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HISTORY OF THE SEA. 



carried thirty guns and sixty men. Kidd departed from Ply- 

 mouth in April, 1696, and arrived off the American coast in 

 July following. He occasionally entered the port of New York, 

 where he was cordially received, as he was considered useful in 

 protecting its commerce. For this service the Assembly voted 

 him the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds sterling. 



He now added ninety-five men to his crew, who shipped to go 

 to Madagascar in pursuit of pirates. He then sailed for the 

 East Indies, and, while on his way, resolved, possessing as he 

 did a vessel manned and equipped like a frigate, to turn pirate 

 himself. He seems to have found ready listeners in the licen- 

 tious creatures of whom he had composed his crew. He arrived 

 off the Malabar coast, in Hindostan, where he pillaged vessels 

 manned by Indian, Arab, and Christian crews. He lay in wait 

 for a convoy laden with treasure, but, finding it well guarded, 

 abandoned the attempt. He landed from time to time, burned 

 settlements, murdered and tortured the inhabitants, and placed 

 a price upon the heads of such persons as he thought their 

 friends would ransom. He was once pursued by two Portu- 

 guese men-of-war, whom he fought and then contrived to elude. 

 He captured a merchantman named the Quedagh, and, refusing 

 the offered ransom of thirty thousand rupees, sold her and her 

 cargo at a pirates' rendezvous for forty thousand dollars. He 

 exchanged the Adventure for a larger vessel, and established 

 himself at Madagascar. Here he lay in ambush, plundering the 

 flags of every nation. He made himself dreaded, as a bloody, 

 cruel, and remorseless bandit, from Malabar and the Red Sea 

 across the Atlantic to the West Indies and the American coast. 

 He arrived at New York in 1698, laden, it is asserted, with 

 more spoil than ever fell to the lot of any other individual. He 

 found Bellamont Governor in place of Fletcher, and deemed it 

 necessary to conceal his treasures. He sailed along the shore 

 of Long Island as far as Gardiner's Island, at the eastern end. 

 He here disembarked, and, in the presence of Mr. John Gar- 



