Kidd waited a good while for the Mocha fleet, but it did not arrive, and then he made his first venture in actual piracy.  He overhauled a Moorish vessel which was commanded by an English captain, and as England was not at war with Morocco, and as the nationality of the ship’s commander should have protected him, Kidd thus boldly broke the marine laws which governed the civilized world and stamped himself an out-and-out pirate.  After the exercise of considerable cruelty he extorted from his first prize a small amount of money; and although he and his men did not gain very much booty, they had whetted their appetites for more, and Kidd cruised savagely over the eastern seas in search of other spoils.

After a time the Adventure fell in with a fine English ship, called the Royal Captain, and although she was probably laden with a rich cargo, Kidd did not attack her.  His piratical character was not yet sufficiently formed to give him the disloyal audacity which would enable him with his English ship and his English crew, to fall upon another English ship manned by another English crew.  In time his heart might be hardened, but he felt that he could not begin with this sort of thing just yet.  So the Adventure saluted the Royal Captain with ceremonious politeness, and each vessel passed quietly on its way.  But this conscientious consideration did not suit Kidd’s crew.  They had already had a taste of booty, and they were hungry for more, and when the fine English vessel, of which they might so easily have made a prize, was allowed to escape them, they were loud in their complaints and grumblings.

One of the men, a gunner, named William Moore, became actually impertinent upon the subject, and he and Captain Kidd had a violent quarrel, in the course of which the captain picked up a heavy iron-bound bucket and struck the dissatisfied gunner on the head with it.  The blow was such a powerful one that the man’s skull was broken, and he died the next day.

Captain Kidd’s conscience seems to have been a good deal in his way; for although he had been sailing about in various eastern waters, taking prizes wherever he could, he was anxious that reports of his misdeeds should not get home before him.  Having captured a fine vessel bound westward, he took from her all the booty he could, and then proceeded to arrange matters so that the capture of this ship should appear to be a legal transaction.  The ship was manned by Moors and commanded by a Dutchman, and of course Kidd had no right to touch it, but the sharp-witted and business-like pirate selected one of the passengers and made him sign a paper declaring that he was a Frenchman, and that he commanded the ship.  When this statement had been sworn to before witnesses, Kidd put the document in his pocket so that if he were called upon to explain the transaction he might be able to show that he had good reason to suppose that he had captured a French ship, which, of course, was all right and proper.