[ { "id": 204976, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1965", "page_number": 84, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "PIRACY ON THE CHINA COAST\n\n75\n\npirate fleets appeared. The Hong Kong press was very critical of both the Navy and the Hong Kong Government, claiming that the latter was criminally careless in granting convoy and gunpowder licenses, and pointing out that scarcely a pirate junk was captured without having Hong Kong men in its crew and that many pirate junks were fitted out in Hong Kong. They omitted, however, to point out the connection between the opium trade and piracy. Opium was highly prized, and on one occasion in 1851 one hundred and fifty chests were seized from a Jardine opium clipper, and two of their European employees taken prisoner.\n\nThe steamship, more than the Royal Navy, was responsible for the decline in the old-fashioned style of piracy, in which a fleet of junks had an overwhelming advantage over a sailing ship becalmed in coastal waters. Steamships appeared on the coast in increasing numbers in the years between the two China Wars, and by the end of the Second War most of the foreign coasters were steamships. A steam hose was more effective against pirates than joss sticks, and the comparative immunity of foreign steamships from piracy was another powerful inducement for Chinese merchants to patronize them, thus weighting the balance more heavily in their favour.\n\nAn action in which the Peninsular and Oriental river steamer Canton was involved displayed other advantages which steamers brought to anti-piracy operations. The Canton was on her way from Canton to Hong Kong when she met H.M.S. Columbine, a sailing ship, engaged with a fleet of pirate junks. When the Canton arrived on the scene the wind had fallen, and the junks were using their oars and sweeps to get out of range of the Columbine's guns. The Canton took the Columbine in tow, enabling her to sink a number of the junks before they got clear. Two years later another river steamer called Canton, belonging in this case to the Hong Kong and Canton Steam Packet Company, captured a pirate junk in the river.\n\nIn these actions, in which dozens or hundreds of junks were involved, it would probably be more accurate to describe the Chinese as bandits or rebels, than as pirates. Such fleets attacked towns and villages as often as they attacked ships, and like the Japanese pirates of the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries, plundered", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206012, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1970", "page_number": 92, "title": "RAS-1970", "content_text": "CHINESE EMIGRATION AND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE 87\n\nhundreds were to be seen, and the 1937 census showed Bangkok to have 196,000 Chinese females to 336,000 males. This shortage of female compatriots in the early centuries induced many Chinese to intermarry with the local Malays, Siamese, or Indonesians; and until well into the present century there always seemed a reasonable chance that the overseas Chinese would merge into the local communities. The relaxation of anti-emigration laws and the cheap and easy communications provided by the steam-ships, however, enabled more and more Chinese women to emigrate, and this reversed the previous trend towards assimilation. This factor may have been as important as political developments in increasing tension between the newly independent states of South-east Asia and their Chinese populations.\n\nBy the end of the 19th century the combination of enlightened public opinion and official action had mitigated the worst abuses of the continued coolie trade to South America and the West Indies. At the same time economic developments in South-east Asia were greatly increasing the already large demand for Chinese labour in that region. Rubber and tea plantations, tin mines and rice mills, all required labour which the local populations were either unable or unwilling to supply. As a result the centuries-old emigrant trade from south China increased many times over, and it was with this comparatively recent mass emigrant trade that the China coast steamship companies were most concerned. This became one of the most profitable sections of the China coast trade.\n\nThe domestic deck passenger trade had been important from the earliest days of foreign shipping on the China coast. The opium clippers had only carried European passengers, mail, and specie, in addition to opium; but all other foreign ships on the coast looked on deck passengers as a very important source of revenue. In a country so ill-equipped with roads as 19th century China, shipping played an indispensable role in passenger transport. In 1849, for instance, when the Hong Kong, Canton, and Macao Steam Packet Company was formed and commenced a regular service between the three ports, the cost of a deck passage between any two of these ports was one dollar. The speed, regularity, and safety of the foreign steamships soon enabled them to capture the cream of the deck passenger trade from the junks.", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1970.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/ww72j0241", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206781, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1973", "page_number": 58, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "52 \n\nA. D. BLUE \n\nand Canton. Jardines were neither owners or agents of the Corsair, but there seems to be no doubt that they sponsored this service. The Corsair had been built in 1827 for the Irish Sea service, but after several years went out to Australia. She arrived in China from Australia early in 1846 consigned to Jardines, and soon afterwards was making two trips per week between Hong Kong and Canton, and also doing occasional towing and salvage work. She continued on the river until July 1849 and then disappears from the scene, probably because of her age, either being dismantled or allowed to fall to pieces.\n\nFrom this time British and American steamers appeared at Hong Kong at short intervals, most for the river service, but some for service between Hong Kong, Shanghai, and intermediate ports. Landmarks from the British point of view were the entry of the P. and O. into both the river and the coast services, and the formation of the Hong Kong and Canton Steam Packet Company. The P. and O. started their mail service from Ceylon to Hong Kong by the Lady Mary Wood in 1845, operating this in connection with their Suez-India service. Early in 1849 they put their iron paddle steamer Canton on the Canton River service, a steamship much superior to any of the others then operating on the river. When the Canton suffered severe damage through running on a sunken rock, she was replaced by the Sir Charles Forbes, which the Company chartered from the Bombay Steam Navigation Company. When the Canton returned after repairs, she was put first on the Hong Kong-Amoy service, and then on the Hong Kong-Shanghai service. The P. and O. originally ran these ships mainly as feeders for their overseas ships, and charged very high freights. In 1854, however, and about the time the Hong Kong and Canton Steam Packet Company was about to be liquidated, the P. and O. increased their river service and made it more attractive to outsiders.\n\nThe Hong Kong and Canton Steam Packet Company was formed in 1847, Alexander Campbell of Dent and Company and Alexander Matheson of Jardine, Matheson and Company being the men mainly responsible. Nearly all the foreign merchants in Hong Kong and Canton took shares in the new company, the first steamship company to be formed in China, although they knew that the P. and O. were on the point of improving their river service. Two sister ships were ordered in England, and the first of these, the Canton arrived in", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206782, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1973", "page_number": 59, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "EARLY STEAMSHIPS IN CHINA\n\n53\n\nHong Kong on 30th August 1849, just six months after the arrival of the P. and O's Canton. The second ship, the Hong Kong, arrived barely a month later. They went into service soon after their arrival, but not until modifications to the Canton's engines in early 1850, could they be said to be operating a regular service. They then commenced a regular schedule, leaving Hong Kong and Canton every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 8.00 a.m., and calling at Macao and Cumsingmoon as inducement offered. Saloon passenger rates were $8.00 between Hong Kong and Canton; $5.00 between Hong Kong and Macao; and $1.00 for Chinese passengers between any two ports. Although the two Cantons and the Hong Kong were a great improvement on earlier steamships, they were still liable to frequent accidents and breakdowns, and still often withdrawn for the more lucrative towing and salvage work.\n\nOn 21st December 1854 the China Mail wrote:\n\nWe are now pretty well supplied with river steamers, having no fewer than seven (Hong Kong and Canton of the Hong Kong and Canton Steam Packet Company; Canton, Sir Charles Forbes and Tartar of P. and O; and Spark and Ann of Russell and Company). The River Bird is on its way out (from America) and other three (Rose, Thistle, and Shamrock) are being assembled in Hong Kong. There is plenty of room for all of them, however, for every day seems to raise river steamer traffic higher in the estimation of the natives, and a very short time will elapse before Chinese merchants become steamboat proprietors.\n\nThe Hong Kong and Canton Steam Packet Company, however, was not proving profitable, and the prospect of still more competition decided the company to wind up its affairs and offer its ships for sale. Shortly after this optimistic forecast by the China Mail, river traffic was almost completely disrupted—first by the continuing Taiping Rebellion and then by the Second China War.\n\nThe fortunes of steamships as a whole, however, were very little affected by these events. Several were chartered by the Royal Navy for service in the war, and others went on coast services to Shanghai and intermediate ports. During these troubled years the foreign factories at Canton were burned, and Canton was blockaded and then captured by the Anglo-French forces on 29th December 1857. After this the tide of war moved north to the Peiho River, and peace was quickly restored to the Canton River. Admiral Seymour gave", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 206786, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1973", "page_number": 63, "title": "RAS-1973", "content_text": "Canton\n\n1848 Wood 235 gross\n\nW. Pilcher, Northfleet, Kent.\n\n133'0\" X 18'0\" X 11'9\"\n\nPaddle, by H. W. Harrison, Northfleet, Kent.\n\nRemarks: First ship of Hong Kong & Canton Steam Packet Company.\n\nHong Kong\n\nQueen\n\n1849 Wood\n\nas above\n\n1853 Wood 137 net\n\nLamont & Co., Hong Kong.\n\nas above\n\n? \n\n?\n\nRemarks: First steamship to be built in Hong Kong.\n\nNote. Ships in above list arranged in chronological order of building, and particulars were obtained from a variety of sources. Most of the above were auxiliary ships, that is, they were equipped with sails as well as engines, and methods of calculating tonnages varied,\n\nEARLY STEAMSHIPS IN CHINA\n\n57", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1973.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/8910rj06r", "rank": 0 } ]