“II. _Captain William Kidd_, condemned for murder and piracy. He was about 56 years of age. I found him very unwilling to confess the crime he was convicted of, or to declare anything, other than that he had been a great offender, and lived without any due consideration either of God’s mercys or judgments, or of his wonderful works which had so often been set before him. That he” (like Mullins) “never remembered to have returned Him thanks for the many great deliverances he had received from him, or call’d himself to account for what he had done. But now he owns that God is a just God, and he is a vile and wretched sinner. He says he repents of all his sins and hopes to be saved through the merits of Christ. He further declares that he dies in charity with all the world.” So far, it is clear, he had made no confession either of murder or piracy. “On the day being the day of execution, I went betimes to these condemned persons, and had them up to the Chappel both morning and afternoon, where having given them further admonitions to Faith and Repentance, they seemed to me very desirous and earnestly striving to die in God’s favour. Only I was afraid the hardness of Captain Kidd’s heart was still unmelted. I therefore apply’d myself with particular exhortations to him” (‘the innocentest person of them all,’ to quote his own words) “and laid the judgment of God against impenitent and hardened sinners, as well as his tender mercies to those that were true and sincere penitents, very plainly before him. To all which he readily assented and said that he truly repented of all his sins, and forgave all the world: and I was in good hopes that he did so. But having left him to go a little before him to the place of execution, I found to my unspeakable grief, when he was brought thither, that he was inflamed with drink,” (Some kind fellow countryman had possibly given the poor old man a wee drappie of which he must have stood sorely in need, after all these exhausting religious exercises and his confinement for over a year in Newgate), “which had so discompos’d his mind that it was now in a very ill frame, and very unfit for the great work now or never to be perform’d by him. I prayed for him, and so did other worthy divines that were present, to whom as well as to myself the Captain appeared to be much out of order, and not so concerned or affected as he ought to have been. ’Tis true he spoke some words expressing his confidence in God’s mercys through Christ, and likewise declared that he died in Charity with all the world. But still I suspected his sincerity” (Why?) “because he was more reflective upon others than upon himself” (as he might well be) “and would still endeavour to lay his faults upon his crew and others, going about to excuse and justify himself much about the same manner, as he did upon his trial. When I left him at Newgate he told me he would make a full confession at the tree,” (so he did, of everything he had to confess)