HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
45 
advantages they derived from a place of shelter, a defence 
so secure in itself, so remote from the civilized world, and 
at the same time so spontaneously rich in all the necessaries 
of life, that it seems to have required the combined force of 
many of the powers of Europe to drive them from their 
retreats on this coast. 
Amongst the settlements described by Johnson in his 
Voyages of the Pirates, are some of so important a character 
as to render it highly probable they may have had consi¬ 
derable influence upon the manners and customs of the 
natives in the immediate vicinity. Among those who visited 
the coast of Madagascar, perhaps the most remarkable in his 
piratical career was Captain William Kid, who in the reign of 
William the Third received a commission from that monarch, 
to go out in the charge of a ship, with 66 full power and au¬ 
thority to apprehend, seize, and take into custody all pirates, 
freebooters, and sea-rovers, which he should meet upon the 
seas, or upon the coast of any country.” 
With this commission, captain Kid sailed in the Adventure 
galley of thirty guns with eighty men, and directed his course 
to Madagascar, the great resort of such marauders as he 
was in search of. For some time he cruised about in the 
neighbourhood of this island, but the pirate ships being 
most of them out in search of prey, his provisions and re¬ 
sources began to diminish, while his hopes of success became 
increasingly faint. While he continued in this state, he 
began to think of abandoning the object for which he had 
been sent out, and Anally made known to his crew the design 
he had conceived of becoming himself a pirate. The scheme 
was but too readily adopted by his comrades, who, under the 
command of their unprincipled leader, commenced a course 
of lawless cruelty and bloodshed, which terminated in the ap¬ 
prehension, trial, and execution of their traitorous leader. 
