The opium clippers / by Basil Lubbock.

  • Lubbock, Basil, 1876-1944.
Date:
1933
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The opium clippers / by Basil Lubbock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    365/482 (page 291)
    CHAPTER VII. OPIUM SCHOONERS, GUN BRIGS AND PIRATE JUNKS. I am fevered with the sunset, I am fretfui with the bay, For the wander thirst is on me, And my soul is in Cathay. There’s a schooner in the offing With her tops’Is shot with fire, And my Heart has gone aboard her, For the Island of Desire. I must forth again to-morrow, With the sunset I must be Hull down on the trail of Rapture In the wonder of the Sea. —(The Sea Gipsy.) Hongkong Ordinance against Piracy. IT was not until the 4‘Ordinance against Piracy” was passed by the Hongkong Legislative Council in March, 1847, that any serious attempts were made by British men-of-war to extirpate the fleets of pilongs which, ever since the opium war, had been scourging the China Coast. The chief clauses in this Ordinance, which was due to Sir John Davis, the Governor of Hongkong, were:— (i) The right to board and search. (ii) Offensive weapons called fire-pots or stink-pots to be deemed proof of vessel being a pirate. (iii) Any offensive weapons found in a junk, lorcha or fast- boat render her liable to forfeiture. (iv) Trading junks, lorchas, fast-boats, etc., belonging to Hong¬ kong to be registered and licensed, and to carry a flag, with their registered number in large white figures upon it. (v) Fifty pounds fine for any vessel not hoisting her number.