with a single ship of thirty or forty guns, to clear the Indian Ocean of the whole race.  The brigantines of the rovers were numerous, no doubt; but none of them was large; one man of war, which in the royal navy would hardly rank as a fourth rate, would easily deal with them all in succession; and the lawful spoils of the enemies of mankind would much more than defray the charges of the expedition.  Bellamont was charmed with this plan, and recommended it to the King.  The King referred it to the Admiralty.  The Admiralty raised difficulties, such as are perpetually raised by public boards when any deviation, whether for the better or for the worse, from the established course of proceeding is proposed.  It then occurred to Bellamont that his favourite scheme might be carried into effect without any cost to the state.  A few public spirited men might easily fit out a privateer which would soon make the Arabian Gulph and the Bay of Bengal secure highways for trade.  He wrote to his friends in England imploring, remonstrating, complaining of their lamentable want of public spirit.  Six thousand pounds would be enough.  That sum would be repaid, and repaid with large interest, from the sale of prizes; and an inestimable benefit would be conferred on the kingdom and on the world.  His urgency succeeded.  Shrewsbury and Romney contributed.  Orford, though, as first Lord of the Admiralty, he had been unwilling to send Kidd to the Indian ocean with a king’s ship, consented to subscribe a thousand pounds.  Somers subscribed another thousand.  A ship called the Adventure Galley was equipped in the port of London; and Kidd took the command.  He carried with him, besides the ordinary letters of marque, a commission under the Great Seal empowering him to seize pirates, and to take them to some place where they might be dealt with according to law.  Whatever right the King might have to the goods found in the possession of these malefactors he granted, by letters patent, to the persons who had been at the expense of fitting out the expedition, reserving to himself only one tenth part of the gains of the adventure, which was to be paid into the treasury.  With the claim of merchants to have back the property of which they had been robbed His Majesty of course did not interfere.  He granted away, and could grant away, no rights but his own.

The press for sailors to man the royal navy was at that time so hot that Kidd could not obtain his full complement of hands in the Thames.  He crossed the Atlantic, visited New York, and there found volunteers in abundance.  At length, in February 1697, he sailed from the Hudson with a crew of more than a hundred and fifty men, and in July reached the coast of Madagascar.