean, however, that local villagers were not averse to minor piracy and smuggling, and generally to taking advantage of opportunities for gain. There are too many accounts of villainy from the surrounding waters for us to rule out the occasional ini- tiative. In this connection, the remarks of a Chinese brigade gener- al ordered by his superiors to cooperate with two young British navel officers against pirates thought to belong to villages in the present day Yuen Long area of the New Territories, has to my ears the ring of truth to it:
"Having seen these eighteen villages we have, becomingly and properly, together admonished the people thereof, and I think that they will be compliant and obey our orders. But this is merely an affair of vagabonds who rob with violence and make forays, who are not in the same category with confirmed rebels and pirates.”37
The English officer in charge commented:
"It must clearly be borne in mind that piracy in China differs from piracy elsewhere in this respect that there the pirates live on the land and only put to sea occasionally to carry on their depredations . . . Nor is this state of things confined in this vicinity to the neighbourhood of Deep Bay. Piratical villages exist along the whole coast wherever the native traffic is suffi- cient to render such an occupation remunerative."38
+39
Writing specifically of Hong Kong itself on 11th April 1846 to the Secretary of State for the Colonies in his annual despatch on the state of the Colony, Sir John Davis observed that “A principal obstacle to the Chinese commerce of the place is the system of piracy which infests the approaches from the east and west. In another despatch dated 26 February 1848, Davis commented on the subject as follows: "The former prevalence of piracy has been checked (as appears best proved by the increase of native trade) through the active exertions of Captain Loring of HM's ship Scout', by whom nearly 300 pirates were captured in the last year, and delivered over to the Chinese government.
1540
Whether the Hong Kong villagers joined in such behaviour
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