Gallop among Amer Scenery by A- B. Silliman,

COUNTY OF WESTCHESTER. 435

in the furious storm, she passed the siiuddering mariner, leaving comet-like long streams of flame behind. Beneath her sands the red-shirted buccaneers did hide their ill-gotten, blood-bespotted treasure. Ay ! and 'twas on her broad bosom that with ironseared conscience, sailed that pirate, fierce and bold, old Robert Kidd ; and to this very day his golden hoards, with magic mark and sign, still crowd her wooded shores.''^-

Capt. Kidd the notorious freebooter (whose name is so inseparably connected with these shores,) appears to have been employed by the government in 1696 to suppress the buccaneers, (at that time very numerous on our coast,) " from the knowledge he possessed of their numbers, strength, and places of resort." In 1699 he "returned from the East Indies, whither he had sailed after making several unsuccessful cruises on the American coast, during his absence having been engaged in the very practices he had engaged to prevent. This result appears to have been in a measure foreseen by the provincials. Governor Fletcher, writing to the board of trade, June 22, 1697, says : " One Captain Kidd lately arrived here, and produced a commission under the o:reat seal of England for suppressing of piracy. When he was here many flocked to him from all parts, men of desperate fortunes and necessitous, in expectation of getting vast treasures," "He sailed from hence with 150 men, as I am informed ; a great part of them are of this province. It is generally believed here they would have money per fas aut nefas^ thai if he miss of the design intended for which he has commission H loill not he in Kidd^s poiver to govern such a horde of men under no pay- His subsequent career is v/ell known in 1699, he was made prisoner in Boston, b sent to England, and there executed in 1701."^