118 



THE FARMER'S MONTHLY VISITOR, 



August, 1842 



nearly double that of dung, a ciiciiiTistance easily 

 aceoimled for bv the friealer quantity of other 

 salts, being nearly double those ni cow dun:,'. 

 The actual amount of salts in 100 parts of hu- 

 man, cow, and horse ilung, is in round numbers, 

 1 per cent., while in the liquids it averages 15, 

 beiujr in the cow 35, and in the human 4.24 per 

 cent., horse (j. 



All urine of course varies with the food of the 

 animal. White turnips give a weaker liquor than 

 Swedish. Green grass is still worse. Distillers' 

 grains are said to be better than either of these. 

 Doubtless the liquids of fattening kine is richer 

 in ammonia during this period, tor it contains a 

 part of that nitrogen not carried away in tiiilk. 

 Whatever may he the food, it is evident from the 

 above statements, that rivers of riches run away 

 from farms, from want of attention to saving 

 that which ordinarily is allowed to be wasted. 



Each man evacuates annually, enough salts, to 

 manure an acre of land. Some forni of geine 

 only is to be added to keep the land in heart, if 

 the farmer had but the heart to collect and use 

 that which many allow, like the flower unseen, 

 "to waste its fragrance on the desert air." 



But with all the farmer's care, with every coii- 

 venience for collecting and preserving these ani- 

 mal [iroilucls, still the amount which can be so 

 collected, is often wholly inaileqnate to the wants 

 of the farmer of small means. All these accu- 

 mulations presuppose a goodly stock of animals 

 on the farm. This again is limited by tlie means 

 of keeping, and so one influences tire 

 The farmer wants some source of manure, which 

 while it produces all the salts and geine of an 

 unlimited amount of stock, hogs and hens, shall 

 yet require no more barn room, fodder or team, 

 than every man who means that his hands and 

 lands shall shelter, feed, and clothe him, can easi- 

 ly command. 



The salts and geine of a cord of peat are equal 

 to the manure of one cow for three months. It 

 is certainly a very curious coincidence of results, 

 that nature herself, should have prepared a sub- 

 stance, what^agricidtural value approaches so 

 near cow dung, the type of manures. This sub- 

 ject may have been now sufficiently explained. 

 Departing from cow dung and wandering through 

 all the varieties of animal and vegetable manures, 

 we land in a peat-bog. The substance under our 

 feet is analyzed, and found to be cow dung, with 

 out its musky breath of cow odor, or the pov.er 

 of generating ammonia. That process is over — 

 a part of the ammonia remains, still evident to 

 the senses by adding caustic potash. It exists in 

 part, either as a comjtonent of crenic and apo- 

 crenic acid, or as phosphate of ammonia, and 

 when the presence of ammonia is added to the 

 salts, whose existence has already been pointed 

 out, it may be said, that peat approaches dung, 

 moistened with the liquid evacuation of the an- 

 imal. 



Captain Kidd. 



[The American Jinist in its last number, con- 

 tains a sketch of the life of this adventurer. It 

 is given in an article relative to the defective 

 administration of criminal justice in former 

 times. It is told in a plain and natural manner, 

 without any high wrought colors. We extract it 

 as an interesting sketch of the " pirate."] 



Few names in the annals of our country havt 

 been more familiar to every class in the commu 

 nity than that of William Kidd. Childhood has 

 listened with terror to the tales of his unnumber 

 ed crimes, and credulous love of gold has sought 

 with the confidence of assured succes.s the ill- 

 gotten treasures which he buried in the lonely 

 recesses of the sea-shore. 



Tfla ballads of the nursery, too, have imi 

 taiized this renowned freebooter of the ocean, 

 and, although it was not true that "his name 

 Robert Kidd, as he sailed," yet " most wickedly 

 he did, as he sailed," iind among other things, 

 "he murdered William Moure, and left him in 

 his gore, not many leagues from shore," and 

 when at last justice overtook him, he made a sol- 

 emn appeal to "young and old to see him die;" 

 most disinterestedly telling them they were "wel- 

 come to his gold, for by't he'd lost his soul, and 

 must die." 



Romance, also, has borrowed from the same 

 storehouse, and has told us how carefully the 

 treasures which the pirate and his crew coiiceal- 

 e<l have been watched over, from time immemo- 



' ial, by a certain grim-visaged personage, who, 

 'or a valuable consideration, made known its hi- 

 ding place to that curious gentleman, "Thomas 

 Walker." 



Although these romantic incidents iiave made 

 their abiding impression iq)on the youthlid iiiing- 

 ination of thousands, tew have stopped to draw 

 from the personal history of Kidd, the illnstraiioti 

 which it affords of the manner in which jus^tice 

 was administered in the English courts, a centu- 

 ry and a half ago. 



Although fiom a simple perusal of the in- 

 dictments against Captain Kidd, and the evidence 

 adduced to sustain them, no one would he led to 

 imagine that his trial had any connexion what- 

 ever with the political affaii-s of the country, yet 

 such in fact was the case ; and it becomes neces- 

 sary, theiefbre, to offer a brief explanation of his 

 previous history, in order to understand the full 

 degree of importance which was attached to his 

 arrest, trial, and conviction as a murderer and a 

 l)irate. 



The first we learn of his history was in 1696. 

 Before that time he had been an enterprising ship 

 master, sailing liom New York, where his fiunily 

 resided. 



At this time there was an universal alarm felt, 

 in consequence of the numerous acts of piracy 

 which had been committed on the high sea.s, 

 jiecially in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, and 

 the attention of the government of England was 

 |)arlictdarly <lirected to the means of arresting the 

 evil. The war, which had been terminated by 

 the |)eace of Rysvvick in 1697, had given rise to 

 an extensive system of legalized piracy, called 

 "privateering," many of the vessels so employed 

 having received commissions from James the 

 Second, then an exile, to cruise against the com 

 iierce of England. Many of these privateers had 

 aid aside the flimsy veil that covered their true 

 character, and waged war indiscriminately u|)on 

 whatever vessels came in their way. 



Under the administration of Governor Fletcher 

 of New York, many of these piratical vessels 

 sailed from ports within his government, and 

 Smollet, in his history of England, gravely af- 

 firms that "during the war, the colonies had 

 grown rich by piracy." 



Upon the removal of Fletcher from his govern- 

 ment, the king resolved to appoint some one who 

 would be certain to adopt efficient measures to 

 break up the system of piracy which ha<l become 

 so alarmiag ; and lor this purpose comnfissioned 

 Lord Uellamont.H nobleman of high rank, as gov- 

 ernor of New York, and soon after added the 

 provinces of Massachusetts and Nesv Hampshire 

 to his jurisdiction. 



It was proposed to fit out a naval expedition to 

 take command of the enter|)rise. 



Hy a singular and most unfortunate fatality, 

 Kidd was the person so selected. He was then 

 in London, and was highly recommended for the 

 place by Mr. Livingston o'f New York, who had 

 known him there, and who happened then to he 

 in London, wliere he was consulted upon the 

 huhject by Lord Bellamont. 



It was proposed to fit out a government shi[)of 

 thirty guns, to be manned with one hundred and 

 fifty men. But there was so matiy difficulties in- 

 terposed by the admirality that the expedition, as 

 a public one, failed, and a private adventure was 

 planned as a substitute. 



It had twool)jectsin view,one to cruise against 

 the French with a commission as a privateer, the 

 other to seize and send home for trial all who 

 had been engaged in jjiratical enterprises, and 

 high expectations were raised of making the ad 

 venture a profitable one. Mr. Livingston offered 

 to be concerned with Captain Kidd in one-fifth of 

 the vessel, and to be bound for the faithful execu 

 tion of his commission. 



The king not only countenanced the enteprise 

 but was to share one-tenth in the profits so confi- 

 dentally anticipated to result from it. Several of 

 the nobility took ehares in the adventure, among 

 whom were the duke of Shrewsbury, the earls 

 of Romney and Oxford, and lord chancellor So- 

 mers. 



The chief management of the affair was en- 

 trusted to Lord Bellamont, through whom the 

 commission of' Kidd was regularly issued. 



lender this he sailed from Plymouth for New 

 York in April, 1698, in a ship called the Adven- 

 ture Galley. On his way thither he took p 

 French ship which he carried into New York 



where she was condemned, and there he enlisted 

 a large number of men by promising them a share 

 of the prizes he might take. His whole crew, in 

 the end, consisted of about one hundred and filly 

 men. 



Bellamont did not reach New Y'ork till nearly 

 two years after Kidd had sailed from England, 

 and found, on arriving there, that, instead of hav- 

 ing exterminated piracy, the man whom he had 

 commissioned for that purpose had become the 

 terror of the ocean, by the bold and indiscrimi- 

 nate war which he had been carrying on against 

 the vessels of all nations. 



Such an issue of an expedition, which the min- 

 istry and leading whigs had originated, could 

 hardly fail to bring reproach upon its authors, 

 especially while party spirit was as rife as it then 

 was in England. 



Lord Somers, though of long tried worth and 

 great sagacity as a political leader, was particu- 

 larly obnoxious to the tories, and after holding 

 the great seal for seven years was, by their insti- 

 gation, dismissed from office. 



In 1701, he with the earis of Portland and Ox- 

 ford, were impeached for high crimes and mis- 

 demeanors, and one of the articles against the 

 late chancellor was his connexion with Captain 

 Kidd. Kidd was even examined at the bar of 

 the house of commons, with a view to make evi- 

 dence against the ministry, but the attempt to 

 connect him with them, in any way calculated to 

 impeach their moral or pdlitical character, wholly 

 (ailed. The commons (li<l not pursue their arti- 

 cles of impeachment, an<l no trial was ever had 

 upon them, and when the trial of Kidd took 

 place, the entire innocence of all who were inter- 

 ested in the enterprise which had been entrusted 

 to him, was conclusively established. 



The course which Kidd pursued, after leaving 

 New York with his augmented crew, was direc- 

 ted to the Indian Ocean, where he made many 

 rich prizes, and having divided his booty with his 

 crew, about ninety left him, and engaged in other 

 similar adventures. He tlieroupoa burned his 

 own vessel, and embarked in one of his prizes 

 for the West Indies. Here he purchased a sloop, 

 and leaving his prize in charge of a [lart of his 

 crew, he sailed with the remainder for New Eng- 

 land, and with a strange degree of fool hardiness, 

 ventured to appear openly in Boston, and to en- 

 gage in traffic there. 



As soon, however, as his arrival there was 

 known, he was sent for hy the government, and 

 required to render an ascount of what he had 

 done under his commission, within three days. 

 As he had failed to comply with the order, an 

 officer was sent to arrest him on the 6tli of July, 

 1699, but Kidd, being determined not to surren- 

 der, drew his sword upon the officer, and only 

 submitted after he was overpowered by superior 

 force. 



The governor made no delay in sending notice 

 of his arrest to England, and so important was it 

 deemed to secure him ft-om escape, that a man- 

 of-war was fitted out for the purpose, and order- 

 ed to Boston to bring him to England. 



Upon his being arrested in Boston, his plate 

 and other valuable property was seized in New 

 York, but subsequently given up by the govern- 

 ment to his wife, upon lier representation that 

 she had come honestly by it. True to her char- 

 acter as a woman and a wife, she came to Boston 

 and visited her husband in prison, and made a 

 most urgent application to the governor to extend 

 favor towards him. This application, as well as 

 that for the restoration of her property, is anong 

 the curious papers preserved in the secretary's 

 office of the commonwealth. 



The same ill-fortune, which first involved the 

 ministry in a connexion with Kidd, attended 

 their effiirts to remove him to England. The 

 vessel sent out for the purpose, after encountering 

 tren.endous storms, was obliged to put back with- 

 out reaching her destination, and it was openly 

 charged that she dare not bring the matter to the 

 test of a public trial. 



Kidd, however, together with one Bradish, a 

 famous pirate, was at length sent home, where he 

 was indicted and put iqion his trial for murder 

 and piracy. This did not take place until the'Sth 

 of May, 1701, although, as has been stated, his 

 original arrest was made nearly two years prior 

 to that date. * « » » 



In regard to the charge of murder of which he 

 was convicted, it seems to have been the result of 



