Bellamont to check this piracy in the eastern seas, had it not been for two considerations: the one a possible apprehension that it might extend to the plundering of Dutch merchantmen sailing to and from his Dutch Colonies in the East, and the other the increasing complaints on the part of the wealthy East India Company who exercised great influence in Parliament, that it injured their trade and led to complications in their dealings with the Great Mogul. Be this as it may, the suppression of piracy in the East was not only a desirable object, but one that was likely to commend itself to the mercantile community; and any plausible project for its furtherance that would not necessitate his immediate departure from England would naturally be welcomed by Bellamont. Such a project was not long in presenting itself. To return to his defence written by the anonymous Person of Quality: “As soon,” he says, “as it was known that the Earl of Bellamont was designed for Governor, all persons who had concerns in New York made their applications to him. Amongst others, Colonel Robert Livingstone, who had several employments in that province, had frequent access to him, as well upon the account of the public affairs there, as of several matters which he had depending before the council and the treasury. The Earl, taking occasion to mention to this gentleman the scandal which lay upon New York in respect of the encouragement and retreat, which the pirates found there, Colonel Livingstone confessed” (as might be expected of a canny Scot, who wished to ingratiate himself with the great man) “that there was too much ground for the complaint, and that if some speedy and effectual course were not taken to suppress those enormities, so many persons would be drawn into the guilt that it would be exceedingly difficult to master them.” After thinking the matter over, he saw his way to make himself serviceable. “When he came again to wait on the Earl, he took notice of the zeal the Earl had expressed at their last conversation for putting a stop to that piratical trade, since which time, he said, he had spoke with one Captain William Kidd, lately come” to London “from New York in a sloop of his own, who told him that he knew most of the principal men who had been abroad roving and others who had lately gone out, and likewise had some knowledge of the places where they usually made their rendezvous, and that he would undertake to seize most of them in case he might be employed in one of the King’s ships, a good sailer of about thirty guns, and might have one hundred and fifty men. He said that though the pirates were many in number yet they had at that time no ship of considerable size. Livingstone affirmed that Kidd was a bold and honest man and he believed better than any other to be employed on that occasion.”