It must be admitted that the circumstances of the Lord Chancellor, the head of the Admiralty, and other prominent men using their influence to forward a venture from which they were to profit, under fictitious names, and that had created such a scandal, demanded inquiry.

It was hardly sufficient to say that they had lost their money.

Such an answer would justify any illegal enterprise in the event of its failure.
The French war had come to an end, so in January, 1699, a royal squadron of four men-of-war, the _Anglesea_, _Harwich_, _Hastings_, and _Lizard_, sailed from Portsmouth for Madagascar under Warren.[3] They carried with them four royal commissioners and a proclamation offering a free pardon, from which Every and Kidd were excepted, to all pirates who voluntarily surrendered themselves before the end of April, 1699.

The pardon related only to acts of piracy committed east of the Cape of Good Hope, between the African and Indian coasts.

After calling at St.Augustine's bay, where several pirates made their submission, the squadron reached Tellicherry in November.