Chapter II: Of Captain William Kid

Commanded a privateer in the West Indies--Recommended
to the Government by Lord Bellamont, &c.--Not
encouraged--He is sent out in a private
man-of-war with the King’s commission--He
sails for New York--In his way takes a French
banker--Arrived there--Ships more hands--Sails to
Madeira, Bonavista, Cape de Verde Islands, and
Madagascar--Meets three English men-of-war--Meets
with nothing at Madagascar--Goes to the Malabar
coast--Cruises about Mohila and Johanna--Borrows
money and repairs his ship--At Mabbee he takes some
corn--From thence steers for Bab’s Key--He sends a
boat along the coast, and gains intelligence--He
falls in with a fleet, but is obliged to sheer
off--Goes to the Malabar coast--Takes a Moorish
vessel--Treats the men cruelly, and discharges
the vessel--Touches at Carawar, and is suspected
of piracy--Engages a Portuguese man-of-war sent
after him and gets off--Takes a Moor ship under
pretence of her being French--Keeps company
with a Dutch ship--Quarrels with and kills
his gunner--Plunders a Portuguese ship on the
Malabar coast and lets her go--His cooper is
murdered in one of the Malabar Islands--He burns
and pillages several houses--Commands a native
to be shot--He takes the _Queda_, and shares
£200 a man amongst his crew--He cheats the
Indians--Goes to Madagascar--Meets there Culliford
the pirate--Shifts into the _Queda_, and shares
the rest of her cargo--His men desert from him
to forty--Goes to Amboyna--hears he is declared
a pirate in England--Lord Bellamont prints his
justification--A pardon granted to pirates--Avery
and Kid excepted--Kid goes to, and is secured at,
New York--Some of his crew depending on the pardon,
are confined--Sent to England and condemned--Three
excepted--A distinction of the lawyers--Kid found
guilty of the murder of his gunner--Some plead the
king’s pardon to no purpose--Mullins’s plea--Kid’s
plea useless--He and his men indicted--Executed 257