Captain Kidd

“ Money, however, came in rapidly. Kidd, with all his crimes, possessed the elements of success in method, organisation, and power of command. His sailors forgot the horrors they had inflicted and their own degradation when they counted the pile of doubloons that constituted their share of plunder. Amongst the swarm of rovers who then swept the seas, Captain Kidd was considered the most successful, and even in a certain sense, notwithstanding his enormities, the most respectable of all. ”

“ Dwarf whispered to Captain Kidd, and grinned.
The Captain turned his head and studied the brooding features of the giant. "He's doing some thinking," he decided. "When he gets the thing figured out, in six months or a year, and savvies it was a put-up job from the start, somebody'll have it coming."
"He can't pulverize the whole bunch, and he'll never wise up to who's the real sinner," Weary comforted himself.
"Don't you believe it. Happy doesn't think very often; when he does though, he can ring the bell—give him time enough." ”

“ Now what does Captain Kidd say to all this? He has told you he acted pursuant to his commission: but that cannot be, unless [185] he gives you satisfaction that the ship and goods belonged to the French King, or his subjects, or that the ship had a French pass. Otherwise neither of them (sic) will excuse him from being a pirate; for if he takes the goods of friends, he is a pirate: he had no authority for that; there is no colour from either of his commissions to take them. And as to the French passes there is nothing of that appears by any proof ”

“ To give character to the enterprise, a commission was issued under the great seal of England and signed by the king, William III., directed to "the trusty and well-beloved Captain Kidd, commander of the ship Adventure Galley." This vessel [368] carried thirty guns and sixty men. Kidd departed from Plymouth in April, 1696, and arrived off the American coast in July following. He occasionally entered the port of New York, where he was cordially received, as he was considered useful in protecting its commerce. ”

“ She has clung most unfairly and pertinaciously for more than two centuries to poor Kidd, who in common with most men of his calling, had no desire whatever to obtrude himself on the public notice. This worthy, honest hearted, steadfast, much enduring sailor, a typical sea captain of his day, seems really to have done his best to serve his country and his employers according to his lights, in very difficult circumstances. ”

“ Set aside all but Captain Kidd. William Kidd, you are now to be tried on the bill of murder. The jury is going to be sworn. If you have any cause of exception you may speak to them, as they come to the Book.
“Kidd. I shall challenge none. I know nothing to the contrary, but that they are all honest men.”
The greater part of the evidence in this trial has already been given verbatim in the narrative of the voyage of the Adventure Galley. It is clear from it that the crew for some time before the altercation, which led to Moore’s death, had been on the brink of mutiny ”

“ There fell betwixt Three and Four Bales to a Share: The Examinant had Three whole Bales and a Piece of a Bale, to his Share: some of which he disposed of at Madagascar, to buy Provisions; and left some in the Ship; the Remainder he had in his own Chest, and some in Martin Skinke’s Chest; which Chests were put on board a New York Sloop in the Sound, commanded by one Coster, and committed to his Care, to be carried to New York: Captain Kidd had Forty odd Shares [297] for himself, and his Ship; most of his men deserted. At St. Marie’s, a difference arose between the Captain and his Company ”

“ Great consternation took place among the pirates on finding justice in pursuit of them, and their old haunts turned to places of peril. They secreted their money and jewels in lonely out-of-the-way places; buried them about the wild shores of the rivers and sea-coast, and dispersed themselves over the face of the country.
Among the agents employed to hunt them by sea was the renowned Captain Kidd. He had long been a hardy adventurer, a kind of equivocal borderer, half trader, half smuggler, with a tolerable dash of the pickaroon. ”

“ Say, at the Marshalsea. This witness, on being told by a friend that Bradenham had been Kidd’s surgeon, had observed: “There is a mighty noise about Captain Kidd,” on which Bradenham admitted that he had been with Kidd at Madagascar, but expressed his opinion that Kidd “had done nothing but what he could answer for, and nothing that could do him any hurt.” The truthfulness of this evidence was not questioned by the prosecution: but it was swept aside contemptuously by the Lord Chief Baron. “Mr. Bradenham,” he said, “was with him there. There is no doubt of that. ”

“ Captain William Kidd, famous for his knowledge of the haunts and practices of the buccaneers, will soon arrive in New York to lay in stores and take 151commissions for the South Seas. He sails under cover of a patent, granted by the Earl of Bellamont, Governor of His Majesty’s province of New York, granting him power to cruise against the buccaneers. This alleged purpose is a trick to deceive the people. Captain Kidd’s real purpose is to cooperate with the pirates, to evade the laws of the province, and to enrich the pocket of the governor. ”

“ He is very fit to be made an evidence of the King. Perhaps there can be no other in this case than such who are in his circumstances.”
In other words, those of the crew who had faithfully stood by their captain, and helped [88] him to bring his prize home to America in the interests of their employers, one of whom was the King himself, could not be relied on as witnesses. The only witnesses who could be trusted to swear through thick and thin against Kidd, were two men who by their own admission had deserted their colours and joined Culliford in open piracy against the ships of all nations. ”

“ Lord Bellomont looked about for a good captain. At last he thought he had found just the man in Captain William Kidd. Captain Kidd just at this time happened to be in London, where he was well known, and well liked. His home was in New York, where his wife and daughter lived in a fine house in Crown Street, and where he was a respected citizen. But best of all for the Company, Captain Kidd had been in command of a privateer, and knew a good deal about pirates and their ways. ”

“ All other pirates who made themselves notorious on our coast were known as robbers, pillagers, and ruthless destroyers of life and property, but Captain Kidd's fame was of another kind. We do not think of him as a pirate who came to carry away the property of American citizens, for nearly all the stories about him relate to his arrival at different points on our shores for the sole purpose of burying and thus [Pg 292] concealing the rich treasures which he had collected in other parts of the world. ”

“ In those days colonial governorships were less sought after than they are now; and it was hopeless to expect any man of mark at home to accept one.
From an “Account of the proceedings in relation to Captain Kidd in two letters from a Person of Quality to a kinsman of the Earl of Bellamont,” published in 1701, the year of Kidd’s death, with the avowed object of vindicating the memory of Bellamont, who was then dead, it appears that New York had at that time, rightly or wrongly, earned a bad name in England. ”

“ They stopt at Tarpolin Cove; and there put on shore One Bale, Two Barrels, and a Box of Goods, delivered unto the Man that dwells there: And, as they came over to Nantinket Shoals, they met a Sloop from the Bay, commanded by one Captain Way; which said Way came on board our Sloop; and, when he went off again;—in his canoe, by Captain Kidd’s order, Two or Three small arms, a Pendulum Clock bought of Captain Wright, Commander of the Quidah Merchant; a Pair of Stilliards, and a Bag about as big as the Crown of his Hat, sealed up; which the Examinant supposes to be Money. ”

“ As a result of these instructions, Captain William Kidd was employed to hunt the pirates down by sea while Governor Bellomont made it hot for the unscrupulous merchants ashore who were, no doubt, the ancestors of the modern American profiteers in food and clothing, who are also most respectable men. Captain Kidd was a merchant shipmaster of brave and honorable repute who had a comfortable home in Liberty Street, New York, was married to a widow of good family, and was highly esteemed by the Dutch and English people of the town. ”

“ That I will cruise on the coast for ten days' time; and if so that he is gone off the coast, that I cannot hear of him, I will then, at my return, take care and set what men on shore that I have had, and are willing to leave me or the Ship."
These records serve to show in what esteem Captain Kidd was held by the highest officials of the Colonies. Such men as he were sailing out of Boston, New York, and Salem to trade in uncharted seas on remote coasts and fight their way home again with rich cargoes. ”

“ Even as it was, had he been in command of a disciplined crew, as determined as their captain was, faithfully to discharge the painful duties they had undertaken, his [78] finding the pirates at St. Marie’s would have given him a fair chance of crowning his patient efforts with a success which might have been handed down to posterity as a proof of the fortitude by which a great Scotch sea captain had been able to surmount apparently insuperable difficulties. But it would be hard to find in history, sacred or profane, an unluckier man than Kidd. ”

“ If he could have kept them in his own possession, they would doubtless have been a great weapon of defence to protect him from the gallows. Indeed, when Captain Kidd was finally brought to conviction and hung, he was not accused of his piracies, but of striking a mutinous seaman upon the head with a bucket and accidentally killing him. The authorities did not dare try him for piracy. He was really hung because he was a pirate, and we know that it was the log-books that Tom Chist brought to New York that did the business for him ”

“ When Captain Kidd forsook the King's commission to run down the pirates on the American coast, and organized his formidable squadron, Captain Redfield was chosen as his trusted counsellor, to accompany the brilliant leader on his adventures. He gave up his own ship, and was with Captain Kidd on many voyages, being entrusted with many a commission of importance. ”

“ The ship being driven back by the storm, gave rise to a rumour, that the ministry then in power were afraid of having Kidd brought to trial, on account of so many powerful Whig names being implicated in his piracy. This led to an impeachment of several of the adventurers in the House of Lords; but Kidd, and nine of his men, being easily found guilty, were condemned and executed for piracy and murder. The adventures and fate of Captain Kidd form the subject of one of the very few popular ballads which the history of America has given rise to in that country ”

“ She was laden with Bale-Goods, containing Muslins, Silk striped and plain, and raw Silk, refined Sugar in Bags, Saltpetre, Iron in Junks, Guns and Anchors: Captain Wright and other the Christians, with several of the Armenians and Moors, were speedily sent on shore; some of them came to Madagascar in the Galley, and there left her: Said, Captain Kidd carried the said Prize Ship into Madagascar, Geo. Bullen, Chief Mate of the Galley, being put into command the said Prize Ship ”

“ Captain Kidd was heard to say, a few days before his death, that this voyage, which both officers and sailors had engaged in with so much cheerfulness and alacrity, would prove in the end very far from their expectations, notwithstanding the vast treasure they imagined to gain by it; that it would end in poverty, vermin; famine, death, and destruction. How far the captain's words were prophetic will appear in the course of our journal. Captain C--p succeeded Captain Murray on board the Wager. ”

“ Who saith, That, in September 1696, he entered himself on board the Adventure Galley, Captain Kidd Commander, as a Foremast-man, at New York; and proceeded in the Galley from thence, first to Madera, then to Bonavista, St. Jago, and from thence to Joanna; and from Joanna made their Course to the Red Sea to cruise for Pirates; and, after some time spent there, meeting with no Purchase, sailed for the Coast of India, and cruised there, and [295] there gave chace to a Ship, which shewed us French Colours, and Moorish Colours, and some others ”

“ Kidd do bring to Boston aforesaid, and there deliver to the Earl of Bellamont, Goods, Merchandizes, Treasure and Prizes to the Value of 100,000l. or upwards, which he shall have taken from the said Pirates, or from other [247] Pirates, or from the King’s Enemies; that then the Ship which is now speedily to be bought by the said Parties, shall be and remain to the sole Use and Behoof of him the said Captain Kidd, as a Reward and Gratification for his Good Service therein. ”

“ Which Ship the said Captain Kidd left lying in the River, in Hispaniola aforesaid, to be reckoned about Eighteen Leagues from Mona.
The Examinant further saith, That, after the said Galley had taken the Two Ships before-mentioned, She also, in her Passage to St. Marie’s aforesaid, took a Bark or Ship, of the Burden of 180 Tons, with about Seventy Persons on board, navigated with Portuguez: She came from Bengall; and was bound to Goa; and had on board Bengalls, Muslins, Calicoes, and other things, which the Galley’s Company began to plunder, and bring on board the Galley ”