[1][2] Following the end of the age of sail, the pirates of southern China were forced to change tactics when it came to taking over merchant ships.

New steam-powered vessels, used both by the navies and the merchants, rendered fleets of heavily armed sailing junks useless.

Bias Bay is surrounded by rocks and that night there was a fleet of fishing junks sheltering inside and constantly moving around the anchorage.

Both the rocks and the junks made it difficult for the British to monitor the area without being detected, though they succeeded in doing so, and on the morning of 20 October they encountered Irene steaming off Cake Island.

When the shot was ignored a second, live round was fired and it blew a hole straight through the ship and killed a pirate who was standing on deck.

Lieutenant Gilbert Hackforth Jones reported that they were too far away at that time to open fire themselves, but they could see Irene burning after being struck by multiple rounds.

[7] In the end, seventeen Chinese were found guilty of piracy and hanged for it in Hong Kong, though some sources say only ten pirates were executed.

[2] The owners of Irene later tried to sue Lieutenant Halahan but he won the case on the grounds that any naval commander has the authority to sink any ship controlled by pirates.