“Their wickedness was so great that after they had plundered and ransacked sufficiently, they went five miles off to one Edward Welche’s house, where his, the Narrator’s chest was lodged, and broke it open and took out ten ounces of gold, 40 pound of plate, 370 pieces of eight, the Narrator’s Journal, and a great many papers that belonged to him and the People of New York that fitted them out.” “About the fifteenth of June, the _Moca Frigate_ went away, being manned with about 130 men and forty guns bound out to take all nations. It was then that the Narrator was left only with 13 men, so that the Moors he had to pump and keep the _Adventure Galley_ above water being carried away, she sank in the harbour, and the Narrator with the said thirteen men went on board the _Adventure Prize_.” Let us try to put ourselves in Kidd’s place, when the bulk of his men went over to the enemy. Forcibly deprived of his command at the moment when he saw success within his grasp; deserted by nearly all his crew; plundered of the greater part of the spoil he was taking home to his employers; on board the sinking _Adventure Galley_; confined to his stifling cabin with its barricaded approaches. What course can it be suggested that he could have taken and have been held blameless by an English court? What course ought any man to have taken in his place who sought to do his duty by his owners? It would have been a mercy to him and to his memory, if the mutineers had then and there made an end of him. But to have done this, they must have stormed his cabin, and they dared not try it. They knew his fighting record. They had been with him in his encounter with the Portuguese man-of-war. None knew better than they that he would sell his life dearly. Let us hope, too, that some few of his crew stood by him in this emergency, with “the forty loaded small arms, besides pistols.” But although the pirates and mutineers could not make an end of him, it was equally impossible for him to take the offensive against them. If neither party could attack, the situation could only be relieved by diplomacy. The ultimate solution has been handed down to us by the doubtful testimony of one or two of those who were there. We are left to conjecture the intermediate stages of the arrangement.