The King’s approval of the adventure having been obtained, the next thing to be done was to find the necessary persons of consideration, willing to put their money in it. Six thousand pounds only were required, of which Livingstone and Kidd each contributed six hundred. The remainder was at once advanced by four of the most powerful men in England at that time, leading men in the King’s Whig Ministry, Somers the Lord Chancellor; the Earl of Orford, the First Lord of the Admiralty; and the two Secretaries of State, the Earl of Romney and the Duke of Shrewsbury. Great men indeed were now in the business, and it was too late for Kidd to back out of it. So far Livingstone had succeeded, probably beyond his wildest hopes. But although these great men were quite willing to risk their moneys in this adventure, they were by no means keen that their names should appear in connection with it. In the grant[1] made to the adventurers by the King of the pirates’ goods and wares to be taken by Kidd, it was expressly stated that his ship, the _Adventure Galley_, had been, with the King’s knowledge and royal encouragement, fitted out to sea at the great and sole charge of the Earl of Bellamont and Sir Edmund Harrison, and four obscure personages, Samuel Newton, John Rowley, George Watson, and Thomas Reynolds, not one of whom had advanced a penny of their own upon it; and it was to these persons, and not to Livingstone, Kidd, or the four King’s ministers that the grant purported to be made on the ground that the King was “graciously inclined that so chargeable an undertaking tending to such good and laudable ends should have meet and proper encouragement.” As a _quid pro quo_ for this highly improper grant, the legality of which was afterwards very seriously called in question in Parliament, the grantees by an indenture of even date therewith agreed to well and truly account for and deliver to the use of His Majesty one full clear tenth part of any vessels, merchandise, moneys, goods, and wares that might be captured by Kidd.