Note 3 — CASE OF WILLIAM KIDD.
Reading edition
"At the Buoy in the Nore Captain Steward, commander of the Duchess, took away all my ship's crew; but Admiral Russell [one of Kidd's owners], upon my application to him at Sittingbourne, caused my men to be restored to me." Kidd's protest; Hist. MSS. Comm., Manuscripts of the Duke of Portland, VIII. 80. England and France were at war from 1689 to the peace of Ryswyk, Sept. 20, 1697 (War of the Grand Alliance, King William's War). In such times the royal navy always relied, for its supply of men, upon impressment, especially of merchant seamen. See J.R. Hutchinson, The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore (London, 1913).