The HMS Zephyr was a 6-gun packet brig-sloop, commanded by Captain Stanley Congalton. The HMS Zephyr was a Cherokee -lass ship - a class of brig-sloops of the Royal Navy. Brig-sloops are sloops-of-war with two masts (a fore mast and a taller main mast) rather than the three masts of ship sloops. Over 110 of these ships were built and they were so flexible that they were also used for exploration and surveys. The best known of the class was HMS Beagle - the ship that took the naturalist Charles Darwin to the Galapagos and laid the foundation for his later work on the theory of natural selection and evolution. The Zephyr was to become one of the Royal Navy's most feared pirate hunters in the waters of the East Indies. Pirate perahus, which used both oars and light sails, were frequently too fast and nimble for the slow, heavy sail ships such as the Magicienne to pursue and destroy. More typically, the British used smaller but faster schooners such as the Zephyr to pursue pirates right up to their coastal and riverine lairs. For example, on the 24th of March, 1835, the boats of the Zephyr fell in with a fleet of thirteen large pirate perahus off Point Romania on the Johor coast. A brisk exchange of musketry ensued between the boats' crews and the pirates, who were subsequently reinforced by five more perahus which emerged from the mouth of a river near Point Romania. Eventually, the ammunition in the boats was exhausted, whereupon the pirates made their escape, having suffered substantial losses. Since there was no wind, the Zephyr had been unable to keep up with their boats, and were too far away to pursue the Malays.

  The HMS Hyacinth was an 18-gun Royal Navy sloop that took part in anti-piracy operations in the Straits, as well as the blockade of Kuala Kedah in 1838. After its tour of duty in Malayan waters, she took part in the First Opium War, destroying, with HMS Volage, 29 Chinese junks, and from 1843-46 was stationed off the west coast of Africa in the suppression of the slave trade. Hyacinth measured 109 ft 6 in (33.4 m) along the gun deck by 30 ft 9 in (9.4 m) in the beam. She was armed with sixteen 32-pounder carronades and two 9-pounder bow chaser guns.

Diana

Royal Navy sailing ships, while heavily armed, were more often than not unable to keep up with the smaller, faster, nimble boats of the Malay pirates when there was no favourable wind. Lack of wind did not present a problem with 'Diana' - the first steam-driven gunship in the East Indies. It was deployed by the British to hunt Malay and Illanun pirates preying upon vessels in the Straits from 1837-1845. With its twin 40 horsepower paddles and speed of five knots, it could out manoeuvre and outrun the Malay perahus, especially upwind, while decimating the pirate ranks with its arsenal of Congreve rockets and rapid rifle fire from the armed sea men onboard. Diana's crew consisted of the captain, two European officers and thirty armed Malay seamen, and this could be supplemented by British marine or native police parties either onboard or, more frequently, towed astern in longboats. Ironically, in its early encounters with Malay pirates, the pirates would actually happily attack the ship, mistakenly thinking that the smoke from her funnels were of a sailing ship on fire and therefore easy prey. In Diana's encounter with 360 pirates in six perahus off the coast of Trengganu in 1838, the pirates did just that. To their horror, the Diana came up close against the wind, and, stopping her paddles as she came opposite each perahu, poured down rockets and rifle fire that resulted in 90 of the pirates killed, 150 wounded and 30 taken prisoner. It was the introduction of this new naval technology that ensured the Malay pirate soon ceased to be the dreaded scourge and terror that he was centuries before.

The steamer Pluto was not only actively engaged in anti-piracy operations in the Straits of Malacca but also played a pivotal role in subduing the Malay States, providing British gunship diplomacy during the Selangor Civil War and the Perak War. The Pangkor treaty was, in fact, signed on January 20, 1874 on board the Pluto. She was a paddle steamer that had a speed of 4 knots under her own power, and an armament consisting of four brass 24-lb. cannons and two brass long 6-pounder chaser guns.

Improvements in technology in the 1870s meant that Britain could now deploy bigger, faster and more heavily-armed steam ships such as the Rinaldo. Built of a traditional wood structure, Rinaldo was 185 feet (56 m) long at the gundeck, 33 feet (10 m) in beam. A barque rig was fitted to allow easy sail handling with a relatively small crew of 180. It was fitted with a two-cylinder horizontal single-expansion steam engine driving a single screw propeller. These engines generated 200 nominal horsepower, giving a speed of approximately 9 knots. Rinaldo was armed with five 40-pounder breech-loading guns and twelve 32-pounder muzzle-loading smoothbore guns. Rinaldo was not only used against pirates in the Straits and South China Sea but also took part in the bombardment of Kuala Selangor in 1871 (pictured here), ostensibly on a mission to capture pirates seeking refuge there. The pirate hunters had by now very much become Empire builders.

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