An extract:

“Pirates were rife in the Indian Ocean, and Moghul shipowners plying the route from India to Arabia, having accepted the Company as natural heirs to the Portuguese, expected the same level of protection that their predecessors had provided.

The Company had neither the resources nor the inclination to provide this protection, and piracy became a serious problem, especially in the later years of the seventeenth century.

All pirates must defer to the infamous Captain Kidd who, in defiance of the cliché as well as the Company’s wishes, was a gamekeeper-turned-poacher.

Hired by the Directors ... to help suppress piracy, William Kidd soon discovered the most profitable side of the fence, and became the scourge of the Arabian Sea … until he was caught and executed in 1701."