had
been robbed His Majesty of course did not interfere. He granted away,
and could grant away, no rights but his own.

The press for sailors to man the royal navy was at that time so hot that
Kidd could not obtain his full complement of hands in the Thames. He
crossed the Atlantic, visited New York, and there found volunteers in
abundance. At length, in February 1697, he sailed from the Hudson with a
crew of more than a hundred and fifty men, and in July reached the coast
of Madagascar.

It is possible that Kidd may at first have meant to act in accordance
with his instructions. But, on the subject of piracy, he held the
notions which were then common in the North American colonies; and most
of his crew were of the same mind. He found himself in a sea which was
constantly traversed by rich and defenceless merchant ships; and he had
to determine whether he would plunder those ships or protect them. The
gain which might be made by plundering them was immense, and might be
snatched without the dangers of a battle or the delays of a trial. The
rewards of protecting the lawful trade were likely to be comparatively
small. Such as they were, they would be got only by first fighting with
desperate ruffians who would rather be killed than taken, and by
then instituting a proceeding and obtaining a judgment in a Court of
Admiralty. The risk of being called to a severe reckoning might not
unnaturally seem small to one who had seen many old buccaneers living
in comfort and credit at New York and Boston. Kidd soon threw off the
character of a privateer, and became a pirate. He established friendly
communications, and exchanged arms and ammunition, with the most
notorious of those rovers whom his commission authorised him to destroy,
and made war on those peaceful traders whom he was sent to defend. He
began by robbing Mussulmans, and speedily proceeded from Mussulmans to
Armenians, and from Armenians to Portuguese. The Adventure Galley took
such quantities of cotton and silk, sugar and coffee, cinnamon and
pepper, that the very foremast men received from a hundred to two
hundred pounds each, and that the captain's share of the spoil would
have enabled him to live at home as an opulent gentleman. With the
rapacity Kidd had the cruelty of his odious calling. He burned houses;
he massacred peasantry. His prisoners were tied up and beaten with naked
cutlasses in order to extort information about their concealed hoards.
One of his cre