We all have read and listened to the marvellous tales of that jaunty terror of the seas, Captain William Kidd, and been brought up from childhood on the mournful ballad of William Moore—household names both of them—but how many remember the importance of the influence exercised in those days by the governor of New York, Richard Coote, Earl of Bellomont, in the formation of the expedition organized by the former and in the apprehension of the culprit for the murder of the latter. The times were scandalously corrupt and corrupt individuals lived extravagantly up to the times. Land-grabbing was practised as an art in New York then as it is practised in Oregon today. Indian rings and land grants were common and notorious and flourished brazenly. Officers of the Crown who should have crushed them were often ringleaders in organizing them; ministers of the gospel, who should have interceded for and protected the innocent child of the forest, basely betrayed their trust, and were leagued in corruption to acquire vast tracts of valuable land from the confiding aboriginal owner. The governor of the province seldom arose above his environment. As a rule he possessed no capabilities for the position. If he were not bankrupt he was ignorant, or a degenerate representative of the nobility, despatched to New York to repair or redeem his shattered fortune or to make one by whatever means he might employ, the province being regarded by the home authorities as a common receptacle to be utilized for the purposes named. Sympathy for the colonists on the part of a governor was displayed as seldom as integrity or interest in the future of the province. The ambition of the governor seemed to be bounded by perquisites and he generally left the shores of New York for England with a fortune that placed him on a plane with the richest men of the old world. Privateering was a prolific source of revenue. No man with ready cash disdained identity with it. It was countenanced by so gracious a ruler as William III, who encouraged and patronized it. A change of flag only was necessary to convert an innocent privateer into a ferocious and bloodthirsty pirate. These wild rovers of the sea respected neither vessel nor nation. Many bore commissions from James II and from William III and many bore none at all. Governor Fletcher was their acknowledged friend and alleged co-partner in their villainies. New York City was their recognized headquarters.