They took advantage of the easy
access to the harbor of the Manhattoes, and of the laxity of its
scarcely-organized government, to make it a kind of rendezvous, where
they might dispose of their ill-gotten spoils, and concert new
depredations. Crews of these desperadoes, the runagates of every
country and clime, might be seen swaggering, in open day, about the
streets of the little burgh; elbowing its quiet Mynheers; trafficking
away their rich outlandish plunder, at half price, to the wary
merchant, and then squandering their gains in taverns; drinking,
gambling, singing, swearing, shouting, and astounding the neighborhood
with sudden brawl and ruffian revelry.
At length the indignation of government was aroused, and it was
determined to ferret out this vermin brood from, the colonies. Great
consternation took place among the pirates on finding justice in
pursuit of them, and their old haunts turned to places of peril. They
secreted their money and jewels in lonely out-of-the-way places; buried
them about the wild shores of the rivers and sea-coast, and dispersed
themselves over the face of the country.
Among the agents employed to hunt them by sea was the renowned Captain
Kidd. He had long been a hardy adventurer, a kind of equivocal
borderer, half trader, half smuggler, with a tolerable dash of the
pickaroon. He had traded for some time among the pirates, lurking about
the seas in a little rakish, musquito-built vessel, prying into all
kinds of odd places, as busy as a Mother Carey's chicken in a gale of
wind.
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