much; they hated
the mild majesty of his virtue still more. They sought occasion against
him everywhere; and they at length flattered themselves that they had
found it.

Some years before, while the war was still raging, there had been loud
complaints in the city that even privateers of St. Malo's and Dunkirk
caused less molestation to trade than another class of marauders. The
English navy was fully employed in the Channel, in the Atlantic, and in
the Mediterranean. The Indian Ocean, meanwhile, swarmed with pirates of
whose rapacity and cruelty frightful stories were told. Many of these
men, it was said, came from our North American colonies, and carried
back to those colonies the spoils gained by crime. Adventurers who
durst not show themselves in the Thames found a ready market for their
illgotten spices and stuffs at New York. Even the Puritans of New
England, who in sanctimonious austerity surpassed even their brethren of
Scotland, were accused of conniving at the wickedness which enabled them
to enjoy abundantly and cheaply the produce of Indian looms and Chinese
tea plantations.

In 1695 Richard Coote, Earl of Bellamont, an Irish peer who sate in
the English House of Commons, was appointed Governor of New York
and Massachusets. He was a man of eminently fair character, upright,
courageous and independent. Though a decided Whig, he had distinguished
himself by bringing before the Parliament at Westminster some tyrannical
acts done by Whigs at Dublin, and particularly the execution, if it is
not rather to be called the murder, of Gafney. Before Bellamont sailed
for America, William spoke strongly to him about the freebooting which
was the disgrace of the colonies. "I send you, my Lord, to New York," he
said, "because an honest and intrepid man is wanted to put these abuses
down, and because I believe you to be such a man." Bellamont exerted
himself to justify the high opinion which the King had formed of him. It
was soon known at New York that the Governor who had just arrived from
England was bent on the suppression of piracy; and some colonists in
whom he placed great confidence suggested to him what they may perhaps
have thought the best mode of attaining that object. There was then in
the settlement a veteran mariner named William Kidd. He had passed most
of his life on the waves, had distinguished himself by his seamanship,
had had opportunities of showing his valour in action with the French,
and had retire