in the case of Kidd the Company made no complaint of similar misdeeds. From all that can be learned of him, he seems to have been a kind-hearted man. There is no reason to doubt the truth of his dying statement that he had paid two hundred pounds for his gunner Moore’s ransom, probably on the occasion when the natives had cut his cooper’s throat. One of the reasons which led Bellamont to employ him is stated by Bellamont’s apologist to have been Kidd’s well-known affection for his wife and family, which was also relied on by Bellamont as being strong enough to prevent him from attempting to escape by forsaking them on his return. And we have it on the record of a witness who certainly had no bias in his favour that his chief solicitude in Newgate after he had been sentenced to death was for them and not for himself. The suggestion that Moore, when knocked on the head by Kidd, was “in an agony of remorse” for acts of piracy which Kidd had led him to commit, is almost too ludicrous to call for comment. It is absolutely clear from the evidence of every witness of the occurrence that so far from Kidd having led Moore astray, Moore had vainly endeavoured to induce Kidd to become a pirate, and that it was his failure to succeed in this endeavour that led to the altercation which ended in his death. But the most flagrant fiction fabricated by a Whig historian in relation to poor Kidd, is not to be found in Macaulay’s history, but in the pages of a grave historical work, compiled by an eminent lawyer, who in his day had filled not only the office of Lord Chief Justice, but also that of Lord Chancellor. That great legal luminary, Lord Campbell, in his “Life of Somers” has not hesitated to insert a circumstantial fable to the effect that Kidd was caught red-handed on the high seas in the midst of his criminal career. In the fifth volume of his “Lives of the Chancellors,” pages 126 and 127, he tells the tale thus: “A noble vessel called the _Adventure Galley_ was fitted out, and the command of her given to William Kidd, a naval officer, esteemed for honour as well as for gallantry. On arriving in the Indian Seas, he turned pirate himself, and cruised against the commerce of all nations indiscriminately, till after a sharp engagement with an English frigate in which several fell on both sides, he was captured and brought home in irons.” To such depths can history sink when written by political partisans of the highest rank and respectability. APPENDIX A 1. COPY OF GRANT OF PIRATES’ GOODS 2. ARTICLES OF AGREEMENT BETWEEN BELLAMONT, LIVINGSTONE, AND KIDD 3. KIDD’S SAILING ORDERS APPENDIX A 1. COPY OF GRANT OF PIRATES’ GOODS _William_ the Third, by the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc., To our Right-trusty and Well-beloved Counsellor, Sir John Somers, Knight, our Keeper of our Great Seal of England, Greeting.