The crown wanted piracy stopped, while many colonists were sympathetic to the pirates, and Cranston had to make difficult political decisions to satisfy the home country on this issue.

He found his wife before the marriage ceremony, and the event was turned into a celebration for his return, with the groom-to-be surrendering his expected bride with good grace.

One of the first acts of the new administration was to deal with the serious issue of piracy, which had sprung from the licensed privateering that the colonies had fostered during the recent war with France.

[8] A bitter letter against the government of the colony was soon after written by "that old enemy of New England," Edward Randolph, the Surveyor General of Customs, who had just been to New York to welcome the arrival of its new governor, Lord Bellomont.

[8] The charges against the Rhode Island colony were most serious, including complicity with pirates, by whom many were enriched; the letter also wrongly suggested that many of the people desired a royal governor and would pay 500 pounds a year for his support.

[11] Letters from England gave instructions to the custom house officers on how to conduct their business and included an order from the British Cabinet to the governors of all the colonies to apprehend the notorious Captain Kidd should he appear in their waters.

[11] In December 1698 the Board of Trade made a formal representation to the King concerning the many irregularities of the Rhode Island colony, specifically charging it with refusal to take oaths, encouraging illegal traffic, assuming admiralty jurisdiction to themselves and resisting it from the crown, and other flagrant acts of disloyalty.

[12] They went on to recommend that a commission of inquiry be sent to Lord Bellomont to examine these matters with the view to issuing a quo warranto against Rhode Island's charter.

[12] In May 1699 Brenton informed the colony of actions taken by the government of Connecticut, which now claimed a great part of Warwick and Providence as well as all of the Narragansett country under the jurisdiction of King's Province.

[13] Cranston wrote a long letter to the Board of Trade, deprecating the many false reports against the Rhode Island colony that were mostly circulated by Randolph.

"[14] Bellomont's purpose at this time was to break up the piracy that had grown out of privateering, an extremely difficult task, as many of the leading families in both New York and New England were involved in it.

[15] To further his designs upon Rhode Island, and to aid in securing other pirates known to resort there, Bellemont commissioned the three members of the Admiralty Court, Brinley, Sanford and Coddington, to collect evidence and use their efforts to capture some of Kidd's confederates.

[16] The language was very severe, blaming the colony for sending only an abstract of the laws when a full copy was required, and sharply rebuking them for their encouragement of piracy, citing privateer commissions granted by Deputy Governor John Greene in 1694.

[17] On the first day he was met at Bristol ferry by Cranston and a troop of horse, and escorted to Newport where a meeting of the council was held, and the royal commission read.

Bellomont ordered each side to prepare a statement of their claims along with affidavits and then to send their agents to England to place the matter before the King.

[19] An acceptable copy of the laws and acts of council of the colony was requested, a task not easy to perform in the disordered state of the records, but Cranston, in his reply, promised it would be done.

[20] At length, Bellomont, having collected a massive set of evidence to support charges against Rhode Island, made his report to the Privy Council.

[21] He continued, "That she was not utterly crushed beneath the cumulative evidence of every kind of irregularity that was hurled upon her by the indefatigable zeal and the consummate ability of Bellomont, can scarcely be accounted for by any human agency.

"[21] Immediately following this report, Bellomont sent a letter to the Board of Trade on the subject of piracy, denouncing Cranston for "conniving at pirates, and making Rhode Island their sanctuary.

[22] The Board of Trade, upon receipt of Bellomont's report, sent an abstract to the King in April 1700, recommending that the law officers of the crown consider what would be most proper for bringing the colony under a better form of government.

He also wrote the Board of Trade informing them that the late deputy governor had been left out of all offices of trust at the recent election on account of his illegally granting privateer commissions several years earlier.

He wrote to the Board that he had given up all attempts at reducing the disorders in Rhode Island, and he forwarded papers relating to the seizure and trial of the Westerly prisoners.

[27] The same year, Governor Joseph Dudley of Massachusetts visited Newport, claiming to act under the authority of the King and Queen as "Captain-General of all forces, forts, and places of strength.

[27] By the same authority, Dudley claimed admiralty jurisdiction over the Rhode Island colony, which was also denied, but was later granted by order of the new sovereign in England, Queen Anne.

[29] While supported by the farmers, this policy had a detrimental effect on the merchants, best summarized by historian Samuel G. Arnold, "Thus commenced in Rhode Island a system of paper money issues fraught with disaster to the commercial interests of the Colony, whose baleful influence was to extend over nearly a century, distracting alike the political, financial, and even the social condition of the people, and which was to be the occasion of most bitter partisan strife long after the Revolutionary War had left us an independent State.

[30] Queen Anne's War had ended in 1713 with the Treaty of Utrecht, restoring peace to the world, and beginning a new era for Rhode Island.

[30] In 1723 the first almshouse in Rhode Island was erected in Newport,[30] and in 1725 the mainland towns were empowered to build a house of correction for vagrants and "mad persons," the first reference to a reformatory and philanthropic institution.

His great firmness in seasons of unexampled trial, that occurred in the early part of his public life, is, perhaps, the key to his wonderful popularity..."[7]