That the said _Adventure Gally_ was launched in Castle's Yard at Deptford[2] about the 4th day of December 1695, and about the latter end of February the said Gally came to the buoy in the Nore, and about the first Day of March following, his men were pressed from him for the Fleet, which caused him to stay there 19 Days,[3] and then sailed for the Downs, and arrived there about the 8th or 10th Day of April 1696; and sailed thence for Plymouth, and on the 23d Day of the said month of April he sailed from Plymouth on his intended Voyage, and some time in the month of May met with a small French Vessel with Salt and Fishing Tackle on board, bound for Newfoundland, which he took and made Prize of and carried the same into New-York, about the 4th day of July, where she was condemned as lawful Prize, the produce whereof purchased Provisions for the said Gally for her further intended Voyage. [Footnote 2: Three miles down the Thames from London Bridge. The Nore was a sandbank at the mouth of the river; the Downs is the roadstead off Deal.] [Footnote 3: "At the Buoy in the Nore Captain Steward, commander of the _Duchess_, took away all my ship's crew; but Admiral Russell [one of Kidd's owners], upon my application to him at Sittingbourne, caused my men to be restored to me." Kidd's protest; Hist. MSS. Comm., _Manuscripts of the Duke of Portland_, VIII. 80. England and France were at war from 1689 to the peace of Ryswyk, Sept. 20, 1697 (War of the Grand Alliance, King William's War). In such times the royal navy always relied, for its supply of men, upon impressment, especially of merchant seamen. See J.R. Hutchinson, _The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore_ (London, 1913).]