hought befitting a gentleman, by his
own hand. It seems a pity that he could not have been left alone to
play at being king, and to find the pirates' gold.

CHAPTER X

THE LURE OF COCOS ISLAND

It will be recalled that Lord Bellomont, in writing to his government
of the seizure of Kidd and his treasure, made mention of "a Pirate
committed who goes by the name of Captain Davis, that came passenger
with Kidd from Madagascar. I suppose him to be that Captain Davis that
Dampier and Wafer speak of in their printed relations of Voyages, for
an extraordinary stout[1] man; but let him be as stout as he will, here
he is a prisoner, and shall be forthcoming upon the order I receive
from England concerning him."

If Bellomont was right in this surmise, then he had swept into his
drag-net one of the most famous and successful buccaneers of the
seventeenth century, a man who must have regarded the alleged misdeeds
of Kidd as much ado about nothing. Very likely it was this same
Captain Edward Davis who may have been at the East Indies on some
lawful business of his own, but he had no cause for anxiety at being
captured by Bellomont as a suspicious character. He had honorably
retired in 1688 from his trade of looting Spanish galleons and treasure
towns, in which year the king's pardon was offered all buccaneers who
would quit that way of life and claim the benefit of the proclamation.

It is known that he was afterwards in England, where he dwelt in
quietness and security. William Dampier mentions him always with
peculiar respect. "Though a buccaneer, he was a man of much sterling
worth, being an excellent commander, courageous, never rash, and endued
in a superior degree with prudence, moderation, and steadiness,
qualities in which the buccaneers generally have been most deficient.
His character is not stained with acts of cruelty; on the contrary,
wherever he commanded, he restrained the ferocity of his companions.
It is no small testimony to his abilities that the whole of the
buccaneers in the South Sea during his time, in every enterprise
wherein he bore part, voluntarily placed themselves under his guidance,
and paid him obedience as their leader; and no symptom occurs of their
having at any time wavered in this respect or shown inclination to set
up a rival authority.[2]

During the Kidd proceedings, the Crown officers made out no case
against Edward Davis, and he appears at the trial only as a witness in
Ki