[Footnote 1: Public Record Office, C.O. 323:2, no. 124 I. William Kidd, the most famous pirate in American history, was a Scot, born in Dundee in 1654. In 1689-1690, in command of a captured ship, he took a creditable part in the attacks on Mariegalante and St. Martin's by Captain Hewetson, who at Kidd's trial testified to his bravery; but a few weeks later his men, ex-pirates apparently, ran away with his ship. _Cal. St. P. Col._, 1689-1692, pp. 122, 226, 227; Hargrave, _State Trials_, V. 326. In 1689 he settled in New York, where he seems to have been well regarded; in the record of his marriage license, May 16, 1691 (_N.E. Hist. Gen. Reg._, VI. 63) he is styled "William Kidd, Gentleman," and two days earlier the New York assembly (_Journal_, ed. 1764, I. 6, 13) voted him a gratuity of L150 for services in connection with the arrival of Governor Sloughter. In 1695, Kidd being then in England, Robert Livingston of New York arranged in London with Lord Bellomont, who had been designated but not yet commissioned as a governor in America, and with others, for a privateering voyage under Kidd's command. Other sharetakers were Sir Edward Russell, first lord of the admiralty, Sir John Somers, lord keeper of the great seal, the Duke of Shrewsbury, secretary of state, and the Earl of Romney, master-general of the ordnance; and the king himself was to receive one-tenth of the profits of the cruise. Kidd's letter of marque, dated Dec. 11, 1695, is in Hargrave's _State Trials_, V. 307. To it was added, Jan. 26, 1696, _ibid._, 308, a commission to apprehend pirates. Kidd sailed from England in April, 1696, in the _Adventure Galley_, 287 tons, 34 guns, 70 men. At New York he increased his crew to 155 men (there is a list of them in _Cal. St. Pap. Col._, 1700, p. 199), and sailed thence in September for Madagascar and the East Indies. Whether it was by his fault that the _Adventure Galley_ slipped from privateering and the search for pirates into acts of piracy, or whether, as Kidd alleged, his men forced his hand, has been doubted, but it is probable that he shared the guilt. In the summer of 1698 complaints began to come in from India and from the East India Company, and in November, 1698, orders were sent to the governors of colonies in America to apprehend Kidd as a pirate whenever he should appear. The ensuing papers, especially his own narrative and Bellomont's letters, tell the story of his arrival and arrest. As under Massachusetts law he could not be condemned to death for piracy, he was, probably illegally, carried to England in the spring of 1700, and there tried at the Old Bailey for the murder of one of his men and for piracy. After an unfair trial and on insufficient evidence, he was condemned, and was hanged at Execution Dock May 23, 1701.