The return shows the number of casualties with fatal results reported to the police as having occurred in affrays between native vessels and the revenue cruisers during the period of five years under review. Such casualties have been 8 in number, but not one of them appears to have had any connection with opium smuggling, or to have arisen out of any case of contraband trading with which this Colony was concerned.
In August 1878, a fisherman on the Hong Kong shore was accidentally killed by a shot fired by a revenue cruiser when pursuing a junk ultimately seized for some breach of Chinese regulations with general cargo on board.
In May 1879, three men of a revenue cruiser were killed in an affray with a junk carrying salt. As salt is not produced or prepared in this island, this affray was not generated in the Colony or within Colonial waters. The preparation of salt in China is conducted as a very strict monopoly by means of Government licenses, and trade in it other than by duly authorized persons is contraband. Serious affrays between salt smugglers and revenue officers are well known to be common throughout the Empire, they are frequently alluded to in the Peking Gazette, and in the case referred to in the Police Report, the junk must have been passing from one part of the territory of China to another part outside of British waters.
On 28th November 1881, a man was killed in a boat which was conveying two gentlemen of this Colony who were returning from a shooting expedition on the mainland. Passing by a Customs Station on the Chinese side of the channel the boat was ordered to heave to; not doing so promptly, musket shots were fired at it and one of the crew was most unfortunately killed. In this case there appears to have been no smuggling attempted.
In April this year a man was killed on board a rowing boat in the narrow channel separating Hong Kong from the mainland, and in June last two men were killed outside British waters in a trading junk carrying sulphur and saltpetre, which are contraband articles of trade in China. In neither case does it appear that opium was concerned.
With reference, therefore, to Sir John Pope Hennessy’s allegations, which were to the following effect:—
a.—That this island is the base of operations for a class of desperate men who carry on a large contraband trade in opium with China;
b.—That for the purpose of carrying on that trade, junks heavily armed with cannon are fitted out here and wage a chronic war with the neighbouring Empire;
c.—That these junks engage, within sight of the island, in naval battles with the Chinese Revenue cruisers resulting in large loss of life on both sides;
The facts are:—