INQUIRY INTO THE EXPEDITION Of CAPTAIN KIDD.

The house was not in a humour to be appeased with soothing promises and protestations; they determined to distress him by prosecuting his ministers. During the war the colonies of North America had grown rich by piracy. One Kidd, the master of a sloop, undertook to suppress the pirates, provided the government would furnish him with a ship of thirty guns well manned. The board of admiralty declaring that such a number of seamen could not be spared from the public service, Kidd was equipped by the private subscription of the lord Chancellor, the duke of Shrewsbury, the earls of Romney, Orford, and Bellamont, sir Edward Harrison, and colonel Livingstone of New York. The king promised to contribute one-half of the expense, and reserved to himself one-tenth of the profits; but he never advanced the money. Kidd being thus equipped, and provided with a commission to act against the French, as well as to make war on certain pirates therein mentioned by name, set sail from Plymouth; but instead of cruising on the coast of America, he directed his course to the East Indies, where he himself turned pirate, and took a rich ship belonging to the Moors. Having divided his booty with his crew, ninety of whom left him in order to join other adventurers, he burned his own ship and sailed with his prize to the West Indies. There he purchased a sloop in which he steered for North America, leaving part of his men in the prize, to remain in one of the Leeward Islands until they should receive further instructions. Arriving on the coast of New York, he sent one Emmet to make his peace with the earl of Bellamont, the governor of that province, who inveigled him into a negotiation, in the course of which he was apprehended. Then his lordship sent an account of his proceedings to the secretary of state, desiring that he would send for the prisoners to England, as there was no law in that colony for punishing piracy with death, and the majority of the people favoured that practice. The admiralty, by order of the lords-justices, despatched the ship Rochester to bring home the prisoners and their effects; but, after having been tossed for some time with tempestuous weather, this vessel was obliged to return to Plymouth in a shattered condition. This incident furnished the malcontents with a colour to paint the ministry as the authors and abettors of a piratical expedition, which they wanted to screen from the cognizance of the public. The old East India company had complained to the regency of the capture made by Kidd in the East Indies, apprehending, as the vessel belonged to the Moors, they should be exposed to the resentments of the Mogul. In the beginning of December, this subject being brought abruptly into the house of commons, a motion was made, That the letters patent granted to the earl of Bellamont and others, of pirates’ goods, were dishonourable to the king, against the laws of nations, contrary to the laws and statutes of the land, invasive of property, and destructive of trade and commerce. A warm dispute ensued, in the course of which some members declaimed with great bitterness against the chancellor and the duke of Shrewsbury, as partners in a piratical scheme; but these imputations were refuted, and the motion was rejected by a great majority. Not but they might have justly stigmatized the expedition as a little mean adventure, in which those noblemen had embarked with a view to their own private advantage.

While this affair was in agitation among the commons, the attention of the upper house was employed upon the case of Dr. Watson, bishop of St. David’s. This prelate was supposed to have paid a valuable consideration for his bishopric; and, after his elevation, had sold the preferments in his gift with a view of being reimbursed. He was accused of simony; and, after a solemn hearing before the archbishop of Canterbury and six suffragans, convicted and deprived. Then he pleaded his privilege: so that the affair was brought into the house of lords, who refused to own him as a peer after he had ceased to be a bishop. Thus disappointed, he had recourse to the court of delegates, by whom the archbishop’s sentence was confirmed. The next effort that the commons made, with a view of mortifying king William, was to raise a clamour against Dr. Burnet, bishop of Sarum. He was represented in the house as a very unfit preceptor for the duke of Gloucester, both as a Scottish man, and author of that pastoral letter which had been burned by order of the parliament, for asserting that William had a right to the crown from conquest. A motion was made for addressing his majesty that this prelate might be dismissed from his employment, but rejected by a great majority. Burnet had acted with uncommon integrity in accepting the trust. He had declined the office, which he was in a manner forced to accept. He had offered to resign his bishopric, thinking the employment of a tutor would interfere with the duty of a pastor. He insisted upon the duke’s residence all the summer at Windsor, which is in the diocese of Sarum, and added to his private charities the whole income of his new office.