e-tenth of the profits of the cruise. Kidd's letter of marque, dated
Dec. 11, 1695, is in Hargrave's _State Trials_, V. 307. To it was
added, Jan. 26, 1696, _ibid._, 308, a commission to apprehend pirates.
Kidd sailed from England in April, 1696, in the _Adventure Galley_,
287 tons, 34 guns, 70 men. At New York he increased his crew to 155
men (there is a list of them in _Cal. St. Pap. Col._, 1700, p. 199),
and sailed thence in September for Madagascar and the East Indies.
Whether it was by his fault that the _Adventure Galley_ slipped from
privateering and the search for pirates into acts of piracy, or
whether, as Kidd alleged, his men forced his hand, has been doubted,
but it is probable that he shared the guilt. In the summer of 1698
complaints began to come in from India and from the East India
Company, and in November, 1698, orders were sent to the governors of
colonies in America to apprehend Kidd as a pirate whenever he should
appear. The ensuing papers, especially his own narrative and
Bellomont's letters, tell the story of his arrival and arrest. As
under Massachusetts law he could not be condemned to death for piracy,
he was, probably illegally, carried to England in the spring of 1700,
and there tried at the Old Bailey for the murder of one of his men and
for piracy. After an unfair trial and on insufficient evidence, he was
condemned, and was hanged at Execution Dock May 23, 1701.

As to Benjamin Franks, we learn from a deposition of William Cuthbert
(_Journal of the House of Commons_, XIII. 26) that two of Kidd's men
deserted him at Carwar because of his attempts and designs toward
piracy and his cruel conduct toward his men; Franks, Hebrew jeweller
of New York, was apparently one of the two. Apparently he was a Danish
subject; Westergaard, _Danish West Indies_, p. 110.]

The Deposition of Benjamin Franks aged about 47 years (who came out in
the _Adventure Gally_, a Privateer, Captain William Kid Comander)
Inhabitant of New York.

Declareth That having lived in Barbadoes and Jamaica and traded in
severall parts of the West Indies, meeting of late with great losses
of above L12,000 sterling by the Earthquake and Enemyes and through
misfortune, came to New York and there finding Captain Kid comeing out
with a full Power to the East Indies to take the Pyrates, which he
shewed me by the means of my Friends, so resolved to go with him to
the East Indies and to remain there at Surrat or any other place where
I