As a result of these instructions, Captain William Kidd was employed to hunt the pirates down by sea while Governor Bellomont made it hot for the unscrupulous merchants ashore who were, no doubt, the ancestors of the modern American profiteers in food and clothing, who are also most respectable men. Captain Kidd was a merchant shipmaster of brave and honorable repute who had a comfortable home in Liberty Street, New York, was married to a widow of good family, and was highly esteemed by the Dutch and English people of the town. A shrewd trader who made money for his owners, he was also a fighting seaman of such proved mettle that he had been given command of privateers which cruised off the coasts of the colonies and harried the French in the West Indies. His excellent reputation and character are attested by official documents. [Illustration: ARMED WITH AS MANY OF THE AFOREMENTIONED WEAPONS AS THEY COULD WELL SLING ABOUT THEIR BODIES] How Captain Kidd, sent out to catch pirates, was convicted of turning pirate himself rather than sail home empty-handed is another story. Fate has played strange tricks with the memory of this seventeenth-century seafarer who never cut a throat or scuttled a ship, and who was hanged at Execution Dock for the excessively unromantic crime of cracking the skull of his mutinous gunner with a wooden bucket. Poor Captain Barnabas Lincoln of Boston, having lost his schooner and cargo, was righteously indignant at discovering how the infamous business was carried on. Said he: I was informed by a line from Nikola that the pirates had a man on board, a native of Principe, who in the garb of a sailor was a partner with Dominico, but I could not get sight of him. This lets us a little into the plan by which this atrocious system has been conducted. Merchants having partners on board of these pirates! Thus pirates at sea and robbers on land are associated to destroy the peaceful trader. Nikola remained true to Captain Lincoln, even sending him a letter from Principe to tell him about the disposition of the stolen cargo and what prices it was fetching. In this letter he revealed the fact that his true name was Jamieson and concluded with this romantic flight: Perhaps in your old age, when you recline with ease in a corner of your cottage, you will have the goodness to drop a tear of pleasure to the memory of him whose highest ambition should have been to subscribe himself, though devoted to the gallows, your friend, NIKOLA MONACRE. Another streak of sentiment was discovered in one of the _Exertion’s_ sailors, Francis De Suze, a Portuguese, who finally weakened and decided to join the outlaws. He was won over by the artful persuasions of his fellow-countryman, Lieutenant Bolidar of the ferocious mien and lion-like voice. To Captain Lincoln he explained, with tears in his eyes: