Note 1 — CASE OF WILLIAM KIDD.

Public Record Office, C.O. 5:860, no. 62; Commons Journal, XIII, 18-19. Endorsed as received and read Aug. 31. Richard Coote (1636-1701), earl of Bellomont in the peerage of Ireland, was designated as governor of Massachusetts in June, 1695, and as governor of New York in July, three months before his agreement with Livingston and Kidd, but was not commissioned till June 18, 1697. He arrived in New York Apr. 2, 1698, and first came to Boston May 26, 1699. The part he had taken in sending out Kidd to capture pirates made Kidd's piracy a matter of special indignation and embarrassment to him, particularly when the affair was used in Parliament, in the session of 1700, as a means of attack on the Lord Chancellor Somers (see doc. no. 71, note 1). The agreement with Kidd was an unwise arrangement, but there is no doubt that Bellomont was an honest and zealous official.