Bellomont, Richard Coote, earl of

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Richard Coote Bellomont, earl of (bĕl´əmŏnt´), 1636–1701, colonial governor of New York, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, b. Ireland. He arrived (1698) in New York at a time when a more unified administration of colonial affairs was being attempted. His administration was uneventful, but his endeavors to enforce the trade laws and to suppress piracy brought him the enmity of the aristocratic party in New York. He was noted for his arrest of William Kidd, whom he had originally commissioned as a pirate hunter.

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