"You captains brave and bold, hear our cries, hear our cries, You captains brave and bold, hear our cries. You captains brave and bold, though you seem uncontrolled, Don't for the sake of gold lose your souls, lose your souls, Don't for the sake of gold lose your souls." (_From the old Kidd ballad._) The negotiations between Kidd and the Earl of Bellomont were no more creditable to the royal governor than to the alleged pirate. Already the noble partners in England were bombarded with awkward questions concerning the luckless enterprise, and Bellomont, anxious to clear himself and his friends, was for getting hold of Kidd and putting him in Boston jail at the earliest possible moment. He dared not reveal the true status of affairs to Kidd by means of correspondence lest that wary bird escape him, and he therefore tried to coax him nearer in a letter sent back in care of Emmot, that experienced legal adviser of pirates in distress. This letter of Bellomont was dated June 19, 1699, and had this to say: _Captain Kidd:_ Mr. Emmot came to me last Tuesday night late, telling me he came from you, but was shy of telling me where he parted with you, nor did I press him to it. He told me you came to Oyster Bay in Nassau Island and sent for him to New York. He proposed to me from you that I would grant you a pardon. I answered that I had never granted one yet, and that I had set myself a safe rule not to grant a pardon to anybody whatsoever without the King's express leave or command. He told me you declared and protested your innocence, and that if your men could be persuaded to follow your example, you would make no manner of scruple of coming to this port or any other within her Majestie's Dominions; that you owned there were two ships taken but that your men did it violently against your will and had us'd you barbarously in imprisoning you and treating you ill most part of the Voyage, and often attempting to murder you. Mr. Emmot delivered me two French passes taken on board the two ships which your men rifled, which passes I have in my custody and I am apt to believe they will be a good Article to justifie you if the peace were not, by the Treaty between England and France, to operate in that part of the world at the time the hostility was committed, as I almost confident it was not to do! Mr. Emmot also told me that you had to about the value of 10,000 pounds in the Sloop with you, and that you had left a Ship somewhere off the coast of Hispaniola in which there was to the Value of 30,000 pounds more which you had left in safe hands and had promised to go to your people in that Ship within three months to fetch them with you to a safe harbour.