170 DUTCH AND ENGLISH ON THE HUDSON

Not only were the buccaneers terrorizing the West
Indies, the Red Sea, and the Madagascar coast,
but according to the Albany Records of 1696
"pirates in great numbers infest the Hudson River
at its mouth and waylay vessels on their way to
Albany, speeding out from covers and from behind
islands and again returning to the rocky shores, or
ascending the mountains along the river to conceal
their plunder."

The Government in England now prepared to
take vigorous measures. It desired to fit out an
armed force to suppress the buccaneers; but as all
the regular navy was needed in the war with France
it was decided to organize a stock company in
which the King, the Duke of Shrewsbury, Lord
Chancellor Somers, the Earls of Bellomont, Or-
ford, and Romney, Robert Livingston, and others
took shares, for the purpose of fitting out a priva-
teer vessel to fight the pirates and at the same time
to win some profit for themselves.

The Adventure-Galley, carrying thirty guns and
manned by over one hundred sailors, was fitted out
and entrusted to the command of William Kidd,
a sea-captain of New York who chanced to be in
London at the time and who was warmly recom-
mended by Robert Livingston to Lord Bellomont,