Posted by Dan Lind on August 08, 2003 at 18:50:12 from 24.69.255.205 user captain.
In Reply to: Re: The Real Missee Lee? posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on August 07, 2003 at 21:49:04:
Here is a copy of a sidebar in Time - Life's BRITISH EMPIRE
"For Chinese pirates, as much as for British merchants, the Opium War was a boon: by opening Chinese ports to European trade, it brought a rush of merchant shipping that offered unprecedented pickings for pirates. Since there was no Chinese navy, Britain sent some of the gunboats stationed at the Treaty Ports to combat the threat. These operations were rarely hazardous and often profitable for pirate junks were no match for British warships. And Parliament had offered a tempting incentive: L20 was paid for every pirate killed or captured. Even if a captured pirate escaped he was worth L5 to the British crew.
Spurred by these inducemenets, the Navy made sure that the heyday of the pirates was brief. Between 1843 and 1851, when the menace was as good as over, gunboats destroyed or captured 150 pirate junks and headmoney was claimed for 7,500 pirates. In one action, 58 out of a squaddron of 64 junks were destroyed and 1,700 pirates killed - all without a single British loss."