y broken.

The towns of Pandassan and Tampassuck, notorious haunts of Illaun
pirates, were destroyed by Captains McQuhae and Mundy, and numerous
piratical proas captured, sunk, or burnt. The fierce and desperate
character of the pirates was shown on all occasions. The _Ringdove_,
Commander Sir William Hoste, having taken a proa, she was brought under
the counter of the brig. From the way in which the crew behaved, it was
doubted whether she was really a pirate, but as a protection a guard of
three marines and several seamen was placed over them. Suddenly, during
the night, they rose without the slightest warning and flew
simultaneously with their krises upon the seamen and marines, and before
the latter could defend themselves, one marine was killed and the
remainder of the guard severely wounded. As the unfortunate marine fell
into the hold of the proa, the pirate chief seized his musket and fired
it at the officer standing at the gangway. Another desperado, lunging
his spear through the after-port of the brig, mortally wounded the
master. The pirates then cut the hawser, and seizing their paddles,
made off for the shore. The boats were immediately manned and sent in
chase, when in ten minutes the proa was boarded, upon which the pirates
retreated below, and with their long spears through the bamboo-deck made
a desperate defence, but finally, refusing quarter, were slain to a man,
and the proa was sunk by the guns of the pinnace.

The piratical fleets cruising off the coast of China committed even
greater depredations on commerce, as well as on the population of the
sea-board, than even those in the Indian seas. Captain Edward
Vansittart, in command of the _Bittern_, was sent against them with two
steamers fitted out by the Chinese merchants. The latter were manned
chiefly from an American frigate, the _Macedonian_, then cruising off
the coast. After a search of some days he discovered a flotilla of
nearly forty junks, which bore down on him with tom-toms beating,
evidently intending to fight. In order to draw them off the shore, he
stood away, but as they would not follow the _Bittern_ out of shoal
water, she again steered towards them, yawing to bring her guns to bear,
while they kept up a steady fire on her. She, however, sank or disabled
eight of them, but the rest for a time escaped. Commander Vansittart
was, however, able to set free a number of merchant-vessels up different
rivers in the neighbour