." (South Carolina Historical Society
Collections.)

Governor Kyle suggested as a suitable person for this office his
secretary, Robert Quarry, and "probably this recommendation made Quarry
feel justified in assuming control when Kyle died. So flagrant was
Quarry's encouragement of pirates, and his cupidity so notorious that
he was removed from office after two months. Later "he went north and
was appointed Admiralty Judge for New York and Pennsylvania." ("The
Carolina Pirates," by S. C. Hughson, Johns Hopkins University Studies.)

CHAPTER IV

CAPTAIN KIDD, HIS TRIAL, AND DEATH

As the under dog in a situation where the most powerful influences of
England conspired to blacken his name and take his life, Captain
William Kidd, even at this late day, deserves to be heard in his own
defense. That he was unfairly tried and condemned is admitted by
various historians, who, nevertheless, have twisted or overlooked the
facts, as if Kidd were, in sooth, a legendary character. This
blundering, careless treatment is the more surprising because Kidd was
made a political issue of such importance as to threaten the overthrow
of a Ministry and the Parliamentary censure of the King himself. At
the height of the bitter hostility against Somers, the Whig Lord
Chancellor of William III, the Kidd affair presented itself as a ready
weapon for the use of his political foes.

"About the other patrons of Kidd the chiefs of the opposition cared
little," says Macauley.[1] "Bellomont was far removed from the
political scene. Romney could not, and Shrewsbury would not play a
first part. Orford had resigned his employments. But Somers still
held the Great Seal, still presided in the House of Lords, still had
constant access to the closet. The retreat of his friends had left him
the sole and undisputed head of that party which had, in the late
Parliament, been a majority, and which was in the present Parliament
outnumbered indeed, disorganized and threatened, but still numerous and
respectable. His placid courage rose higher and higher to meet the
dangers which threatened him.

"In their eagerness to displace and destroy him, they overreached
themselves. Had they been content to accuse him of lending his
countenance, with a rashness unbecoming his high place, to an
ill-concerted scheme, that large part of mankind which judges of a plan
simply by the event would probably have thought the accusation well
founded. But the m