"The extraordinary career of Captain Kidd, a New-York merchant, the
demoniac feats of those fiends in human form, Bonnet, Barthelemy, and
Lolonois; the romantic history of the innocent female pirate Mary Read,
and of the termagant Anne Bonney; the amazing career of Sir Henry
Morgan, and the fanaticism of Montbar, scarcely surpassed by that of
Mohammed or Loyola, combine in creating a story, which the imagination
of Dickens or Dumas could scarcely rival." --John S.C. Abbott, Preface,
1874
American historian John S.C. Abbott wrote Captain William Kidd and
Others of the Buccaneers (1874) as part of his American Pioneers and
Patriots series. Captain William Kidd (1655-1701) was a British sailor
who fought for Great Britain against the French in the West Indies,
became a shipowner in New York and turned to piracy and who was tried
and became one of the most colorful pirates of all time.