car, and a pipe of Madeira wine, which cost him 19
pounds at New York, he sold for 300 pounds. Strong liquors and gun
powder and ball are the commodities that go off there to best
Advantage, and those four ships last summer carried thither great
quantities of things."

There is another authentic glimpse of Kidd and his men and his spoils,
as viewed by Colonel Robert Quarry,[15] Judge of the Admiralty Court
for the Province of Pennsylvania.

"There is arrived in this Government," he reported, "about 60 pirates
in a ship directly from Madagascar. They are part of Kidd's gang, and
about 20 of them have quitted the Ship and are landed in this
Government. About sixteen more are landed at Cape May in the
Government of West Jersey. The rest of them are still on board the
ship at Anchor near the Cape waiting for a sloop from New York to
unload her. She is a very rich Ship. All her loading is rich East
India Bale Goods to a very great value, besides abundance of money.
The Captain of the Ship is one Shelley of New York and the ship belongs
to Merchants of that place. The Goods are all purchased from the
Pirates at Madagascar which pernicious trade gives encouragement to the
Pirates to continue in those parts, having a Market for all the Goods
they plunder and rob in the Red Sea and several other parts of East
India."

Colonel Quarry caught two of these pirates and lodged them in jail at
Burlington, New Jersey, and later tucked away two others in
Philadelphia jail. From the former two thousand pieces of eight were
taken, a neat little fortune to show that piracy was a paying business.
A few days later Colonel Quarry got wind of no other than Kidd himself
and would have caught him ahead of Bellomont had he been properly
supported. He protested indignantly:

"Since my writing the enclosed I have by the assistance of Col. Bass,
Governor of the Jerseys, apprehended four more of the Pirates at Cape
May and might have with ease secured all the rest of them and the Ship
too, had this Government (Pennsylvania) given me the least aid or
assistance. But they would not so much as issue a Proclamation, but on
the contrary the people have entertained the Pirates, convey'd them
from place to place, furnished them with provisions and liquors, and
given them intelligence, and sheltered them from justice. And now the
greater part of them are conveyed away in boats to Rhode Island. All
the persons I have employed in searching for