The Battle of Nam Quan was fought in 1853 as part of a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

anti-piracy operation in China. A

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

sloop-of-war encountered eight

pirate Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...

ships near Nam Quan and defeated them in a decisive action with help from armed Chinese civilians on land.

Background

For years the United Kingdom, the

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-spea ...

, the

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and the

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Macao Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a po ...

operated against the pirates of southwestern China. It took decades to finally clear the

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by the shores of South China (hence the name), in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Phi ...

of pirate junks. The largest problem was that the western and Chinese navies did not have the naval strength to combat the pirates. However, operations continued despite the weakness and several significant battles were fought. Usually the sailors of the navies were heavily out-numbered, but they were not out-gunned by the pirates, and so this did not prevent them from hunting and engaging the brigands wherever found. The RN's biggest problem was finding them.

Battle

, of 12 guns, was one of the Royal Navy vessels assigned to counter piracy. In the early 1850s she participated in several actions with pirates. On 10 May 1853 ''Rattler'' found pirates off Nam Quan, which is near the present day border with

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

. Just days before, the pirates had captured a convoy of merchant ships. The pirates were holding the vessels off Nam Quan and demanding that a ransom be paid for their release. When ''Rattler'' approached she opened fire at long range on the pirate flagship. The pirate flagship returned fire but was quickly sunk. ''Rattler'' then engaged a second junk and sank her too with gunfire before moving on to capture a third which was burned and then sunk. Alecto and Rattler

Disheartened, the remaining pirate ships broke off the action and were beached by their crews. At least half of the 1,000 pirates escaped to shore but most of them were attacked by Chinese

militia A militia () is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional soldiers, citizens of a country, or subjects of a state, who may perform military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of r ...

and killed. One group, after their ship was grounded, took over a merchant junk, killed its crew, and began to flee. The British sent their cutter after it but when it closed in on the junk, the pirates opened fire and repulsed the attack. Three Britons, one officer and two enlisted men, were killed. Out of over 1,000 pirates, 500 were estimated to have been killed or wounded; the British took no prisoners. The British took and refloated all four of the beached junks and the one lorcha. Eighty-four cannons were also taken along with the remaining merchant ships; one captured junk escaped.Wombwell, pg. 111

Notes

References

* {{Pirates Nam Quan Nam Quan 1853 in China China–United Kingdom relations Nam Quan 19th-century history of the Royal Navy

Background

Battle

See also

Notes

References