“You are ruining us all. You are keeping us in beggary and starvation. But for your whims we might all be prosperous and rich.” The captain was by no means a meek man. In his ungovernable passion he seized an iron-bound bucket, which chanced to be lying at his side, and gave the mutineer such a blow as fractured his skull and struck him senseless to the deck. Of the wound the gunner died the next day. Not many will feel disposed to censure Captain Kidd very severely for this act. It was not a premeditated murder. It was perhaps a necessary deed, in quelling a mutiny, in which the mutineers were demanding that the black flag of the pirate should be raised, and which demand the captain was resisting. And yet it is probable that this blow sent Kidd to the gallows. Upon his subsequent trial, but little evidence of piracy could be adduced, and the death of Moore was the prominent charge brought against him. Kidd ever averred that it was a virtuous act, and that it did not trouble his conscience. It was done to prevent piracy and mutiny. He also averred that he had no intention to _kill_ the man. Had he so intended he would have used pistol or sabre. In the ballad which, half a century ago, was sung in hundreds of farm-houses in New England, the lullaby of infancy, the event is alluded to in the following words: “I murdered William Moore, as I sailed, as I sailed, I murdered William Moore as I sailed; I murdered William Moore, and left him in his gore, Not many leagues from shore, as I sailed.” We will give a few more verses to show the general character of this ballad of twenty-five stanzas, once so popular, now forgotten: “My name was William Kidd, when I sailed, when I sailed, My name was William Kidd when I sailed, My name was William Kidd, God’s laws I did forbid, And so wickedly I did when I sailed. “Thus being o’ertaken at last, I must die, I must die, Thus being o’ertaken at last, I must die; Thus being o’ertaken at last, and into prison cast, And sentence being pass’d, I must die. “To Newgate now I’m cast, and must die, and must die, To Newgate now I’m cast, and must die, To Newgate now I’m cast, with sad and heavy heart, To receive my just desert, I must die. “To Execution Dock I must go, I must go, To Execution Dock I must go; To Execution Dock will many thousands flock, But I must bear my shock, and must die. “Come all ye young and old, see me die, see me die, Come all ye young and old, see me die; Come all ye young and old, you’re welcome to my gold, For by it I’ve lost my soul, and must die.”