56 THE SEA. 



the coast. Since this, from Mania, they sent us word that they had seen two ships at 

 sea pass by that place j and from the Goat Key also we heard that the Indians had seen 

 you, and that they were assured that one of your vessels was the ship called La Trinidad, 

 which you had taken before Panama, as being a ship well known in these seas. From 

 hence we concluded that your design was to ply and make your voyage thereabouts. Now 

 this bark wherein you took us prisoners being bound for Panama, the Governor of 

 Guayaquil sent us out before her departure, if possible, to discover you ; which, if we did, 

 we were to run the bark on shore and get away, or else to fight you with these soldiers 

 and fire-arms that you see. As soon as we heard of your being in the seas we built two 

 forts, the one of six guns, and the other of four, for the defence of the town. At the 

 last muster taken, in the town of Guayaquil, we had there 850 men of all colours ; but 

 when we came out we left only 250 men that were actually under arms/' The story 

 of Sharp and others of the pirates, after this, shows that the Spanish preparations had a 

 very decided effect on the spoils they were able to acquire. Their gains were small ; and 

 apart from the dangers of the sea, a number barely escaped being massacred ashore at the 

 Island of Plate. When they attempted to return by the Straits of Magellan, they were 

 tempest-tossed and sorely tried. They could not find the entrance to the straits, and 

 eventually rounded America by what is described as "an unknown way." That unknown 

 route was unmistakably md Cape Horn. 



Among the notorious pirates probably no one is better known in England than Captain 

 Robert Kidd, whose trial and execution formed the subject of many once popular ballads. 

 He commenced life in the king's service, and had so far distinguished himself, that we 

 find him in the first month of 1695 receiving a commission from His Majesty William III. 

 to command a " private " man-of-war to " apprehend, seize, and take " certain American 

 pirates. The privateer was actually fitted out at the expense of Lord Bellamont, at one 

 time Governor of Barbadoes, and others, who knew the wealth that the pirates had acquired ; 

 and they obtained the king's commission, partly with the view of keeping the men under 

 better command, and also to give their enterprise some sort of sanction of legality. Kidd 

 sailed for New Yo-rk, where he engaged more men, increasing his officers and crew to 

 a total of 150. Each man was to have one share in any division of spoil, while he 

 reserved for himself and owners forty shares. This vessel was the Adventure galley, of 

 thirty guns. 



After calling at Madeira and the De Verde Islands for provisions and necessaries, he 

 set sail for Madagascar, then a rendezvous of the Indian Ocean pirates. After cruising 

 on that and the Malabar coasts, where he was not at first successful in meeting with any 

 of the pirate vessels, he touched at a place called Mabbee, on the Red Sea, where he helped 

 himself to a quantity of the natives' corn, without offering payment. Hitherto he had 

 acted strictly in his capacity as a legalised privateer, but he now began to show his true 

 colours. The Mocha fleet was expected shortly to pass that way, and when he proposed 

 to his crew that they should attack it, one and all agreed. He thereupon sent a well-manned 

 boat to reconnoitre, which returned in a few days with the news that there were fourteen 

 or fifteen ships about to sail. It will be understood that the Mocha fleet had nothing to 

 do with American pirates, but was a commercial fleet, in this case consisting of English, 



