There is an old proverb, recommending the selection of a “thief to catch a thief,” which in this instance received a new and singular interpretation. Kidd was probably a thief, or at least a pirate, at heart. No sooner had he reached his destination off the coast of Malabar, than he threw off his sheep’s clothing, and appeared at once the master-wolf in the predatory pack he was sent to destroy. Probably the temptation proved too much for him. With his seamanship, his weight of metal, and his crew, he could outsail, out-manœuvre, and outfight friends and foes alike. It soon occurred to him that the former were easy and lucrative prizes, the latter, bad to capture, and often not worth the trouble when subdued. It was quicker work to gain possession at first hand of silk and spices, cinnamon and sandal-wood, gold, silver, rum, coffee, and tobacco, than to wait till the plunder had been actually seized by another, and then, after fighting hard to retake it, obtain but a jackal’s share from the Home Government. In a short space of time there was but one pirate dreaded from the Cape of Good Hope to the Straits of Malacca, and his name was Kidd. From Surat down to the mouth of the Tap-tee, Captain Kidd ruled like a petty sovereign; Bottle-Jack, if he was to be believed, like a grand vizier. Not only did they take tax and toll from every craft that swam, but they robbed, murdered, and lorded it as unmercifully on dry land. Native merchants, even men of rank and position, were put to torture, for purposes of extortion, by day; peasants burned alive in their huts to illuminate a seaman’s frolic by night. Her crew behaved like devils broke loose ashore, and the ‘Adventure,’ notwithstanding a certain discipline exacted by her commander, was, doubtless, a hell afloat. Money, however, came in rapidly. Kidd, with all his crimes, possessed the elements of success in method, organisation, and power of command. His sailors forgot the horrors they had inflicted and their own degradation when they counted the pile of doubloons that constituted their share of plunder. Amongst the swarm of rovers who then swept the seas, Captain Kidd was considered the most successful, and even in a certain sense, notwithstanding his enormities, the most _respectable_ of all. Bottle-Jack did not appear to think the relation of his adventures in any way derogatory to his own credit. He concluded with the following peroration, establishing his position in the confident tone of a man who is himself convinced of its justice:—