w left."

John Tuder, who wrote the letter and had no love for Cox, is rather
flippant in his treatment of the fatal occurrence; but it seems that
"the good rich widdow" was herself hardly inconsolable, for in a very
short time she married again, this time one John Oort, who in his turn
soon disappeared from the scene, leaving Sarah a double widow and also
doubly rich. She was hardly to be more successful in her third marriage
than the others, nor did she show much sensibility in the matter; for
on' the 15th of May, 1691, she took out letters of administration on the
estate of her late husband, and on the 16th of May a license was issued
for the marriage of the fair Sarah to Captain William Kidd. Familiar to
all is the fate of that redoubtable pirate, as he is generally held to
have been,--though pirate he certainly was not,--and it is not
convenient here to enter upon details; but there seems to be little
doubt that Mistress Kidd exerted a curious, and, as it turned out, fatal
influence upon the fortunes of her third husband. It is averred, though
it is hardly a matter of history, that her relations with the Earl of
Bellamont, Governor of New York, furnished the reason for the choice of
her husband as the commander of the expedition which resulted in the
accusation of piracy for which he suffered, and that it was her restless
ambition which induced him to accept a post which was little to his
liking. Be all this as it may, Kidd was hanged; and his widow, after
this time prolonging her period of mourning to the unconscionable (for
her) time of two years, married Christopher Rousby and settled down to a
life free from further matrimonial adventures. She lived to a great age,
but never lost her vivacity and assertiveness, and she merits a place in
our record for her influence upon the romantic career of the
famous--long infamous--Captain Kidd.

Now, passing by the growing towns of Philadelphia, Baltimore, and
Annapolis, and the fading one of Saint Mary's, let us seek the Old
Dominion and learn the conditions which there obtained in the days prior
to the coming of the Revolution. The influx of Cavaliers during the
later portion of the seventeenth century had had its effect upon
Virginia society, already prone to graft the lighter of English manners
and customs upon those proper to the colonial conditions. In Virginia
the women were free, untrammelled by public sentiment, to indulge their
taste for gay apparel, to trick th