of the steamer. Happily the pirates were finally overpowered and four of them captured, the vessel owing her safety principally to the foresight and heroic conduct of her master, Captain Harris. Next year (April 8, 1863) the Government offered a reward of $1,000 for information leading to the arrest of certain lawless persons, English and American, employed on hoard of piratical junks in the neighburhood of Hongkong and Formosa. This notification had no effect. The American barque Bertha was unsuccessfully attacked by pirates near Stonecutters' Island (July 22, 1863); six months later (January 28, 1864) some pirates attacked the Danish brig Chico and murdered some of her crew, and on February 5th, 1865, the Spanish brig Nuevo Lepanto was captured by pirates near Lantao.
As to the commercial history of this period, one of its principal landmarks is the formation (May 29, 1861) of the Hongkong Chamber of Commerce. It was to be the aim of this institution, to guard the liberties and interests of local commerce and to procure, without any interference with the freedom of the port, reliable commercial statistics. Various nationalities were represented among the members of the Chamber, and the Committee elected at the first annual meeting (April 23, 1862) included American (D. Delano), German (D. Nissen) and Parsee (T. B. Buxey) merchants. One of the first topics which occupied the attention of the Chamber of Commerce was a subject which for some years previous had been a burning question of the day, viz. the establishment by the Chinese Government of the Imperial Maritime Customs Service, under Mr. H. N. Lay. When this scheme was first mooted, four Hongkong firms (Dent, Fletcher, Turner and Birley) protested strongly against what they considered a needless superaddition upon the Consular Service and from the working of which, under Chinese supervision but in separation from the native Chinese Customs Service, they expected interference with the freedom of commerce to result. Some Canton firms joined this protest under the supposition that the effect of the scheme would be to drive the import trade from Canton to Hongkong and to confine the export trade to Macao.
