As to Capt. Kidd’s defence, he insisted much on his own innocence, and the villany of his men. He said, he went out in a laudable employment and had no occasion, being then in good circumstances, to go a pirating; that the men often mutinied against him, and did as they pleased; that he was threatened to be shot in the cabin, and that ninety-five left him at one time, and set fire to his boat, so that he was disabled from bringing his ship home, or the prizes he took, to have them regularly condemned, which he said were taken by virtue of a commission under the broad seal, they having French passes. The captain called one Col. Hewson to his reputation, who gave him an extraordinary character, and declared to the court, that he had served under his command, and been in two engagements with him against the French, in which he fought as well as any man he ever saw; that there were only Kidd’s ship and his own against Monsieur du Cass, who commanded a squadron of six sail, and they got the better of him. But this being several years before the facts mentioned in the indictment were committed, proved of no manner of service to the prisoner on his trial. As to the friendship shown to Culliford, a notorious pirate, Kidd denied, and said, he intended to have taken him, but his men being a parcel of rogues and villains refused to stand by him, and several of them ran away from his ship to the said pirate.—But the evidence being full and particular against him, he was found guilty as before mentioned. When Kidd was asked what he had to say why sentence should not pass against him, he answered, that _he had nothing to say, but that he had been sworn against by perjured and wicked people_. And when sentence was pronounced, he said, _my Lord, it is a very hard sentence. For my part, I am the most innocent person of them all, only I have been sworn against by perjured persons._ Wherefore about a week after, Capt. Kidd, Nicholas Churchill, James How, Gabriel Loff, Hugh Parrot, Abel Owen, and Darby Mullins, were executed at Execution Dock, and afterwards hung up in chains, at some distance from each other, down the river, where their bodies hung exposed for many years. CAPTAIN TEW. Before I enter on the adventures of this pirate I must take notice to the reader of the reasons which made me not continue the life of Misson. In reading the notes, which I have by me, relating to Capt. Tew, I found him joined with Misson; and that I must be either guilty of repetition, or give an account of Tew in Misson’s life, which is contrary to the method I proposed, that of giving a distinct relation of every pirate who has made any figure: and surely Tew, in point of gallantry, was inferior to none, and may justly claim a particular account of his actions. However, before I enter on the life of this pirate, I shall continue that of Misson to the time that these two commanders met.