had like to have involved me in a Contract that would have been very chargeable and to no manner of purpose, as he has ordered Matters. I was advised by Counsel to dispatch a Ship of good Countenance to go and fetch away that Ship and Cargo. I had agreed for a Ship of 300 tons, 22 Guns, and I was to man her with 60 men, to force (if there had been need of it) the Men to yield who were left with the Ship. I was just going to seal the writing, when I bethought myself it were best to presse Kidd once more to tell me Truth: I therefore sent to him Two Gentlemen of the Councel to the Goal, and he at last owned That he had left a power with one Mr. Henry Bolton, a Marchand of Antegoa whom he had Committed the Care of the Ship to, to sell and dispose of all the Cargo: upon which Confession of Kidds I held my hand from hireing that great Ship, which would have cost 1700 L. by Computation. And now to-morrow I send the Sloop Captain Kidd came in, with Letters to the Lieutenant Governor of Antegoa, Colonel Yeomans, to the Governors of St. Thomas's Island and Curacao, to seize and secure what effects they can, that was late in the possession of Kidd, and on board the _Quidah-Marchand_. There is one Burk, an Englishman, that lives at St. Thomas, who has got a great Store of the goods and mony for Kidd's account. St. Thomas belongs to the Danes, but I hope to retrieve what Burt has in his Hands.[11] The sending this Sloop will cost but about 300 L. if she be out Three moneths. I hope your Lordships will take care, that immediate orders be sent to Antegoa to secure Bolton, who must have plaid the Knave egregiously; for he could not but know that Kidd came knavishly by that Ship and Goods. It is reported That the Dutch of Curacao have loaded Three Sloops with those Goods, and sent them to Holland; perhaps it were not amiss to send and watch their Arrivall in Holland, if it be practicable to lay Claim to them there. [Footnote 10: Titus Oates, the scurrilous and perjured informer, wonderfully successful with his "Popish Plot" in 1679 and 1680, thrown into prison, under heavy irons, in 1684. He was still living in 1699. His doctoral degree ("D.D. of Salamanca") was spurious.] [Footnote 11: The reply of the governor of St. Thomas is doc. no. 83.] Since my Committment of Kidd, I hear That upon his approach to this port, his heart misgave him, and he proposed to his Men the putting to Sea again and going to Caledonia,[12] the new Scotch Settlement near Darien, but they refused. [Footnote 12: Caledonia was the settlement on the isthmus of Panama to which the Darien Company, amid so much enthusiasm on the part of the Scottish nation (see Macaulay's twenty-fourth chapter), had sent out its colony in 1698. The settlement had proved a disastrous failure and had been abandoned, and the ships bringing away the wretched survivors were already approaching New York, but neither Kidd nor Bellomont yet knew this.]