r his service, and
when the _Adventure_ left New York she carried a crew of one hundred and
fifty-five men.

With a fine ship and a strong crew, Kidd now sailed out of the harbor
with the ostensible purpose of putting down piracy in American waters,
but the methods of this legally appointed marine policeman were very
peculiar, and, instead of cruising up and down our coast, he gayly
sailed away to the island of Madeira, and then around the Cape of Good
Hope to Madagascar and the Red Sea, thus getting himself as far out of
his regular beat as any New York constable would have been had he
undertaken to patrol the dominions of the Khan of Tartary.

By the time Captain Kidd reached that part of the world he had been at
sea for nearly a year without putting down any pirates or capturing any
French ships. In fact, he had made no money whatever for himself or the
stockholders of the company which had sent him out. His men, of course,
must have been very much surprised at this unusual neglect of his own
and his employers' interests, but when he reached the Red Sea, he boldly
informed them that he had made a change in his business, and had decided
that he would be no longer a suppressor of piracy, but would become a
pirate himself; and, instead of taking prizes of French ships
only,--which he was legally empowered to do,--he would try to capture
any valuable ship he could find on the seas, no matter to what nation it
belonged. He then went on to state that his present purpose in coming
into those oriental waters was to capture the rich fleet from Mocha
which was due in the lower part of the Red Sea about that time.

The crew of the _Adventure_, who must have been tired of having very
little to do and making no money, expressed their entire approbation of
their captain's change of purpose, and readily agreed to become pirates.

Kidd waited a good while for the Mocha fleet, but it did not arrive, and
then he made his first venture in actual piracy. He overhauled a Moorish
vessel which was commanded by an English captain, and as England was not
at war with Morocco, and as the nationality of the ship's commander
should have protected him, Kidd thus boldly broke the marine laws which
governed the civilized world and stamped himself an out-and-out pirate.
After the exercise of considerable cruelty he extorted from his first
prize a small amount of money; and although he and his men did not gain
very much booty, they had whetted the