recital of which to his African countrymen, when he shall return to
his home, will give them no doubt, a dreadful picture of European
civilization. The black boy was acquitted at Cadiz, but the men who had
fled to the Carraccas, as well as those arrested after the wreck, were
convicted, executed, their limbs severed, and hung on tenter hooks, as a
warning to all pirates.

[Illustration: _The Rock of Gibraltar._]

THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN ROBERT KIDD

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.
K