This chapter examines the Hong Kong government’s practice of giving people up to foreign authorities during 1850–65 on charges of crimes committed at sea. Framed as ‘rendition’, an early version of extradition, this mechanism was used to remove several hundred accused pirates, mutineers, and other criminals of Chinese origin – criminals that officials believed China was better suited to punish. Other seafarers were also given up to France and the United States as the colony sought to take pressure off its overstretched and barely functional courts and prison system. Ideas of British sovereignty and the international law of piracy fuelled this pragmatic policy. Notably, officials believed that maritime crimes should only be tried in Hong Kong if they implicated ‘British interests’, specifically British victims, offenders, or territory. This rationale for jurisdictional restraint reached a controversial zenith in 1861. In the case of the French coolie ship, Ville D’Agen, a Peruvian sailor, Juan Pastor was nearly given up to China despite the absence of any treaty or statutory basis for his rendition.