daerin Goede ordre hebbe beschickt.
Ondertuschen hebbe aenstonts een Persoon uyt den Raet naer Denemarck
gesonden, om aen Syn Cooninglyke Majestaet myn allergenadigste Kooning
ende Heer van all het gheen, soo als het passeert is, alleronderdaenigst
Rapport te geven. Hiermede Sluytende recommenderende Uwe Excell. alle
Goede Vrientschap en Vaerdere goede Correspondentie t'Onderhouden,
Waermede verblyve

Uwe Excell.

Ootmoedigen Dienaer

J. LORENTS.

[Addressed:] To Milord Bellomont Earl,
Gouvernor of New England, Yorck and other
places, In Boston

_Translation._

ST. THOMAS, September 1, 1699.

_To His Excellency Bellomont:_

_My Lord:_

I have had the honor to receive by way of Captain ---- Carry[2] Your
Excellency's agreeable letter of July 26, and to understand fully from
it what Your Excellency has been pleased to write as to the pirate
Will Kidd, upon which I shall serve Your Excellency with the following
reply. The aforesaid Will Kidd, with his freight-ship under the
English flag, came to anchor off this harbor, out of range of the
King's fortress, and then sent his shallop to land with a letter to
me, in which he asked me for protection, further declaring that he was
innocent as to robbing the subjects of the Mogul in the East Indies.
His course of conduct being at that time still unknown to me, I wrote
him in reply that, in case he was an honorable man, I would protect
him, but he wished to have assurance that I would not give him up to
any war-ship of His Majesty of Great Britain that should come to
demand him. This I declined to give, whereupon he, understanding that
I had forbidden all inhabitants to sell him any provisions, set sail
again.[3] Since that time I have heard that he lay at anchor near the
island of Mona, and that one Bolton of Antigua had been with him, to
transact business. Afterward there came into this harbor a brigantine
belonging to Barbados, on which one Will Burcke[4] was merchant,
concerning whom I had no suspicion, still less the thought that he
would dare to undertake bringing in here any pirate goods; yet I
learned the other day that he by night had brought a quantity of goods
to land, which, according to reports, he had sold to Mr. Pedro van
Bellen, general director for the Electoral Brandenburg Privileged
Company, and which are also stored in the Brandenburg warehouse.[5] I
have not been able to get at the aforesaid goods, because the said
Brandenburg patentees ha