Some years later he sailed to England, and, while there, he received an
appointment of a peculiar character. It was at the time when the King of
England was doing his best to put down the pirates of the American
coast, and Sir George Bellomont, the recently appointed Governor of New
York, recommended Captain Kidd as a very suitable man to command a ship
to be sent out to suppress piracy. When Kidd agreed to take the position
of chief of marine police, he was not employed by the Crown, but by a
small company of gentlemen of capital, who formed themselves into a sort
of trust company, or society for the prevention of cruelty to
merchantmen, and the object of their association was not only to put
down pirates, but to put some money in their own pockets as well.
Kidd was furnished with two commissions, one appointing him a privateer
with authority to capture French vessels, and the other empowering him
to seize and destroy all pirate ships. Kidd was ordered in his mission
to keep a strict account of all booty captured, in order that it might
be fairly divided among those who were stockholders in the enterprise,
one-tenth of the total proceeds being reserved for the King.
Kidd sailed from England in the _Adventure_, a large ship with thirty
guns and eighty men, and on his way to America he captured a French ship
which he carried to New York.
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