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382 renewing the contest. The Volunteers were called out to patrol the streets (September 14, 1864), and at the request of the Governor the 99th Regiment were ordered at three hours' notice to move forthwith over to Kowloon (September 15, 1864) where a camp was hastily erected. This was done in the face of a strong medical protest and the result was that a most extraordinary amount of mortality decimated the troops encamped on the site of which the Military Authorities had robbed the Colony.

Piracy flourished throughout the administration of Sir H. Robinson and the number of cases in which the pirates, disdaining the less remunerative attacks on native junks, successfully plundered foreign vessels, appears to be rather a distinguishing feature of this period. The Taiping rebellion was by this time extinguished in South China and the Cantonese coastguard resumed again its former function as a preventive force, but it was unable to make headway, without steam cruisers, against the better equipped piratical fleets. Numbers of piracies were reported in Hongkong in autumn (September to November) 1859, by owners of native junks. Few piracies occurred in 1860. But in May, 1861, the brig North Star was attacked some four miles off Hongkong. The captain, some of the officers and crew, and a passenger were murdered. Seven months later, the Dutch schooner Henriette Louise was plundered, just outside the Lyee-moon, by pirates who wounded the captain and some of the crew (January 2, 1862). Three weeks after this outrage, the British brig Imogene was plundered and burned (January 23, 1862) by pirates, five of whom were subsequently (March 6, 1862) convicted of murder and executed. Next, the British schooner Eagle was plundered near Green Island by pirates, who were under the leadership of an Englishman (April 18, 1862). The captain and some of the crew were murdered. Soon after, the S.S. Iron Prince when on her way to Macao, was attacked by pirates disguised as passengers. They murdered two of the crew. The captain, officers and European passengers were all wounded in a protracted fight, at close quarters, for the possession