Kidd in the meantime had been left to his fate. He was tried with his crew on several indictments for murder and piracy at the Admiralty Sessions of the Old Bailey, and hung in 1701. He must have prospered greatly in his short and infamous career. According to Luttrell, his effects were valued at £200,000, and one witness alone, Cogi Baba, a Persian merchant, charged him with robbing him in the Persian Gulf of £60,000. No case was made out against the above mentioned peers. Lord Orford set up in his defence that in Kidd's affair he had acted legally, and with a good intention towards the public, though to his own loss; and Lord Somers denied that he had ever seen or known anything of Kidd. Hume sums up the matter by declaring that "the Commons in the whole course of the transaction had certainly acted from motives of faction and revenge." Other ventures are of interest. John Gow, who took the piratical name of Captain Smith, was second mate of the _George_ galley, which he conspired with half the crew to seize when on the voyage to Santa Cruz. On a given signal, the utterance of a password, "Who fires first?" an attack was made on the first mate, surgeon, and supercargo, whose throats were cut. The captain, hearing a noise, came on deck, when one mutineer cut his throat, and a second fired a couple of balls into his body. The ship's company consisted of twenty: four were now disposed of, eight were conspirators, and of the remaining eight, some of whom had concealed themselves below decks and some in the shrouds, four had joined the pirates. The other four were closely watched, and although allowed to range the ship at pleasure, were often cruelly beaten. The ship was rechristened _The Revenge_; she mounted several guns, and the pirates steered her for the coast of Spain, where several prizes were taken—the first a ship laden with salted cod from Newfoundland, the second a Scotch ship bound to Italy with a cargo of pickled herrings, the third a French ship laden with oil, wine, and fruit. The pirates also made a descent upon the Portuguese coast and laid the people under contributions.