bowing to the spectators," while the somber Puritan merchants in
the crowd were, many of them, quietly dealing in the merchandise
fetched home by pirates who were lucky enough to steer clear of
the law.

This was a shady industry in which New York took the more active
part, sending out supplies to the horde of pirates who ravaged
the waters of the Far East and made their haven at Madagascar,
and disposing of the booty received in exchange. Governor
Fletcher had dirtied his hands by protecting this commerce and,
as a result, Lord Bellomont was named to succeed him. Said
William III, "I send you, my Lord, to New York, because an honest
and intrepid man is wanted to put these abuses down, and because
I believe you to be such a man."

Such were the circumstances in which Captain William Kidd,
respectable master mariner in the merchant service, was employed
by Lord Bellomont, royal Governor of New York, New Hampshire, and
Massachusetts, to command an armed ship and harry the pirates of
the West Indies and Madagascar. Strangest of all the sea tales of
colonial history is that of Captain Kidd and his cruise in the
Adventure-Galley. His name is reddened with crimes never
committed, his grisly phantom has stalked through the legends
and literature of piracy, and the Kidd tradition still has magic
to set treasure-seekers exploring almost every beach, cove, and
headland from Halifax to the Gulf of Mexico. Yet if truth were
told, he never cut a throat or made a victim walk the plank. He
was tried and hanged for the trivial offense of breaking the head
of a mutinous gunner of his own crew with a wooden bucket. It was
even a matter of grave legal doubt whether he had committed one