The painting showing the destruction of Shap-'ng Tsai‘s pirate fleet at Cua Keum. Piracy had been practised in Chinese waters for centuries. With the large amounts of opium being smuggled into the area on British ships, piracy became even more profitable, and pirate fleets grew in numbers and in strength. Large numbers of Royal Navy vessels were consequently engaged on anti-piracy patrols. The event shown in this painting by a Hong Kong artist was the culmination of a campaign against the Chinese pirates which infested the Chinese coast.

Just left of centre there is only one Royal Navy paddle-steamer in evidence, her fore part obscured by gunsmoke. The junk in the centre of the pirate line is blowing up, which suggests that this is the action of the brig ‘Columbine’. There is a good deal of flotsam and shot splashes around her, and over on the right are the two British ship’s boats of HMS ‘Hastings and HMS ‘Fury’. In the centre background a junk is blowing up and across the picture are pirate junks mostly on fire. Above the smoke and beyond is mountainous terrain of the Chinese coast of either Harlem or Bias Bay.

This painting was commissioned by Dugald McEwan the Assistant Surgeon of the ‘Hastings’.