It is said that Kidd showed no repentance when he was tried, but
insisted that he was the victim of malicious persons who swore falsely
against him. And yet a more thoroughly dishonest rascal never sailed
under the black flag. In the guise of an accredited officer of the
government, he committed the crimes he was sent out to suppress; he
deceived his men; he robbed and misused his fellow-countrymen and his
friends, and he even descended to the meanness of cheating and
despoiling the natives of the West India Islands, with whom he traded.
These people were in the habit of supplying pirates with food and other
necessaries, and they always found their rough customers entirely
honest, and willing to pay for what they received; for as the pirates
made a practice of stopping at certain points for supplies, they wished,
of course, to be on good terms with those who furnished them. But Kidd
had no ideas of honor toward people of high or low degree. He would
trade with the natives as if he intended to treat them fairly and pay
for all he got; but when the time came for him to depart, and he was
ready to weigh anchor, he would seize upon all the commodities he could
lay his hands upon, and without paying a copper to the distressed and
indignant Indians, he would gayly sail away, his black flag flaunting
derisively in the wind.
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