His arrest in Boston (preface to Vol 17)B093 Capt. Kidd, also, was "a Scotch" (621) and at one time had thoughts of throwing in his lot with the settlement at Caledonia (p. 369). The Darien Expedition had been to a large extent manned by officers and soldiers of the rank and file thrown out of employment by the Peace of Ryswick. A host of desperadoes had also been set free by the cessation of the more legitimate industry of privateering. With the declaration of Peace they found their occupation gone, and at the same time they were tempted by the prizes of the Red Sea traffic, and by the discovery that a rich trade was being carried on unprotected by a naval force. The era of buccaneering, in which there had been some spice of patriotism, was therefore succeeded by an era of unmitigated piracy. Such was the case of Kidd, who having started as a privateer, partly financed by Bellomont himself, was now known to have committed several "notorious acts of piracy" on the coast of Malabar. Preparations had already been made at home for sending a squadron to Madagascar, "the great rendezvous of pirates . . to suppress them there" and at St. Mary's (15, 740 XII.), as well as for issuing Proclamations exempting Kidd and the notorious Every from pardon (p. 6). Upon the representations of the East India Company, letters were dispatched by Mr. Secretary Vernon (Nov. 23, 1698) to the Governors of the Plantations, which resulted in a general hue and cry after Kidd and his fellows. On May 18, 1699, the President and Council of Nevis wrote that they had news of Kidd. It appears that after leaving New York he had sailed to Madeira, and thence, after touching at Bonavista and St. Jago, to Madagascar. He then made his way to the Red Sea, and failing to capture any prizes there, cruized off Calicut till he took a small ship laden with cotton, which he carried to Madagascar in May, 1698. Five weeks later he seized the Quidah Merchant, a vessel of 400 tons, commanded by one Wright, an Englishman, which he carried into St. Mary's, and there shared the goods with his company, which then numbered some 115 men. He had next sailed from Madagascar in the Quidah Merchant; touched at Anguilla at the end of April, and, failing to obtain supplies there, made for St. Thomas'. The Danish Governor also refusing to help him, he had sailed for Porto Rico. The President and Council of Nevis thereupon ordered H.M.S. Queenborough in search of him (404). She returned from a wild-goose chase with news from the Virgin Islands (501) that Kidd had gone to leeward, it was thought to Darien. At the beginning of June (495) he appeared in Delaware Bay. The Quaker Government would take no notice of him, or of the trafficking of the inhabitants with him. But Col. Quary despatched an express to the Governor of Virginia for a man-of-war. A month later Lord Bellomont had the satisfaction of announcing that he had secured Kidd (July 6th) and that he was now in irons in Boston gaol (Nos. 578, 621 and p. 369). Bellomont had conducted the affair with considerable shrewdness. Kidd had endeavoured to extract a promise of pardon before landing at Boston, and, with a view to making terms, he tried to bribe the Governor by presents of jewels and ingots to Lady Bellomont (pp. 334, 367). Bellomont, who had kept Mr. Vernon's orders for the arrest of Kidd secret, promised the pirate pardon if he should prove "as innocent as he pretended to be"; and only arrested him when he "looked as if he were upon the wing." His defence (preface to Vol 17)B093 Kidd, of course, had some explanation to offer (680 XXV). He had done nothing contrary to his commission "against the King's enemies, and pirates, and those sailing with improper passes," save what a mutinous crew had compelled him to do. The Moorish ships he had seized by mistake; they were sailing under French passes and he supposed them to be lawful prize. On discovering his error he would have delivered the Quidah Merchant up, but his men "violently fell upon him and thrust him into his cabin and carried her into Madagascar" (680 IV.). Other evidence, however, shows that "he was very crude to his men and abused them, especially such as did not adhere to those evil practices." At St. Mary's the Adventure galley, the ship in which he had sailed from Plymouth in 1696, and which had become unseaworthy, was unloaded and burned, and the pirates evidently fell out among themselves. Ninety of Kidd's men deserted him and sailed away in the Mocha frigate, under one Capt. Culliver, "bound out to take all nations" (p. 377). Perhaps his crew were envious of Kidd's 40 shares of the plunder. At any rate there were ugly scenes. We catch a glimpse of Kidd, besieged by his murderous crew, "locking himself into his cabin at night"—the cabin in which a merchant of Barbados had "died suddenly" (680 XXV.) in January—"and barricading it with bales and having about 40 small arms besides pistols ready charged" to keep them out (680 XXV.); and, again, when they had broken open and rifled his chest, "Kidd in a passion struck his gunner with an iron-bound bucket" (890 XII.) and killed him. Buried treasure (preface to Vol 17)B093 From Madagascar Kidd sailed in the Quidah Merchant. But on learning at Anguilla that he and his people were proclaimed pirates, he ran his ship into a creek upon the coast of Hispaniola. "A sheet of paper will not contain what may be said of the care I took to preserve the owners' interest and to come home to clear my innocency" (680 VI.). From this spot he traded with Bolton, a merchant of Antegoa, (fn. 1) and with Burke, an Irishman, of St. Thomas'. The cargo of the Quidah Merchant was shipped off in sloops and sold at St. Thomas' and Curaçoa (p. 489). Kidd purchased a sloop from Bolton, loaded her with plunder, and, leaving the Quidah Merchant in Bolton's hands in a lagoon on the coast of Hispaniola, coasted along the shores of Pennsylvania, and communicated with his friends in New York. He touched at various spots well known as "receptacles" of pirates' goods, and landed bales and chests in Delaware Bay, Block Island, and Gardiner's Island (680 XI.). When this was accomplished he opened negotiations with Bellomont from Long Island (621). He can hardly have expected that the story of his innocence would prove convincing. He probably relied upon purchasing his pardon or escape by bribing the Governor and his gaolers (pp. 334, 369). For in addition to his jewels and gold dust, and his diamond-buttoned waistcoat (746) he had strong cards to play in the buried treasure (pp. 367, 368) and the hidden pirate-ship, whose identity he endeavoured to conceal. But just as a ship was being despatched from Boston in search of the Quidah Merchant, the master of a trading vessel reported that he had seen her on fire. "There never was a greater liar or thief in the world than this Kidd," Bellomont exclaimed in exasperation (p. 369), and set himself to recover what he could of the pirate's deposits. But of all the rumoured "near half a million sterling on board in bullion" (740 XIII.), only a few thousands were traced and seized (p. 368). A document (740 XX.), so romantically rotten that it might serve as a frontispiece for one of Stevenson's novels, gives Kidd's inventory of the treasure in his chest deposited in friendly hands on Gardiner's Island. In view of contemporary and subsequent belief in the value of the cargo of the Quidah Merchant, it is worth observing that, whilst Kidd suggested that the value of the cargo of the "great ship left . . where nobody but himself could find out" was £300,000 (p. 366), Bellomont himself estimated the value of it at not more than £70,000 (621), chiefly in perishable bale-goods. There is, besides, abundant indication in this volume that the deposits made by Kidd, like the main cargo, were at the disposal of his friends. Finally, the fact that the Quidah Merchant "was apparently never found" (fn. 1) is not strange in view of the evidence that she was burned (680 X.), probably by Kidd's orders, after having been emptied by his agents, in order to avoid identification (p. 369).