and daily communication with them. Whether any pirates made their
submission to him does not appear; but it is probable that his presence
strengthened the resolution to obtain pardon of those who had previously
engaged themselves to Warren; among them Culliford and Chivers. The fact
is that piracy was looked upon then more leniently than we should now
regard it. Plundering and ill-treating Asiatics was a venial offence, and
many a seaman after a cruise with the pirates returned to his calling on
board an honest merchantman, without being thought much the worse for it.

Among all the naval officers sent to the Indian seas at that time, Warren
appears to have been the only one who really tried to protect the Company's
interests. Littleton quarrelled with Sir Nicholas Waite, and had
questionable dealings with the Madagascar pirates. Richards and Harland
quarrelled with Sir John Gayer, and crippled the Company's ships by
forcibly pressing their sailors to fill up their own crews; while Matthews
exceeded them all in outrageous behaviour, as will be recounted in its
place.

After capturing the _Quedah Merchant_, Kidd shaped his course for
Madagascar, where he found Culliford in the _Resolution_, who at first
treated him with suspicion, hearing that he had a commission to capture
pirates. But Kidd soon reassured him over sundry cups of bombo, protesting
with many oaths that 'his soul should fry in hell' sooner than that he
should hurt a hair of one of Culliford's crew; and, as a proof of good
will, presented him with two guns and an anchor. Then, finding the
_Adventure_ had become unseaworthy, he abandoned her, and sailed for New
England in the _Quedah Merchant_. In June, 1799, he reached Boston.

Before his arrival, he heard he had been proclaimed a pirate, so he
deputed a friend to approach Lord Bellamont on his behalf. The _Quedah