Cn. IX.] CHINESE PIEACT. 133 



away from its persecutors, who then reluctantly gave up 

 the attack. About the same time, the bark " Ruby " was 

 attacked by pirates, also near the above locality, and having 

 no means of defending themselves, the captain, with his 

 daughter, who was on board, and the crew, got into their 

 boats on one side of the ship at the same moment that the 

 pirates boarded on the other side. Fortunately they were 

 not regarded, the miscreants betaking themselves to plim- 

 defing the ship, which they did most effectually, tearing up 

 the boards and otherwise dainaging her, while the crew were 

 left unmolested. The pirates afterwards abandoned the 

 vessel, which was found derelict by a Hamburg barque, and 

 taken into Saigon. Meanwhile the captain and crew, after 

 having been several days in the boat, were picked up by a 

 French gunboat, and taken also into Saigon, where the first 

 object that met their eyes was the lost vessel safe in the 

 harbour. Wreckers, too, turn up in a "wonderfully short 

 time, when there is anything to plunder ;■ and some months 

 subsequently to our visit, a British barque, the " Fanny," 

 having been abandoned at the north entrance of these 

 Straits, was boarded and looted ; while the crew, who had 

 taken refuge on Slut Island which we had found deserted, 

 were then set upon, and robbed of the little they had 

 managed to save. 



In order to protect shipping, and to assist in putting 

 down Chinese piracy- with a strong hand, it was, not long 

 since, announced that certain new gun-boats were to be built 

 to reinforce the China squadron, and a' number of ofiicers 

 .were to be sent out. It is .to be doubted, however, whether 

 our active interference with an evU whose root lay in the 

 Government of China, is entirely for good. No one who 

 knows China can doubt that the crying mischief hes at the 



