ABSTRACT
Pirates had been a disturbing factor in the life of Eastern Asia for centuries when in 1834 the British Government abolished the East India Company's monopoly of the Anglo-China trade. The number and strength of the pirates increased with the growth of foreign trade and the civil war in China during the first period of the British naval station. The trading interests which had lured the British to China enlisted the services of the Queen's ships against the freebooters both at Hong Kong and along the mandarin coast. The Lords Commissioners brought their knowledge of the general situation in China to bear on the proposed plan and usually were the determining voice in the policy that was finally carried out. British efforts to suppress piracy involved the exercise of all types of the newly established British authority in China, consular, colonial, naval, and judicial.
