The easy access to the harbor of New-York, the number of hiding-places about its waters, and the laxity of its newly organized government, about the year 1695, made it a great rendezvous of pirates, where they might dispose of their booty and concert new depredations.  As they brought home with them wealthy lading of all kinds, the luxuries of the tropics, and the sumptuous spoils of the Spanish provinces, and disposed of them with the proverbial carelessness of freebooters, they were welcome visitors to the thrifty traders of New-York.  Crews of these desperadoes, therefore, the runagates of every country and every clime, might be seen swaggering in open day about the streets, elbowing its quiet inhabitants, trafficking their rich outlandish plunder at half or quarter price to the wary merchant; and then squandering their prize-money in taverns, drinking, gambling, singing, carousing and astounding the neighborhood with midnight brawl and revelry.  At length these excesses rose to such a height as to become a scandal to the provinces, and to call loudly for the interposition of government.  Measures were accordingly taken to put a stop to this widely extended evil, and to drive the pirates out of the colonies.

Among the distinguished individuals who lurked about the colonies, was Captain Robert Kidd, [Footnote:  His real name was William Kidd.] who in the beginning of King William’s war, commanded a privateer in the West Indies, and by his several adventurous actions, acquired the reputation of a brave man, as well as an experienced seaman.  But he had now become notorious, as a nondescript animal of the ocean.  He was somewhat of a trader, something more of a smuggler, but mostly a pirate.  He had traded many years among the pirates, in a little rakish vessel, that could run into all kinds of water.  He knew all their haunts and lurking places, and was always hooking about on mysterious voyages.

Upon the good old maxim of “setting a rogue to catch a rogue,” Capt.  Kidd was recommended by the Lord Bellamont, then governor of Barbadoes, as well as by several other persons, to the government here, as a person very fit to be entrusted to the command of a government ship, and to be employed in cruising upon the pirates, as knowing those seas perfectly well, and being acquainted with all their lurking places; but what reasons governed the politics of those times, I cannot tell, but this proposal met with no encouragement here, though it is certain it would have been of great consequence to the subject, our merchants suffering incredible damages by those robbers.

Upon this neglect, the lord Bellamont and some others, who knew what great captures had been made by the pirates, and what a prodigious wealth must be in their possession, were tempted to fit out a ship at their own private charge, and to give the command of her to Captain Kidd; and to give the thing a greater reputation, as well as to keep their seamen under better command, they procured the king’s commission for the said Capt.  Kidd, of which the following is an exact copy: