In the Diary of William Hedges we find repeated reference to a Captain Pitt or Pitts (as he is called indiscriminately), a prominent and notorious interloper who pressed his commercial adventures iu defiance of the Company's claims to exclusive trade, and was only too successful in seducing from their fidelity, and involving in his own quasi-contraband business, a number of the Company's servants in “the Bay”.

I think it well to begin by bringing together here, either in abstract or extract, the chief passages in which Hedges takes notice of this adventurer.

On the outward voyage of Hedges and his party, on the Defence, when eleven weeks from the Downs, they speak a ship proving to be the Crown (Capt. Dorrel), which had left home some three weeks after them, an interloper bound for Húglí, and carrying, with other passengers, “Mr. Pitts” (p. 20).

On the arrival of Hedges at Balasore they see a ship in the roads:

“They told us the Ship we saw in Port was the Crown, Capt. Dorrel, with Mr. Pitts, who had been here 11 days before. That Mr. Pitts had hired a great house at Ballasore, carried divers Chests of money ashore, and was very busy in buying of goods” (p. 31).