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Title: The Real Captain Kidd: A Vindication

Author: Cornelius Neale Dalton

Release date: March 27, 2017 [eBook #54444]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Chris Curnow, Jo Harry and the Online
        Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE REAL CAPTAIN KIDD: A VINDICATION ***




Produced by Chris Curnow, Jo Harry and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net





Transcriber’s Note: Inconsistency in the spelling of the old documents
(both in English and in French) has been preserved.




                                THE REAL
                              CAPTAIN KIDD

                              A Vindication

                                   BY
                       SIR CORNELIUS NEALE DALTON
                         K.C.M.G., C.B., D.C.L.

                                 LONDON
                            WILLIAM HEINEMANN
                                  1911

             _Copyright, London, 1911, by William Heinemann
            and Washington, U.S.A., by Duffield and Company_




CONTENTS


    CHAPTER                                                PAGE

      I PRELIMINARY                                           3

     II THE VOYAGE OF THE ADVENTURE GALLEY                   39

    III KIDD’S RETURN HOME                                   77

     IV THE GENESIS AND GROWTH OF THE ARCH-PIRATE MYTH      105

      V KIDD’S FIRST TRIAL AT THE OLD BAILEY                141

     VI THE SUBSEQUENT TRIALS OF KIDD AND HIS CREW
        FOR PIRACY                                          171

    VII KIDD’S END                                          195

                            APPENDICES

    APPENDIX A                                              229

     1. Copy of the King’s Grant of Pirates’ Goods.

     2. Articles of Agreement between Bellamont,
        Levingston, and Kidd.

     3. Kidd’s Sailing Orders.

    APPENDIX B                                              255

     1. Kidd’s Own Narrative of His Voyage.

     2. The Examination of William Jinkins, Richard
        Barlycorne, and Robert Lumley.

     3. The Examination of Hugh Parratt.

     4. The Examination of Gabriel Luff.

     5. The Depositions of Abel Owen and Samuel
        Arris, English Smith and Humphry Clay.

    APPENDIX C                                              309

     The French Passes sent to Bellamont by Kidd,
     included amongst the papers ordered by the
     House of Commons to be delivered to the
     Secretary of the Admiralty for the purposes
     of Kidd’s trial.

     1. The French Pass taken on board the _Quedagh_
        or _Karry Merchant_ (_le Navire Cara_)

     2. The French Pass taken on board the other
        prize captured by Kidd.

    APPENDIX D                                              315

     The Report of Duncan Campbell to Bellamont.

    APPENDIX E                                              325

     Extracts relating to Bellamont and Kidd from
     Narcissus Luttrell’s “Brief Historical Relation
     of State Affairs from September, 1678, to
     April, 1714.”




The Real Captain Kidd




CHAPTER ONE




CHAPTER I

PRELIMINARY


It is to be feared that honest and well-meaning men have not infrequently
incurred the odium of posterity, not so much by reason of any enormities
of which they have themselves been guilty, as because it has been their
misfortune to be set to impossible tasks by employers or comrades, to
whom they have been only too faithful. Few, if any, of such men have less
deserved their fate than Captain Kidd, one of the unluckiest men that
ever lived, who left this world on Friday the 23d of May, 1701, after
woeful experiences at sea of the doings of an unruly crew, and on shore
of the schemings of unscrupulous politicians and lawyers at Boston,
Newgate, the Old Bailey, and the Execution Dock at Wapping.

To most of those who woo her, reputation is a coy and fickle mistress.
But she occasionally evinces a very embarrassing attachment to men and
women, whose innate modesty and reticence have prompted them throughout
their careers to give her as wide a berth as possible. 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. His fatal
mistake which brought all his sufferings on him was that he yielded to
the solicitations, if not to the intimidations, of personages of higher
rank than his own, who for their own ends induced him against his better
judgment to embark on an impossible enterprise, which after the manner of
his kind he doggedly tried to carry through to the utmost of his ability,
and in which he came nearer attaining success than could reasonably have
been anticipated. For his pains, after giving himself into custody in
reliance on the word and honour of his chief employer, a Whig nobleman,
he was ignominiously executed and hung in chains, after nearly two years’
close incarceration, and has ever since been held up to execration as the
arch pirate, who left behind him untold hoards of treasure taken from
the murdered crews of peaceable merchantmen, and buried God knows where,
on the innumerable coasts and keys of the West Indies, where they are
popularly supposed to await discovery to this day. It would be difficult
to conceive any wilder misrepresentation of the poor man’s doings.

Kidd seems to have been born in Scotland and to have spent the
greater part of his life in the American Colonies, neither of which
circumstances was likely to stand him in good stead, either with the
great men who employed him or with the London juries, by whom he was
found guilty of murder and piracy. It is not alleged by his detractors
that he had not borne an excellent character, until he was sent on his
wild-goose chase after pirates, nor is there any reason to believe
that he had any taste himself for piracy. On the contrary, it was his
exemplary past conduct in this respect, in which he was certainly in
advance of his time, which was the primary cause of his ruin, inasmuch
as it induced the Earl of Bellamont, the Governor of New England, at the
instigation of a local magnate, Colonel Livingstone, to select him as the
most fitting instrument for the furtherance of the King’s alleged designs
for the suppression of piracy, when at the mature age of fifty-two, he
was living a reputable sea-faring life in easy circumstances, possessed
of a ship of his own, and married to a wife with a considerable fortune,
settled in New York.

Bellamont was appointed Governor of New York by His Majesty King
William the Third, early in the year 1695. Two years before he had been
treasurer and receiver general of the late Queen Mary; but she had found
it impossible to allow him to retain that post. In her diary of 1693
she writes: “Lord Bellamont behaved himself impertinently. I turned
him out and was censured for it by all, which was no small vexation
to me. But I could not be convinced that I was in the wrong, yet was
sorry it was so understood.” That he was given to taking unjustifiable
action on ill-grounded suspicions would appear from the fact that in
the same year (1693) he had made himself ridiculous by a vexatious and
abortive impeachment of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, Lord Coningsby,
and one of the Irish Lord Justices, Sir Charles Porter, both of whom
he had arraigned for high treason and other imaginary crimes and
misdemeanors. The House of Commons, to whom he had presented his articles
of impeachment, could not stomach proceedings so obviously calculated to
bring it into contempt; and unanimously decided that the great majority
of his accusations were absolutely groundless, while they declined to
take any action on the remainder, considering the state of Ireland at
the time when the alleged breaches of the law had taken place. It is
of course impossible to say with certainty how far his ineptitude on
this occasion, and the remembrance of the Queen’s dislike to the man,
induced the King to offer him a colonial governorship. But he would be
a bold man who would venture to deny that even in more modern times
similar appointments have been offered to and accepted by men, whom their
own party have found it convenient to rid Parliament of at any cost,
without regard to the interests of the Colonies to which they have been
relegated. 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. These letters, which so far as they appeared to
whitewash Bellamont and Kidd’s other employers, were eagerly accepted
and embellished by Macaulay, are historically interesting from the side
lights which they throw on certain differences which had then arisen
between England and her American Colonies, and were already paving the
way for the separation of the Mother Country and her strongest child.
Their writer begins by informing his readers that “it was then well
known that for several years two very pernicious things had been growing
up in our American Colonies,--an unlawful trade in fraud of the Acts of
Navigation and the Plantations, infinitely prejudicial to England, and
the cursed practice of piracy, utterly destructive of all commerce.”
“Many,” he tells us, “were insensibly drawn into these ill courses by
observing what excessive wealth the offenders gained in a short time,
and with what impunity they offended. For some Governors, having found
a way to share in the profit, were obliged not only to connive at, but
protect, the offenders.” This anonymous gentleman had often, he says,
been told by Bellamont that His Majesty had done him the honour to say
“that he thought him a man of resolution and integrity, and with these
qualifications, more likely than any other he could then think of”
(apparently from Bellamont’s own account of the interview the King
had not much time to waste in troubling himself about so unimportant
a matter), “to put a stop to that illegal trade and to the growth of
piracy, for which reason he had made choice of him as Governor of New
York, and for the same reason intended to put the government of New
England into his hands.”

It would therefore appear to be admitted by this gentleman that the
primary object of the King in the selection of Bellamont was to secure
the more rigorous enforcement of the Navigation and Plantation Acts.
These Acts had been passed in the reign of Charles the Second, for
the purpose of securing for England the monopoly of American trade,
by preventing under heavy penalties any direct trade between the
Colonists and their neighbors, French, Spanish, or Dutch, in the West
Indies. They prohibited the import and export of goods into or from the
plantations except in ships built in England; and provided for the
seizure and forfeiture of any other vessels employed in that trade and
all goods found on board. It will readily be understood that, although
this monopoly was regarded with great favour in England, it had been
growing more and more unpopular with the Colonists, as their commerce
and population increased, because their traffic with their neighbors
was incommoded and hampered by it; the inevitable result being that the
smuggling of goods into and out of the plantations had become a popular
and lucrative and not very difficult business. Our Dutch King’s desire to
check this smuggling was not unnatural, money being at that time urgently
required by him for the prosecution of his French War.

Bellamont, appointed Governor of New England in July, 1695, seems to
have been in no hurry to go out to America. The primary object of his
appointment being the more rigid enforcement of the Navigation Acts, it
may be that it was thought desirable that he should be at hand during
the passage through Parliament in the following year of the English
Statute entitled “An Act for preventing frauds and regulating abuses in
the Plantation Trade.” The Parliamentary draftsmen of those days had a
pretty talent for invective exercisable on the instructions of those in
power. In this case it was displayed not only in the preamble of the
Act, but also in the recitals to several of the clauses. From these we
learn that notwithstanding the Acts of King Charles the Second “made for
the encouragement of the navigation of the kingdom and for the better
securing and regulating the plantation trade, great abuses were daily
committed to the detriment of the English navigation and the loss of a
great part of the plantation trade, through the artifice and cunning of
ill-disposed persons.” Amongst these artful, cunning, and ill-disposed
persons, the pre-eminence is assigned to Scotchmen, who in that year
were in bad odour with the King, and projecting their unfortunate Darien
expedition which, had it succeeded, might have hit the English trade far
harder than any amount of smuggling could have done: “Great frauds and
abuses,” we are told by the draftsman, “have been committed by Scotchmen
and others in the plantation trade, by obtruding false and counterfeit
certificates upon the government officers of having given security
in this kingdom to bring the ladings of plantation goods to England,
Wales, or the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed; as also certificates of having
discharged their ladings of plantation goods in this kingdom pursuant to
securities taken in the plantations, and also cocquets or certificates
of having taken in their ladings of European goods in England, Wales,
or Berwick-upon-Tweed, by means whereof they may carry the goods of
Scotland and other places of Europe, without shipping the same in
England, Wales, or Berwick-upon-Tweed to His Majesty’s plantations,
and also carry the goods of the plantations directly to Scotland or any
other market in Europe without bringing the same to England, Wales, or
Berwick-upon-Tweed.” To remedy these malpractices, a penalty of five
hundred pounds was imposed by the Act on any person making use of such
false cocquets and certificates. Every Colonial Governor was required to
take a solemn oath to do his utmost, that all the clauses, matters, and
things contained in the Navigation Acts should be punctually and _bonâ
fide_ observed; and on proof that any Governor had neglected to take
this oath, or been wittingly or willingly negligent in doing his duty,
he was to be removed from his government and fined one thousand pounds
sterling. All naval officers in the plantations were required to give
security to the Commissioners of Customs for the faithful performance of
their duties, and until such securities had been given and approved by
the Commissioners, the Governor was made answerable for their defaults.
The Act is very lengthy and verbose. But the above are its most important
provisions.

Legislation of this sort was thoroughly in harmony with the policy
pursued at that time by the Home Government in its dealings with the
Colonies. Generations had yet to pass before any doubt as to its wisdom
began to dawn in the minds of Englishmen. Had Bellamont’s instructions
from his royal patron been confined to its furtherance, it would have
been well for poor Kidd, and the reputations of Bellamont and sundry
great personages in England. But they had, as has been seen, extended
to the suppression of the alleged growth of piracy in New England. As a
matter of fact, it may well be doubted whether piracy had, as alleged,
been for several years on the increase in that part of the world. In the
West Indies it had greatly diminished. Less than thirty years before,
the buccaneers had been so numerous that, on receiving the directions
of King Charles the Second to stop their depredations on the Spaniards,
they had in defiance of his orders stormed the Castle of Chagres; and
marching thence across the Isthmus, more than a thousand strong, sacked
and burnt Panama itself in the face of the organized forces of the
Spaniards. Now the great Brotherhood of the Coast had practically ceased
to exist. Such piracy as still lingered on amongst the English speaking
race was for the most part limited to the eastern seas and consisted
mainly in depredations on the shipping of Mussulmans, Armenians, and the
natives of India, collectively termed by seamen Moors. Without in any way
extenuating the practice of plundering these people, it is only right
that we should bear in mind, in considering the case of Kidd and his
crew, the belief then widely prevalent amongst Europeans that there was
little if any impropriety or disgrace attaching to the ill-treatment and
robbery of black men by white. Witness, for example, the slave trade,
and the conditions under which negroes were worked in the plantations.
Moorish piracy still prevailed in the Mediterranean, attended by great
cruelty to Europeans; and retaliation on the so-called Moors in the
eastern seas must have seemed to the man in the street the most natural
thing in the world. Darby Mullins, who was hung with Kidd, was no doubt
voicing the opinion commonly held by seamen and others, not only in
the plantations but in London and Bristol, when whilst expressing in
his last moments to the Ordinary of Newgate his sincere contrition for
his habits of swearing and cursing and profaning the Sabbath day, and
his neglect to return thanks to his Creator for his preservation in an
earthquake at Jamaica (sins of commission and omission which he regarded
as really serious offences and for which he asked pardon), nevertheless
protested in defence of his piracy under Culliford that “he had not known
but that it was very lawful” (as he said he had been told) “to plunder
ships and goods belonging to the enemies of Christianity.” We may indeed
be permitted to doubt, whether King William himself would have pressed
Bellamont to check this piracy in the eastern seas, had it not been for
two considerations: the one a possible apprehension that it might extend
to the plundering of Dutch merchantmen sailing to and from his Dutch
Colonies in the East, and the other the increasing complaints on the
part of the wealthy East India Company who exercised great influence in
Parliament, that it injured their trade and led to complications in their
dealings with the Great Mogul.

Be this as it may, the suppression of piracy in the East was not only
a desirable object, but one that was likely to commend itself to the
mercantile community; and any plausible project for its furtherance
that would not necessitate his immediate departure from England would
naturally be welcomed by Bellamont. Such a project was not long in
presenting itself.

To return to his defence written by the anonymous Person of Quality: “As
soon,” he says, “as it was known that the Earl of Bellamont was designed
for Governor, all persons who had concerns in New York made their
applications to him. Amongst others, Colonel Robert Livingstone, who had
several employments in that province, had frequent access to him, as
well upon the account of the public affairs there, as of several matters
which he had depending before the council and the treasury. The Earl,
taking occasion to mention to this gentleman the scandal which lay upon
New York in respect of the encouragement and retreat, which the pirates
found there, Colonel Livingstone confessed” (as might be expected of a
canny Scot, who wished to ingratiate himself with the great man) “that
there was too much ground for the complaint, and that if some speedy
and effectual course were not taken to suppress those enormities, so
many persons would be drawn into the guilt that it would be exceedingly
difficult to master them.”

After thinking the matter over, he saw his way to make himself
serviceable. “When he came again to wait on the Earl, he took notice of
the zeal the Earl had expressed at their last conversation for putting
a stop to that piratical trade, since which time, he said, he had spoke
with one Captain William Kidd, lately come” to London “from New York
in a sloop of his own, who told him that he knew most of the principal
men who had been abroad roving and others who had lately gone out, and
likewise had some knowledge of the places where they usually made their
rendezvous, and that he would undertake to seize most of them in case
he might be employed in one of the King’s ships, a good sailer of about
thirty guns, and might have one hundred and fifty men. He said that
though the pirates were many in number yet they had at that time no
ship of considerable size. Livingstone affirmed that Kidd was a bold and
honest man and he believed better than any other to be employed on that
occasion.”

In the light of subsequent events it is much to be regretted that poor
Kidd happened at that juncture to have come to London from New York and,
whether in his cups or otherwise, made these disclosures to Livingstone.
But that Livingstone was fully justified in his estimate of Kidd’s
character is clear from the evidence of the four most reputable witnesses
(it may almost be said the only reputable witnesses) at Kidd’s subsequent
trials,--Colonel Hewson, Captain Bond, Captain Humphreys, and Mr. Thomas
Cooper,--who happened to be in London, when the trial came on. Colonel
Hewson then testified that Kidd was a mighty man in the French war in the
West Indies; and had served under his (Hewson’s) command, being sent to
him by the order of Colonel Codrington. “He was with me,” he swore, “in
two engagements against the French, and fought as well as any man I ever
saw, according to the proportion of his men. We had six Frenchmen to deal
with, and only mine and his ship.”

KIDD. “Do you think I was a pirate?”

HEWSON. “I know his men would have gone a-pirateering and he refused it;
and his men seized upon his ship. When he went this voyage, he consulted
me and told me they had engaged him on such an expedition. And I told him
he had enough already, and might be contented with what he had. And he
said that was his own inclination; but my Lord Bellamont had told him, if
he did not go this voyage, that there were great men and they would stop
his brigantine in the river, if he did not go.”

Mr. Justice TURTON. “Who told you so? Did he?”

HEWSON. “Yes, my lord.”

Mr. Justice TURTON. “Did you apprehend that his intention in that
undertaking was to be a pirate?”

HEWSON. “No, my lord. He told me his business was to go cruising and
surprise pirates.”

The SOLICITOR GENERAL. “Did he tell you he had no such design?”

HEWSON. “Yes; he said he would be shot to death before he would do any
such thing. He was very serviceable in the West Indies.”

On the same occasion Captain Bond swore that he knew that Kidd was very
useful at the beginning of the war, and Captain Humphreys that he had
known Kidd at the beginning of the late war, and that he had the applause
of the General, as he could show by the General’s letter, a general
applause of what he had done from time to time.

Mr. Thomas Cooper gave evidence to the like effect. Being asked by
Kidd to tell the Lord Chief Baron Ward, what he knew of him in the West
Indies, he replied: “I was on board the _Lyon_; and this Captain Kidd
brought his ship from a place that belonged to the Dutch and brought her
into the King’s service at the beginning of the war, about ten years ago;
and we fought Monsieur Du Cass a whole day, and I thank God we got the
better of it. And Captain Kidd behaved himself very well in the face of
his enemies.”

Two points should be noted in Colonel Hewson’s evidence. First, that he
knew that Kidd, years before there was any thought of sending him out
to suppress piracy in the eastern seas, had not only done good service
for England in the war against France, but had also refused to join his
crew in “pirateering,” with the result that they had seized his ship.
Secondly, that Kidd had told him before he started on his last unlucky
expedition, that he was drawn into the business by an intimation on the
part of Bellamont, that there were great men in it, and by the threat
that if he did not go, his brigantine would be stopped in the river. That
there were great men in the business, far greater men than Bellamont,
is indisputable. That great men in those days were wont to use their
great power more arbitrarily than they dare to do now-a-days is also
indisputable. That Kidd was more or less coerced into embarking in their
business by the fear that they might stop his brigantine in the river
if he refused to go, cannot, in view of the statement which he made to
Colonel Hewson before starting, be reasonably regarded as improbable.

To return to the narrative of the Person of Quality, who was not likely
to lay stress on these points. “His Majesty,” he says, “was made
acquainted with the proposal by the Earl of Bellamont, and was pleased
to consult the Admiralty. But the war employing all the King’s ships
which were in a condition of service, and the great want of seamen
(notwithstanding the press and all other means used), together with the
remoteness of the voyage, and the uncertainty of meeting the pirates or
taking them if they were found, occasioned after some deliberation the
laying aside of the project as impracticable at that time.” In other
words, the Admiralty officials, realizing the difficulty of the task,
declined to take any part in it, and pleaded inability.

The pertinacious Livingstone, as might have been expected, was not to be
staved off in this fashion; and before long he hit upon a new project.
“He did propose to the Earl, that if persons of consideration might be
induced to join in the expense of buying and fitting out a proper ship,
he had such an opinion of Kidd’s capacity and good meaning, and so great
a desire that some stop might be put to these practices that he would be
one of the undertakers” (incurring little risk so long as he stood in
with persons of sufficient consideration); “and that he and Kidd would
be at one-fifth part of the charge. The Earl thought himself obliged in
duty to make this second overture known to His Majesty, who was pleased
to approve highly of the design, because” (note the reason) “nothing of
that nature was to be effected in any other way. He did also declare, as
an encouragement to such an undertaking, that the persons with whom the
Earl should engage to be at the expense of the voyage should have a grant
of what Kidd should take from the pirates, so far as it might belong to
him, except some part, which he would reserve for himself chiefly to show
that he was a partner in the undertaking.”

So far, therefore, as appears from the narrative of this Person of
Quality, who is the only witness of these confidential communications,
whose evidence is now available. The original suggestion of Kidd, who
unlike the majority of his fellow Colonists was opposed to piracy in
the East or elsewhere, was that if he was sent out on board of a King’s
ship, with officers and men of the King’s navy, he would indicate to them
the places to which the pirates were wont to resort, and thus enable
the King’s sailors to seize them. The Admiralty doubted the feasibility
of this plan, even if they had had the necessary means at the moment to
carry it out. The disastrous suggestion that Kidd should be sent out in
command of a ship, provided at the expense of persons of consideration,
and manned by a scratch crew of undisciplined men, emanated from
Livingstone, and was assented to by the King as a _pis-aller_. At the
worst the King could not lose a farthing by it. If it succeeded, he would
not only gain his object, but pocket a substantial share of the plunder.
The adventurers might pocket more, but they would run some risk of
parting with their money and getting no return for it. What would happen
to Kidd, if he failed, appears to have been no concern to any of them.

The King’s approval of the adventure having been obtained, the next thing
to be done was to find the necessary persons of consideration, willing to
put their money in it. Six thousand pounds only were required, of which
Livingstone and Kidd each contributed six hundred. The remainder was at
once advanced by four of the most powerful men in England at that time,
leading men in the King’s Whig Ministry, Somers the Lord Chancellor; the
Earl of Orford, the First Lord of the Admiralty; and the two Secretaries
of State, the Earl of Romney and the Duke of Shrewsbury. Great men indeed
were now in the business, and it was too late for Kidd to back out of it.
So far Livingstone had succeeded, probably beyond his wildest hopes.

But although these great men were quite willing to risk their moneys
in this adventure, they were by no means keen that their names should
appear in connection with it. In the grant[1] made to the adventurers
by the King of the pirates’ goods and wares to be taken by Kidd, it was
expressly stated that his ship, the _Adventure Galley_, had been, with
the King’s knowledge and royal encouragement, fitted out to sea at the
great and sole charge of the Earl of Bellamont and Sir Edmund Harrison,
and four obscure personages, Samuel Newton, John Rowley, George Watson,
and Thomas Reynolds, not one of whom had advanced a penny of their own
upon it; and it was to these persons, and not to Livingstone, Kidd, or
the four King’s ministers that the grant purported to be made on the
ground that the King was “graciously inclined that so chargeable an
undertaking tending to such good and laudable ends should have meet and
proper encouragement.” As a _quid pro quo_ for this highly improper
grant, the legality of which was afterwards very seriously called
in question in Parliament, the grantees by an indenture of even date
therewith agreed to well and truly account for and deliver to the use
of His Majesty one full clear tenth part of any vessels, merchandise,
moneys, goods, and wares that might be captured by Kidd.

Two Commissions were granted to Kidd himself, the one, letters of marque
in ordinary form, empowering him to capture French ships, and the other,
a special Commission authorizing him to apprehend, seize, and take four
persons designated by name as pirates, Thomas Too, John Ireland, Thomas
Wake, and William Maze _alias_ Mace (none of whom were found by him in
the course of his wanderings), and also any other pirates, freebooters,
and sea rovers, whom he might be fortunate enough to catch, together with
their ships, merchandise, goods, and wares. How he was to satisfy himself
that any persons whom he might come across were pirates, unless he
caught them in the act of piracy, and what the consequences to himself
would be, if he had the misfortune by mistake to kill persons whom he
suspected to be pirates, but of whose piracy he had no legal proof, or
if by any equally likely mischance he neglected to seize persons who
were pirates, but whom he could not prove to be such, does not appear
from any of the verbose legal documents drawn up on this occasion. What
is clear from them[2] amongst other things is this, that they imposed on
his men conditions which were likely to be and in the event proved to be
very unpalatable to them. The most important of these was that if they
took no prizes, the crew were to have no pay. Another condition was that
if the prize moneys were insufficient to meet the full amount advanced
by the four great men, the deficiency was to be made good by Kidd and
Livingstone, both of whom were substantial men. In the event of the
prize moneys amounting to one hundred thousand pounds, the _Adventure
Galley_, which turned out to be a leaky old vessel, was to become the
property of Kidd. The great men therefore ran very little pecuniary risk,
and obviously hoped to make enormous gains from the enterprise. But for
this expectation it is highly improbable that any of them would have
embarked in the adventure.

It is, of course, very difficult at this distance of time to determine
with any certainty what amount of blame attaches to the several
personages concerned in this unfortunate business. Very grave suspicion
attaches to some of them. One thing, however, is reasonably certain,
that no candid person who will now take the trouble to look into the
case carefully, can come to any other conclusion than that the balance
of evidence is distinctly in favour of poor Kidd; and that he was
fully justified in the reply which he made to Lord Chief Baron Ward,
when called upon to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced
upon him. “My lord, it is a very hard sentence. For my part, I am the
innocentest person of them all.”




CHAPTER TWO




CHAPTER II

THE VOYAGE OF THE “ADVENTURE GALLEY”[3]


Legal preliminaries completed, Kidd’s ship, the _Adventure Galley_,
was launched in Castle’s Yard at Deptford, on the fourth of December,
1695, and set sail between two and three months afterwards. Sir Edmund
Harrison, described by Bellamont’s apologist as “a reputable city
merchant,” had been at the pains to select the crew with great care so
as to exclude all Scotch and Colonials, who were regarded as ineligible
by reason of their supposed proclivities to smuggling and piracy. “That
nothing might be wanting,” we are told by the same writer, “which the
nature of the thing would admit notwithstanding the great difficulty of
finding men at that time, Sir Edmund Harrison took such care of the crew
that every officer in the ship and almost all the seamen had settled
families in England.” “True it is,” he adds in the next paragraph, “that
this care was in a great degree rendered ineffectual: for most of the
crew were pressed before Kidd got out of the river.” Kidd himself in
his artless narrative tells the tale more tersely, merely recording the
fact that “on the first of March, when he came to the Buoy at the Nore,
his men were pressed for the fleet.” Seeing that the First Lord of the
Admiralty was one of the principal partners in the adventure, it may
seem strange to those who have had no personal experience of official
blunderings, that precautions had not been taken to prevent this untoward
mishap, which made a hopeless enterprise more hopeless than ever. For it
left Kidd no alternative but to get the bulk of his crew from America.
With such of his men as had not been deemed worth taking by the press
gang, he managed to get away from Plymouth about the end of April. On
his way to America, he captured a small French vessel with salt and
fishing tackle bound for Newfoundland, and brought her into port at New
York. There in the head centre and hotbed of the smuggling and piracy,
which the King desired to repress, he set to work to pick up the best
substitutes he could find for the men who had been so carefully selected
for him and so unceremoniously taken from him at the Nore.

He reached New York in July and did not leave it till September. In the
interval the French ship which he had captured was condemned by the
authorities as a lawful prize; and according to Kidd’s narrative of these
events, “the produce thereof purchased provisions for the _Adventure
Galley_ for her further intended voyage.” It must have been anything but
an easy job to get the requisite number of men to fill up the vacancies
in his ship’s company. The Colony was not over populated, nor was there
any lack of work for those who cared to take it. The only terms he
was authorized to offer, “No purchase, no pay,” were not likely to be
accepted by skilled and experienced seamen, who had the chance of earning
a good living at home by smuggling, or of going out and making their
fortunes, as some had lately done in the East under such captains as
those whom it was now Kidd’s business to catch. Nor was the catching of
their old friends for hanging purposes likely to be a popular employment
in that part of the world. He probably picked up some adventurous boys,
eager to go to sea at any cost, in ignorance of the fate to which they
were consigning themselves. Of the older men who joined, Darby Mullins,
a rolling stone who had gathered no moss, may perhaps be taken as a fair
sample. From so much of his previous history as this poor man told
to the chaplain at Newgate, it appears that he was an Irishman, born
near Londonderry, kidnapped when young and shipped for the plantations,
where he had followed various honest avocations without any conspicuous
success. Most of Kidd’s grown-up recruits, it is to be feared, were men
of this kind, who for one reason or another were indisposed to remain
long in any one employment, and likely to abandon the enterprise as soon
as they got tired of it. Whilst picking up one and another of these men
during his last stay at his home in New York, Kidd, one would think, must
often have regretted that he had embarked on this miserable business. But
he seems to have been upheld not only then but till the day of his death
by a childlike belief in the great men whose service he had entered, a
belief which was possibly shared by his wife. Money was not a matter of
great importance to either of them. It is not unlikely that she was
pleased to hear about her husband’s great friends, his interviews with
them in London, and what they were likely to do for him and her when he
had successfully completed his task. It is possible that she may have
looked forward with some complacency, poor soul, to the prospect of
herself associating with the women folk of these great people. Perhaps
she even dreamed of becoming a great lady herself. Why not? What more
likely than that her husband would be knighted by the King for his
services and that she would become Lady Kidd?

Starting from New York in September in command of his undisciplined
and unpromising crew, Kidd proceeded first to the Madeiras, in company
with one Joyner, master of a brigantine belonging to the Bermudas. He
arrived at his destination on the eighth of October. Thence they sailed
together to Bonavista, where they stayed for some days and took in
salt; thence to St. Jago where they watered; and thence to the Cape of
Good Hope. On the twelfth of December, “in the latitude of thirty-two,”
to quote from Kidd’s narrative, “they met with five English men-of-war.
Captain Warren was commodore; and sailed a week in their company, and
then parted and sailed to Telere, a port in the Island of Madagascar.”
Here Kidd failed to find at their usual rendezvous any of the pirates
after whom he had come, and concluding that they were preying on the
Eastern trade, continued his course eastwards in pursuit of them. In
company with a sloop belonging to Barbadoes, which had come in at Telere
whilst he was there, he sailed to the Island of Johanna on the coast of
Malabar. There he “found four East India merchantmen outward bound and
watered there all together and stayed about five days. From thence about
the twenty-second of March he sailed for Mehila, an island ten leagues
distant from Johanna, where he arrived the next morning and careened the
_Galley_.” “And about fifty men died there in about a week’s time,” he
tells us pithily and without comment, as though such a catastrophe was an
ordinary occurrence, as indeed it probably was in those days to a ship’s
crew suddenly attacked by cholera or plague in those parts. These deaths
seem to have induced him to leave that coast somewhat suddenly and to
seek healthier quarters. After cruising awhile in the open sea, the only
known specific in those days for such mischances, he came to the entrance
of the Red Sea; obviously a likely place to find the pirates in, since it
was specifically named in the Articles of Agreement between Bellamont,
Livingstone, and himself as the place in which the pirates of whom he
was in search intended to commit their depredations, and the date of the
sailing of the Mecca fleet was approaching. He had now been the greater
part of a year at sea without taking a prize, and had lost more than a
third of his crew by sickness. His ship had grown crazy and leaky; and
neither he nor his men had yet earned a penny. No wonder that his ship’s
company was growing discontented. The wonder is that Kidd had thus far
been able to keep them fairly in hand, which it is admitted he had done.

On reaching the Red Sea, he waited for three weeks at Bab’s Key, a small
island at its entrance, a convenient station for observing all ships
going into or out of that sea. It was alleged at his trial by Palmer,
one of the two men who became King’s evidence, that he said on one
occasion to his men, whilst waiting here, “Come, boys, I will make money
enough out of that fleet.” Little credence is to be attached to Palmer’s
evidence, as will be seen hereafter. But assuming that Kidd made use of
these words, they are susceptible of a perfectly innocent interpretation.
Kidd was on the lookout not only for pirates but also for French ships.
It was not improbable that some of the vessels in the Mecca fleet would
be ships belonging to Frenchmen, or sailing under French colours to the
French factories in India, in which case he would have had a perfect
right to seize them under his letters of marque. It was also by no means
improbable that he might catch some of the Madagascar pirates in pursuit
of, or possibly in possession of, the fleet or some part of it, in which
case it would clearly have been his bounden duty under his commission to
seize the pirates and the ships which they had captured. In either of
these events he would, to use the words attributed to him by Palmer, have
made money enough out of the fleet.

There is some conflict of evidence as to what actually happened on the
fourteenth of August, when the fleet came by. One thing is certain,
that either before or after Kidd came among them, they flew English and
Dutch colours, and that a fire was opened on Kidd from one or both of
their convoys. It also appears that “sundry shots were fired from Kidd’s
ship,” possibly with the object of bringing the ships to, in order that
explanations might be forthcoming from both sides. On this point an
attempt made on the part of the prosecution by both their witnesses to
mislead the jury was frustrated by Kidd. Palmer had led them to believe
that Kidd was the aggressor. “I ask this one thing,” said Kidd. “Did the
Mecca fleet fire first at me or I at them?”

PALMER. “No; they fired first.”

KIDD. “And just now, the other” (that is, Bradenham) “said I fired first.
Is he not perjured?”

Mr. Justice TURTON. “Mr. Bradenham, did he fire first or no?”

BRADENHAM. “He fired at them. I only said, you fired at them. I did not
say first or last.”

No harm was done by the shots on either side; and the fleet went by
without any interchange of explanations. It was no fault of Kidd’s that
its convoys mistook him for a pirate, of which there were undoubtedly
plenty in those parts. But the failure of his plan to make money out of
it cannot have added to his prestige with his crew.

Leaving Bab’s Key, the _Adventure Galley_ stood back across the Arabian
Sea and cruised again along the coast of Malabar, the only coast on
which there is the slightest suggestion that Kidd ever committed any
act of piracy. In considering his doings and those of his men here,
and the construction placed on them first by the East India Company,
and afterwards by the prosecution at his trial, several things must be
borne in mind. At that time there were in India not only English, but
Portuguese and French factories. Little love was lost between them, and
there was open war between England and France. English and American
pirates had been for some time past preying on the coast trade, and
the _Adventure Galley_ might very reasonably be mistaken for a pirate
by any ship which she chased. The coast trade was carried on mainly in
vessels manned by Asiatics with, in some cases, two or three Europeans on
board. The wily Indian had by this time learned the advantage of carrying
Europeans of more than one nationality in each ship, so that if caught
by a ship carrying French colours, he might produce a Frenchman as the
owner, and if caught by an English ship an Englishman. It was Kidd’s
plain duty to take as prizes any French vessels he came across, and with
that end in view to examine carefully every ship which he had reason to
suspect was French. He knew very little of the coast or of the Eastern
languages, and stood greatly in need of a pilot and an interpreter, or,
as he was then termed by seamen, a “linguister.” His crew were becoming
unruly, and whenever he left his ship to examine personally any suspected
prize, he ran the risk of their putting to sea and leaving him in the
lurch. The first vessel he was accused at his trial of having plundered
was a small one, of little value, manned by Armenians, with two Europeans
on board, an Englishman and a Portuguese. He engaged the Englishman as
a pilot and the Portuguese as a “linguister.” There is no reason to
doubt that both these men were thankful to get on board a European ship
again and to join his ship’s company, as others in similar circumstances
admittedly did afterwards.

The ship itself with its Armenian crew he allowed to proceed on
its course after a few days’ detention. Before it left him, some
misunderstanding seems unfortunately to have arisen between the English
seamen on board of her and the Armenians; and it is alleged that on this
occasion the former hung up four of the latter and spanked them with the
flats of their cutlasses. Kidd’s defence, and there is no reason to doubt
that it was a perfectly genuine defence so far as he was concerned,
was that he had nothing whatever to do with this fracas and that he did
not go on board the ship at all. It was further alleged by the King’s
evidence that his men took out of her a bale of coffee and a bale of
pepper and some beeswax. Whether they neglected to give adequate money
or goods in exchange is not stated, but as it is admitted that Kidd
trafficked with many of the ships which he met on this coast, it is not
unreasonable to suppose that he did so with this one. At any rate, there
is no good reason to believe that he was a party to the theft of these
paltry articles.

The next vessel he met was a Portuguese man-of-war which attacked him
without the slightest provocation, taking him possibly for one of the
pirates of whom he was in quest, or possibly for some less reputable
reason. Here again, Palmer, the King’s evidence, tried to give the jury
the false impression that Kidd was the aggressor.

PALMER. “He met a Portuguese ship and fought her.”

KIDD. “Who fired first?”

PALMER. “The Portuguese fired first.”

Kidd’s narrative written before he was taken into custody, or had any
reason to believe that he would be called to account for this incident,
goes more fully into this matter. Though from other parts of his
narrative he seems to have been a man of few words, he waxes eloquent
on this occasion. It appears that he had been into Carrawarr a few days
before, to water. “There the gentlemen of the English factory,” he says,
“gave the narrator an account that the Portuguese were fitting out two
men-of-war to take him, and advised him to put to sea, and to take care
of himself from them, and immediately to set sail thereupon. And the
next morning about break of day he saw the said two men-of-war standing
for the said _Galley_, and they spoke with him, and asked him whence he
was. Who replied, from London, and they returned answer, from Goa; and
so parted, wishing each other a good voyage. And still sailing along
the coast, the Commodore of the said man-of-war kept dogging the said
_Galley_ all the night, waiting an opportunity to board her; and in the
morning without speaking a word, fired six great guns at the _Galley_,
some whereof went through her and wounded four of his men. And thereupon
he fired upon him again, and the fight continued all day; and the
Narrator had eleven men wounded. The other Portuguese man-of-war lay some
distance off and could not come up with the _Galley_, being calm; else
would likewise have assaulted the same. The said fight was sharp, and
the said Portuguese left the said _Galley_ with such satisfaction, that
the narrator believes no Portuguese will ever attack the King’s colours
again in that part of the world especially.” In reading this narrative,
it should be remembered that Kidd was no braggadocio; but a plain sea
captain who had admittedly greatly distinguished himself in the war,
which was still in progress against the French.

The next enormity with which he was charged at his trial was cruelty to
the natives. It appears that he had sent some of his men ashore at one of
the Malabar Islands for wood and water; and the natives having cut one of
their throats, he caused one native to be shot by way of reprisal. The
manner in which capital was attempted to be made by the prosecution out
of this incident appears plainly from the verbatim report of the King’s
evidence. In reply to a question by the counsel for the prosecution, as
to what Kidd had done after fighting with the Portuguese man-of-war,
Bradenham replied, “We went to one of the Malabar islands for wood and
water, and Captain Kidd went ashore and several of his men, and plundered
several boats and burnt several huts, and ordered one of the natives to
be tied to a tree and one of his men to shoot him.” Hoping apparently to
bring some further atrocities to light, counsel proceeded to ask, “What
was the reason for his shooting this Indian?”

The answer he got from Bradenham, his own witness, was, “One of his men
that was his cooper had been ashore, and some of the natives had cut his
throat, and that was the reason he ordered his men to serve this man so.”
Needless to say, counsel pursued the subject no further.

Whatever his men’s inclinations may have been at this time, the next
untoward incident recorded of his doings on this coast conclusively shows
that it was Kidd’s firm determination that his men should not be guilty
of piracy. He came across a Dutch ship, _The Loyal Captain_, under the
command of Captain Hoar. The greater part of his crew were undoubtedly in
favor of seizing this ship, and it is indisputable that Kidd prevented
them from attempting it. Kidd’s own account at his trial, was as follows:

“My lord, I will tell you what the case was. I was coming up within a
league of this Dutchman, and some of my men were making a mutiny about
taking her, and my gunner” (Moore) “told the people he could put the
captain in a way to take the ship and be safe. Says I, ‘How will you do
that?’ The gunner answers, ‘We will get the captain and men aboard.’ ‘And
what then?’ ‘We will go aboard the ship and plunder her, and we could
have it under their hands that we did not take her.’ Says I, ‘That is
Judas-like. I dare not do such a thing.’ Says he, ‘We may do it; we are
beggars already.’ ‘Why,’ says I, ‘may we take this ship because we are
poor?’ Upon that a mutiny arose.”

Palmer, the King’s evidence, admitted that on this occasion there were
nine men with muskets who were for taking the ship and that Kidd was
against their doing so. The same incident was thus described at the trial
by Parrott, one of the youngsters of the crew, a Plymouth boy of nineteen
years of age at the date of the trial.

“I shall tell you how it happened according to the best of my knowledge.
The commander fortuned to come up with this Captain Hoar’s ship, and some
were for taking her, and some not. And afterwards there was a little
sort of a mutiny and some were in arms, the greater part. And they said
they would take the ship. And the commander was not for it; and so they
resolved to go away in a boat and take her. Captain Kidd said: ‘If you
desert my ship, you shall never come aboard again, and I will force you
into Bombay, and I will carry you before some of the council there.’
Insomuch that my commander stilled them, and they remained on board.”

It is easy to understand that although for the nonce the mutiny was
quelled, it left bad blood behind between Kidd and Moore, the spokesman
of the mutineers. About a fortnight afterwards another altercation arose
between them, which ended in Kidd’s knocking Moore down with a bucket.
According to Parrott, it arose in this way: “Moore said, ‘Captain, I
could have put you in the way to have taken the ship, and have never been
the worse for it.’ He says, ‘Would you have me take this ship? I cannot
answer it. They are our friends!’ And my commander was in a passion, and
with that I went off the deck. I understand that afterwards the blow was
given, but how I cannot tell.”

From the evidence given by the cook and a seaman named Barlicorn, who
remained on deck, it appears that Moore upbraided Kidd and said, “You
have brought us to ruin, and we are desolate;” and that Kidd said, “Have
I brought you to ruin? I have not done an ill thing to ruin you. You are
a saucy fellow to say those words.” And then he took up the bucket and
gave him a blow with it.

The version given by Palmer, the King’s evidence, was this: “Captain Kidd
came and walked upon the deck, and walks by this Moore. And when he came
to him he says, ‘Which way could you have put me in a way to take this
ship and been clear?’ ‘Sir,’ says Moore, ‘I never spoke such a word nor
ever thought such a thing.’ Upon which Captain Kidd called him ‘a lousie
dog.’ And says William Moore, ‘If I am a lousie dog, you have made me
so. You have brought me to ruin and many more.’ Upon his saying this,
says Captain Kidd, ‘Have I ruined you, you dog?’ and took the bucket and
struck him on the right side of his head, of which he died the next day.
Repeating the words two or three times, he took a turn or two on the deck
and then struck him.”

Kidd admitted at the trial that he had given the blow; but pleaded that
he had all the provocation in the world given him; that he had no design
to kill Moore and no malice or spleen against him. It was not done
designedly but in his passion, for which he was heartily sorry.

It is not certain that Moore died of the blow, for one witness deposed
that Bradenham, the surgeon, who subsequently deserted Kidd at Madagascar
to join the pirate Culliford, said at the time, “This blow was not the
cause of his death,” and that Moore had been on the sick list for some
time before. It is only fair to say, however, that Bradenham denied this.

Whether or not Moore died from the blow, it is clear that he was the
spokesman of the mutineers on the two occasions on which dispute arose
between Kidd and his crew as to the plundering of the Dutch ship, that
he upbraided Kidd for his not allowing his men to commit a gross act of
piracy, and that his death had the effect of quieting the mutineers for a
while.

Coming next to the two cases in which Kidd did take prizes in the
course of this voyage, according to his own illiterate but intelligible
narrative, he met in November, 1697, “A Moore’s ship of about 200 tons,
coming from Surratt, bound for the coast of Malabar, loaded with two
horses, sugar, and cotton in trade there, having about 40 Moors on board,
with a Dutch pilot, boatswain and gunner, which said ship the narrator
hailed and commanded” [? The Master] “on board. And with him came eight
or nine of the Moors and the three Dutchmen who declared it was a Moor’s
ship and” (were) “demanded their pass from Surrat, which they showed and
the same was a French pass which he believes was shown by mistake. For
the pilot swore sacramentally she was a prize and staid on board the
_Galley_ and would not return on board the Moor’s ship, but went in the
_Galley_ to the port of St. Marie’s.”[4]

This statement is corroborated by such of his crew as returned with
him to America, from whose depositions it further appears that all the
Christians ultimately remained in the _Galley_ and “took up arms there,”
that the Moors had the long boat given them to go on shore, which was two
leagues distant; and that Captain Kidd and his men sold the cotton and
horses to the natives of the country for money and gold, but kept the
ship itself with them and carried her to Madagascar, the _Galley_ being
very leaky. The King’s evidence against Kidd was practically to the same
effect.

This was a prize of no great value, but such as it was he and his men
were no doubt glad enough to lay hands on it. For they must by this time
have been running short of money, and it was the first capture they had
made. Moreover, their own ship being very leaky, they were glad to keep
it in company.

Shortly afterwards, on the fifth of February, 1698, they came across
a very different ship, the _Quedagh Merchant_, an extremely valuable
prize. Sailing under French colours, as Kidd frankly admits “with
a design to decoy,” he met, to quote his own words, “with a Bengal
merchantman belonging to Surratt of the burden of four or five hundred
tons, and he commanded the master on board. And a Frenchman, an
inhabitant of Surratt, and belonging to the French factory there, came
on board as master; and when he came on board the narrator caused the
English colours to be hoisted and the said master was surprised and said,
‘You are English,’ and asking which was the captain. Whom when he saw, he
said, ‘Here is a good prize,’ and delivered him the French pass.”

There is no reason to believe that this is not a perfectly correct
account of the taking of the ship; but for the capture of which it
is improbable that any complaint against Kidd would ever have been
made by the East India Company. Kidd’s own account of the capture is
corroborated even by the King’s evidence, Bradenham, who states that
Kidd chased the ship under French colours, and that when he came up with
her he commanded the master on board. “And there came,” he says, “an old
Frenchman in the boat; and after he had been aboard awhile” (mark the
subtlety of the word “awhile.” Who would have conceived that it meant
five or six days?), “he told Captain Kidd that he was not the captain
but the gunner, and Kidd sent for the captain, whose name was Wright.”
Palmer, the other King’s evidence, says he was not on board when the ship
was taken. At the trial Kidd went more fully into this incident than in
his narrative. “My lord,” he said, “this Frenchman was aboard for five
or six days before I understood there was any Englishman aboard. ‘Well?’
said I. ‘What are you?--an Englishman?’ ‘I am, master.’ ‘What have you to
show for it?’ ‘Nothing.’”

Fortunately the French passes given to Kidd on the taking of both prizes
were carefully preserved by him. He sent them to the Earl of Bellamont
on his first arrival in American waters, and Bellamont forwarded them to
the Admiralty. They were included amongst the papers relating to Kidd,
delivered in at the clerk’s table of the House of Commons by the chairman
of the committee appointed to sort the papers received from Bellamont
and report thereon. Verbatim copies of them are to be found in the
Journals of the House of Commons (Vol. 18, page 21), and are printed in
Appendix C of this work. They constitute the most important documentary
evidence that could have been forthcoming at Kidd’s trial; but although
the Admiralty officials had them in their possession, and the House of
Commons had directed that Kidd should have access to them, and although
Kidd pleaded hard for a postponement of his trial in order that they
might be produced, not only were they not produced, but the jury and
judge were led to suppose that they existed only in Kidd’s imagination.

The belated suggestion made by the Englishman Wright that he was the
master of the ship, coupled with an offer on the part of the Armenians to
redeem the prize for twenty thousand rupees, a wholly inadequate sum,[5]
seems to have raised some doubt in Kidd’s cautious Scotch mind as to the
expediency of carrying off the ship to America in accordance with his
sailing orders. He called his crew on deck and consulted them as to the
course they should take. They voted not to accept the proffered ransom
but to take her to Madagascar, which he decided to do, Madagascar lying
in the direct route for America. His sailing orders[6] from Bellamont as
to the course he should take with any prizes were explicit. They were:
“You are to sail directly to Boston or New England, there to deliver to
me the whole of the prizes, treasure, merchandise, and other things you
shall have taken by virtue of the powers and authorities granted you.”
The only contingency in which he might depart from them was, “if you
shall fall in with any English ship bound for England having good convoy,
you are in such case to keep them company and bring all your prizes to
London.” It is difficult to see how, in the face of these orders, he
could have done otherwise than take his two prizes to Madagascar.

As a matter of fact, he set sail at once with both; and according to his
narrative “sailing thither the _Galley_ was so leaky that they feared she
would have sunk every hour; and it required eight men every two glasses
to keep her free; and” (he) “was forced to woold her round with cables
to keep her together, and with much ado carried her into the port of St.
Marie’s, where they arrived the first day of April, 1698.”

On her way to Madagascar the _Adventure Galley_ unfortunately seems to
have fallen in with a Portuguese ship. According to the deposition[7] of
William Jinkins, a London lad, one of the boys who had remained faithful
to Kidd, “she also in her passage to St. Marie’s aforesaid took a Bark
or Ship, navigated with Portuguese. 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_: but seeing several Ships coming towards them the said _Galley_
with the other two prizes she had taken, came to sail, and left the said
last Prize at a place between Brin John and Angingo, so called from being
an English and Dutch factory; and left on board the same all the company
belonging thereto, except the Master Merchant and seven men more that
had come on board the _Galley_, when she first took the said Ship.” This
deposition made two years before Kidd’s trial was confirmed in substance
by two other lads, Barlicorn and Lumley. At the trial, Bradenham, the
King’s evidence, told the story thus: “We met with a Portuguese ship off
the coast of Malabar and he” (_i. e._, Kidd) “took her and he took out of
her some opium, some East India goods, some plunder and sixty or seventy
bags of rice.” Asked by Kidd whether he had seen them brought on board,
Bradenham evaded the question by saying: “I am answering the bench.” In
reply to a further question by the Solicitor General, “Were there any
other goods,” he replied: “Yes, there was bees’ wax and thirty jars of
butter.”

This is the only vessel with respect to which there is any good ground
for suspecting that Kidd’s proceedings were irregular. His omission to
make any reference to this ship in his narrative is significant; and
points to the conclusion that he felt some difficulty in justifying
what had been done. It is not improbable that he was forced by stress
of circumstances to acquiesce in what was undoubtedly an act of piracy
on the part of his crew, though it may have been regarded by them as
a very justifiable reprisal for the damage and loss of life which the
_Galley_ had sustained by the recent unprovoked attack of the Portuguese
man-of-war. That Kidd was placed by their action in this case in great
difficulty is obvious. In their then temper, it is unlikely that if he
had had time to reason with them, he could have induced them to return
to the Portuguese the goods they had wrongfully brought on board the
_Galley_. As it was, the sudden appearance of several other ships bearing
down on them left him no alternative, but either to make off at once, or
to hand over the wrongdoers to be dealt with by their enemies, who might
in the meanwhile themselves make off with his two lawful prizes. Kidd’s
paramount object during his voyage seems to have been to do his best for
his employers, and he may well have thought that it was not to their
interest that he should await the arrival of the approaching ships.




CHAPTER THREE




CHAPTER III

KIDD’S RETURN HOME


Had Kidd been fortunate enough on his first visit to Madagascar to find
his pirates there, it is possible but not very probable that his crew
might have done their best to kill or catch their fellow-countrymen,
who were preying on the Indian commerce. On the other hand, had he not
been so unfortunate as to find the pirates awaiting him there on his
way back to Boston, he would probably have been able to bring his two
prizes home safely within a reasonable time and have ended his voyage
to the satisfaction of his employers and with credit to himself. 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 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. The _Adventure Galley_ came back
to Madagascar in a sinking condition, with her crew on the brink of
mutiny, worn out with repeated mishaps, having lost a large number of
their fellows by sickness, disgusted at the ill-luck and strait-laced
proceedings of their conscientious commander, in possession, it is true,
of a rich prize, but in some doubt, owing to his hesitation in retaining
her, whether, when they got to Boston, questions as to the legality of
the capture, to say nothing of their recent misconduct in rifling the
Portuguese ship, might not be raised, ending in their getting no pay
whatever for between two and three years’ heavy and perilous work,
and possibly in their being thrown into gaol by Bellamont for piracy.
Probably they would have mutinied long before, if they could have found
a capable leader with the necessary knowledge of navigation to take
Kidd’s place. As it was, when they found their fellow-countrymen at St.
Marie’s, living on the fat of the land on cargoes taken from the Moors,
under an adventurous and successful commander, Culliford, who had stolen
an East Indiaman from his employers, and was now reaping a rich harvest
from his villainy, it was no wonder that the greater part of Kidd’s men
at once decided to throw in their lot with him, rather than stand by
Kidd in an internecine struggle with their fellow-countrymen, in which
success was more than doubtful, and if attained would necessitate their
carrying their conquered compatriots in chains to an English port,
there to be handed over to the authorities with a view to their being
hung as pirates, for what was regarded by the majority of the seamen
on both sides as the very venial offence of plundering the enemies
of Christianity. The catastrophe which now befell was the inevitable
sequence of what had gone before, and what Kidd found awaiting him on his
arrival at Madagascar.

Let him tell the tale in his own simple words.[8]

“When the Narrator arrived at the said Port, there was a Pirate Ship,
called the _Moca Frigate_, at an anchor, Robert Culliford Commander
thereof, who with his men left the same at his coming and ran into the
woods. And the Narrator proposed to his men to take the same, having
sufficient power and authority so to do. But the mutinous crew told
him, ‘If he offered the same, they would rather fire ten guns into him
than one into the other,’ and thereupon ninety-seven men deserted, and
went into the _Moca Frigate_, and sent into the woods for the said
pirates, and brought the said Culliford and his men on board again, and
all the time he stayed in the said port the said deserters sometimes in
great numbers came on board the said _Galley_ and _Adventure Prize_,
and carried away great guns, Powder, Shot, small arms, sails, Anchors,
Cables, Surgeon’s chest, and what else they pleased; and threatened
several times to murder the Narrator, as he was informed and advised to
take care of himself, which they designed in the night to effect; but
was [_sic_] prevented by his locking himself in his cabin at night, and
securing himself by barricading the same with bales of goods and having
about forty small arms besides pistols, ready charged to keep them out.”

“Their wickedness was so great that after they had plundered and
ransacked sufficiently, they went five miles off to one Edward Welche’s
house, where his, the Narrator’s chest was lodged, and broke it open and
took out ten ounces of gold, 40 pound of plate, 370 pieces of eight, the
Narrator’s Journal, and a great many papers that belonged to him and the
People of New York that fitted them out.”

“About the fifteenth of June, the _Moca Frigate_ went away, being manned
with about 130 men and forty guns bound out to take all nations. It was
then that the Narrator was left only with 13 men, so that the Moors he
had to pump and keep the _Adventure Galley_ above water being carried
away, she sank in the harbour, and the Narrator with the said thirteen
men went on board the _Adventure Prize_.”

Let us try to put ourselves in Kidd’s place, when the bulk of his men
went over to the enemy. Forcibly deprived of his command at the moment
when he saw success within his grasp; deserted by nearly all his crew;
plundered of the greater part of the spoil he was taking home to his
employers; on board the sinking _Adventure Galley_; confined to his
stifling cabin with its barricaded approaches. What course can it be
suggested that he could have taken and have been held blameless by an
English court? What course ought any man to have taken in his place who
sought to do his duty by his owners?

It would have been a mercy to him and to his memory, if the mutineers
had then and there made an end of him. But to have done this, they must
have stormed his cabin, and they dared not try it. They knew his fighting
record. They had been with him in his encounter with the Portuguese
man-of-war. None knew better than they that he would sell his life
dearly. Let us hope, too, that some few of his crew stood by him in
this emergency, with “the forty loaded small arms, besides pistols.”
But although the pirates and mutineers could not make an end of him,
it was equally impossible for him to take the offensive against them.
If neither party could attack, the situation could only be relieved
by diplomacy. The ultimate solution has been handed down to us by the
doubtful testimony of one or two of those who were there. We are left to
conjecture the intermediate stages of the arrangement.

According to the evidence the _Adventure Galley_ was brought into the
port on the first of April, in company with its smaller prize. The
_Quedagh Merchant_ did not come in until some weeks afterwards. The _Moca
Frigate_, as already stated, went away on the fifteenth of June, leaving
Kidd and thirteen men behind. In the interval some kind of a compact
seems to have been come to, by which Kidd undertook not to molest the
pirates, and Culliford agreed to let Kidd keep the _Quedagh Merchant_
and a certain quantity of the goods on board of her. It is difficult
to see how Kidd in his then position could have made a better bargain
than this for the great men who were employing him. Judging from the
amount of specie and goods which he succeeded after all in bringing to
America, he appears to have done very well indeed for them. Possibly the
canny Scot, notwithstanding the theft of his chest, had more gold and
valuables concealed in his impenetrable cabin than the deserters dreamed
of. Possibly some of his late crew had consciences and were willing to
let him off cheaply. Whatever the details of the arrangement may have
been, it is unlikely that he could in any case have saved himself from
the charge brought against him at his trial, on which the judge laid
great stress, and which has clung to him ever since, that having been
sent out to catch the pirates, and bring them home with him, he had on
the first occasion on which he had met them, promised not to molest them,
an offence which it was alleged at his trial that he had aggravated by
drinking deeply from a tub of “bomboo” with their Captain Culliford.

The word “bomboo” has a fine piratical suggestiveness about it. It
sounds as if it were some weird concoction of strong liquors, which
carousing pirates in their unholy orgies were wont to consume by the
bucketfull. As a matter of fact, it was a very innocent beverage made
of water, limes, and sugar; and it was small blame to poor Kidd that on
emerging from his beleaguered cabin in that hot climate, he was glad
enough to take a long drink of it, when at length a truce had been
arranged. According to the King’s evidence at his trial, he solemnly
undertook over this draught of “bomboo” not to molest the pirates, and
presumably they also undertook not to molest him. The alternative very
possibly was his death from thirst in his stuffy cabin. Culliford’s men
outnumbered his by ten to one. The only evidence besides his own that we
have of this incident was that given at his trial by two of his crew, who
had deserted him and gone over to the enemy. Kidd not unnaturally was
very bitter against these two men,--Bradenham the surgeon and Palmer,
one of his seamen--as appears from the following quotations from the
verbatim report of his trial.

KIDD (_to Bradenham_). “Did you not come aboard my ship and rob the
surgeon’s chest?”

BRADENHAM. “No, I did not.”

KIDD. “Did I not come to you when you went away and met you on the deck,
and said, ‘Why do you take the chest away?’”

BRADENHAM. “No, I did not do it.”

KIDD. “You are a rogue.”

Again:

KIDD. “Mr. Bradenham, are you not promised your life to take away mine?”

Mr. Justice TURTON. “He is not bound to answer that question. 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 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.

To quote again from the verbatim report:

KIDD. “I hope the King’s counsel will not put him in the way. It is hard
that a couple of rascals should take away the King’s subjects’ lives.
They are a couple of rogues and rascals.”

Again, when one of them conveniently feigned ignorance, and an answer
by the other had been suggested to him by one of the counsel for the
prosecution:

KIDD. “It is a fine trade that you must take away so many of the King’s
subjects’ lives, and know nothing at all of the matter.”

Again, speaking this time to the judge:

“It is a fine trade indeed that he must be instructed what to say. He
knows no more of these things than you do. The fellow used to sleep five
or six months together in the hold.”

Once more:

“He tells a thousand lies. The man contradicts himself a hundred times.”

KIDD (_speaking this time to Palmer_). “I would not go with such a
roguish crew as you were. Was I not threatened to be shot in my cabin
by such villains as you, if I would not go along with you? This was the
reason I could not come home. Did you not with the others set fire to
the boat to destroy my ship? My lord, they took what they pleased out of
the ship, and I was forced to stay by myself, and pick up here a man and
there a man to carry her home.”

That Kidd had no option but to stay on at Madagascar after Culliford had
left is obvious. The faithful thirteen who remained behind with him were
clearly an insufficient ship’s company to bring the _Quedagh Merchant_
with her freight safely to America. When he left her off the coast of
Hispaniola, nearly a year afterwards, denuded of the specie and goods
which he had taken from her to Boston, she carried besides her thirty
mounted guns, taken from the _Adventure Galley_, twenty more guns of her
own, stowed away in her hold, some two hundred bales of calicoes, silks,
and muslins, between eighty and ninety tons of refined sugar, forty
tons of saltpetre, and ten tons of iron “in short junks.” No reason,
other than stern necessity, can have induced him to prolong his stay at
Madagascar. He and his men must have wished to get home as soon as might
be. Had they been able to start at once, they might have been in time
to put an end to the suspicions of their honesty, which were already
accumulating in England owing to the protracted absence of news as to
their movements, and the complaint of the East India Company of the
seizure of the _Quedagh Merchant_.

Unfortunately Madagascar was one of the last places in the world in
which Kidd was likely to find the men required to bring his ship home.
The majority of such English-speaking men as were there were by no means
desirous of bringing themselves within the grasp of the law. In the
course of the next five months, to quote his own words, “he picked up
here a man and there a man,” and “some passengers presented that were
bound for these parts,” _i. e._, America. At last, still under-manned,
he started on his homeward voyage, and reached Anguilla in the West
Indies in April, 1699. By this time he had been condemned unheard by the
home authorities; and the hue and cry had been raised against him and
such of his crew as had remained faithful. The lords justices had sent
instructions to the governors of all the English colonies in America “to
apprehend him and his accomplices, whenever he or they should arrive
in any of the said plantations,” and “to secure his ship and all the
effects therein, it being their Excellencies’ intention that right be
done to those who have been injured and robbed by the said Kidd, and
that he and his associates be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the
law.” Consequently when, in all innocence, he sent his boat on shore,
to quote again from his own artless narrative, “his men had the news
that he and his people were proclaimed pirates, which put them into such
consternation that they sought all opportunities to run the ship ashore
upon some reef or shoal, fearing the Narrator should carry them into some
English port.”

“From Anguilla,” he tells us, “they came to St. Thomas, where his
brother-in-law, Samuel Bradley, was put on shore being sick, and five
more” (out of his small crew) “went away and deserted him. There he heard
the same news, that he and his company were proclaimed pirates, which
incensed the people more and more.”

“From St. Thomas he set sail for Moona, an island between Hispaniola
and Porto Rico, where they met with a sloop, called the _St. Anthony_,
bound for Antigua from Curaso. The men on board then swore that they
would bring the ship no further.” By this time some commanders would
have hesitated. Not so Kidd. He held to his purpose to remain true to
his employers whatever the cost to himself might be. He tells us, and
his evidence is not contradicted, that he “then sent the said sloop,
_St. Anthony_, to Curaso for canvas to make sails for the prize, she
not being able to proceed, and she returned in ten days, and after the
canvas came he could not persuade the men to carry her to New England.
But six of them went and carried their chests and things on board of the
Dutch sloop, bound for Curaso, and would not so much as heel the vessel,
or do anything.” The remainder of the men not being able to bring the
_Adventure Prize_ to Boston “he secured her in a good safe harbour
in Hispaniola and left her in the possession of Mr. Henry Boulton of
Antigua, Merchant, with three of the old men and fifteen or sixteen of
the men that belonged to the said sloop _St. Anthony_ and a brigantine
belonging to Mr. Burt of Curaso.” He then “bought the said sloop, _St.
Anthony_, of Mr. Boulton for the owners’ account: and after he had given
directions to the said Boulton to be careful of the ship and lading, and
persuaded him to stay three months until he returned, he made the best of
his way to New York.”

Bellamont was not at New York, but at Boston. An old friend of Kidd’s,
Emmot by name, came on board the sloop from New York, and to him Kidd
told his simple tale, handed over to him the two invaluable French passes
to take to Bellamont, as evidence that the two prizes, in respect of
which he had been charged with piracy, had been lawfully taken under his
letters of marque. On the thirteenth of June, Emmot came to Bellamont
at Boston with these passes, and two days afterwards Bellamont sent Mr.
Duncan Campbell, the Postmaster of Boston, to invite Kidd to come into
the port of Boston. On the nineteenth Campbell returned, and gave in a
memorial,[9] still extant, of all that had passed between him and Kidd.

This memorial is of interest, as showing the effect produced on
Bellamont’s emissary by his first interview with Kidd. Had he been
prejudiced in Kidd’s favor, it is unlikely that he would have been
selected by Bellamont for the purpose of ascertaining whether Kidd was
guilty of piracy or not. On the same day he was sent back by Bellamont to
Kidd, with the following letter:

                                               BOSTON, 19 June, 1699.

    “CAPTAIN KIDD,--Mr. Emmot came to me last Tuesday night telling
    me he came from you: but was shy of telling where he parted
    with you. Nor did I press him to it. He told me you came by
    Oyster Bay in Nassau Island and sent for him to New York. He
    proposed to me that I would grant you a pardon. I answered that
    I had never granted one yet, and that I had set myself a rule
    never to grant a pardon to anybody without the King’s express
    leave or command. He told me you declared and protested your
    innocence and that if your men could be persuaded to follow
    your example, you would make no manner of scruple of coming
    into this port, or any other within His Majesty’s Dominions.
    That you owned there were two ships taken, but that your men
    did it violently and against your will, and had used you
    barbarously, in imprisoning you and treating you ill the most
    part of your voyage, and often attempting to murder you. Mr.
    Emmot delivered to me the two French passes taken on board
    the two ships your men rifled,[10] which passes I have in my
    custody, and I am apt to believe they will be a good article to
    justify you, if the late peace were not by the Treaty between
    England and France to operate in that part of the world at the
    time the hostility was committed, as I am almost confident it
    was not to do. Mr. Emmot told me that you showed a great sense
    of honour and justice in professing with many asseverations
    your settled and serious design all along to do honour to
    your Commission and never to do the least thing contrary to
    your duty and allegiance to the King. And this I have to say
    in your defence, that several persons in New York, who I can
    bring to evidence it, did tell me that by several advices from
    Madagascar and that part of the world, they were informed of
    your men’s revolting from you in one place, and I am pretty
    sure they said was Madagascar, and that others compelled you
    much against your will to take and rifle two ships.

    “I have advised with His Majesty’s Council, and shewed them
    this letter, and they are of opinion that if you can be so
    clear as you (or Mr. Emmot for you) have said, _that you may
    safely come hither, and be equipped and fitted out to go and
    fetch the other ship, and I make no manner of doubt but to
    obtain the King’s pardon for you, and for those few men you
    have left who I understand have been faithful to you, and
    refused as well as you to dishonour the Commission you have
    from England._

    “_I assure you on my Word and Honour I will perform nicely
    what I have promised_, though this I declare beforehand that
    whatever goods and treasure you may bring hither, I will not
    meddle with the least bit of them: but they shall be left with
    such persons as the Council shall advise until I receive orders
    from England how they shall be disposed of.”

Kidd’s reply to this letter was as follows:

    “To the EARL OF BELLAMONT.

    “FROM BLOCK ISLAND ON BOARD THE SLOOP ANTHONY

                                                      “24 JUNE, 1699.

    “MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY,

    “I am honoured with your Lordship’s letter of the 19th instant
    by Mr. Campbell, which came to my hands this day. For which I
    return my most hearty thanks. I cannot but blame myself for
    not writing to your Lordship before this time, knowing it was
    my duty: but the clamours and false stories that have been
    reported of me, made me fearful of visiting or coming into any
    harbour, till I could hear from your Lordship.

    “I note the contents of your Lordship’s letter, as to what Mr.
    Emmot and Mr. Campbell informed your Lordship of my proceedings
    I do affirm to be true, and a great deal more might be said of
    the abuses of my men, and the hardships I have undergone to
    preserve the ship and what goods my men had left. Ninety-five
    men went away from me in one day and went on board the _Moca
    Frigate_, Captain Robert Culliford, Commander, who went away
    to the Red Sea; and committed several acts of piracy, as I
    am informed; and am afraid (the men formerly belonging to
    my _Galley_) that the report is gone home against me to the
    East India Company, that I have been the actor. A sheet of
    paper will not contain what may be said of the care I took to
    preserve the owners’ interest, and to come home to clear my own
    innocency. I do further declare and protest that I never did
    in the least act contrary to the King’s Commission, nor to the
    reputation of my honourable owners, and doubt not but that I
    shall be able to make my innocence appear; or else I had no
    need to come to these parts of the world; if it were not for
    that and my owners’ interest. There are Five or Six Passengers
    that came from Madagascar to assist me in bringing the ship
    home, and about ten of my own men, that came with me would not
    venture to go into Boston, till Mr. Campbell had engaged Body
    for Body for them that they should not be molested while I
    stayed at Boston, or till I return with the ship. I doubt not
    but your Lordship will write to England in my favour and for
    these few men who are left.

    “I wish your Lordship would persuade Mr. Campbell to go home
    to England with your Lordship’s letters, who will be able to
    give account of our affairs and diligently follow the same
    that there may be a speedy answer from England. I desired Mr.
    Campbell to buy 1000 weight of Rigging for fitting of the ship
    to bring her to Boston, that I may not be delayed when I come
    there.

    “Upon receiving of your Lordship’s letter, I am making the best
    of my way to Boston. This with my humble duty to your Lordship
    and Countess, is what offers from, my Lord, your Excellency’s
    most humble and dutiful servant,

                                                      “WILLIAM KIDD.”

On the first of July he brought the sloop and the remnant of his crew
into the port of Boston, conscious of his integrity and relying on the
word and honour of Bellamont. It may well be doubted whether any man in
equally trying circumstances has ever been truer to his trust.




CHAPTER FOUR




CHAPTER IV

THE GENESIS AND GROWTH OF THE ARCH PIRATE MYTH


Kidd’s expedition having originated in the desire of the government to
placate the East India Company, it is only reasonable to surmise that
the Company received some early official intimation of what was being
done on their behalf. To what extent they were informed officially of the
details of the government scheme is of comparatively small importance.
The great wealth at their disposal and the prodigality with which they
expended their secret service money in those days, leave no room for
doubt that at a very early stage of the proceedings they made themselves
acquainted with the essential facts. Their factories were exposed to
imminent danger from the irritation of the Great Mogul at the continuous
robbery of his subjects’ goods by English-speaking seamen on his coasts.
The Company must have taken the keenest interest in the measures designed
for the repression of this piracy. With their practical knowledge of
the difficulties to be encountered, it is unlikely that they at any
time regarded the adventurers’ project as a very promising one. When
they heard of the failure of the Admiralty to protect Kidd’s carefully
selected crew from the press gang, and realised that the bulk of the
ship’s company would have to be got from New York, it is impossible that
they can have entertained any illusions as to the probability of its
success.

Kidd’s crew was pressed at the Nore on the first of March, 1696. By one
of the curious close coincidences of date which speak for themselves
in this case more convincingly than any words can do, the Company on
the following day addressed a petition to the Admiralty, praying to be
allowed to take the business of dealing with the pirates into their
own hands. In this petition they urged that “Your Lordships will please
to empower the petitioners’ ships and officers to seize and take all
pirates infesting those seas within the limits of the Company’s charter
and likewise empower them to erect a Court of Admiralty in those parts.”
This proposal except for a very excusable technical error contained in
it, which if not corrected, would have enabled the Company, instead of
the Admiralty, to create a Court of Admiralty, was not unreasonable. It
was referred by the Admiralty to their judge, Sir Charles Hedges, who
promptly reported in the following terms on the steps necessary to carry
it into effect: “That the more regular way will be for your Lordships
to take a Commission under the Great Seal of England giving power to
the Lord Admiral or Commissioners for executing the office of High
Admiral to grant commissions to any of the Captains of the East India
Company’s ships for the taking of the ships of pirates, wherein it shall
be expressed what parts or shares the King shall see fit to reserve to
himself or bestow upon the Captors and Company.”

“That your Lordships may be pleased to erect a Vice-Admiralty at Bombay
or any other place that shall be thought expedient in the same manner as
is done in the West Indies, which being established by a commission in
the ordinary form, that will be sufficient to empower such Vice-Admiralty
there, to proceed against ships as fully as any Vice-Admiralty in England
or the High Court of Admiralty can do.”

Why no action was taken on this proposal of the Company as modified by
Sir Charles Hedges, is not clear. Possibly the Admiralty hesitated to
hand over to the captains of the Company’s ships work which they thought
more properly belonged to the King’s navy, and which when the French
war was ended was very soon performed by Captain Warren’s squadron.
Possibly they felt a delicacy in doing anything that might diminish the
great ministers’ chances of gain from Kidd’s adventure. What seems to
have happened is that the Company’s petition was officially shelved for
nearly four years, when Captain Warren having in the meanwhile been sent
out with five men-of-war to suppress the pirates, it was referred to
the committee of the House of Commons, who had then been appointed to
consider further the large question of the state and condition of the
trade of England, by whom, if considered at all, it would have to run the
gauntlet of many implacable enemies of the Company, and in particular of
certain ardent protectionists of that day who never missed an opportunity
of holding forth on the injuries to which English industries were exposed
by the importation by the Company of Indian silks, calicoes, and muslins.

Apart, however, from any question of the probable success of Kidd’s
expedition, or the desirability of giving the Company a free hand to
deal themselves with the pirates, the terms of the grant of the spoil to
the adventurers, with which the Company had evidently made themselves
familiar, were calculated to place them in a very awkward position with
the Great Mogul. What they had to protect themselves against, was a
summary expulsion from his dominions; and they must have realized that
even if Kidd succeeded in catching his pirates, it would be a very
unsatisfactory reply to the demands of that great potentate for the
immediate restitution of the stolen properties, to assure him that the
thieves had been carried to England, where it was to be hoped that some
of them might in due course be convicted, and possibly hung; but that
the stolen goods had in the meanwhile been appropriated by some of the
King’s great ministers. It was not impossible that the next demand of
the Great Mogul might be that these great gentlemen together with such
of the directors of the Company as had acquiesced in this arrangement
should at once be handed over to him to be dealt with according to their
deserts. It is not, therefore, surprising to find that on the twentieth
of August in that year, whilst Kidd was still at New York trying to
pick up his crew, the Company presented a further petition to the Lords
Justices, praying that “such of the species of gold, silver and jewels as
have already been or shall hereafter be seized in the custody of any of
the pirates or any other persons who cannot make a legal title thereunto,
may not be disposed of, but put into the possession of the Company, in
order to be preserved for the use of the proprietors in India, that the
Government may see that His Majesty as well as the Company have done
their utmost endeavours to seize the said pirates and to make restitution
to the persons injured so far as it is in their power.”

In taking this course the Company must have realized that it would be
very distasteful to the King and his four great ministers, who were
proposing themselves to appropriate the bulk of the spoil. But they
also knew that these great men had placed themselves hopelessly in the
wrong; and that there were plenty of their enemies in the House of
Commons who would be only too eager to expose the scandal, when the
time came for them to do so. This consideration seems to have had some
weight with the Lords Justices, and prevented them from shelving this
petition as unceremoniously as the Admiralty had done the former one.
Anxious to appease the Company, and at the same time to safeguard the
rights of the adventurers, they decided at a meeting at which the Duke
of Shrewsbury, one of the adventurers, was present, to send a peremptory
but guarded dispatch to the governors of all the American plantations,
requiring them “to take all possible care, and use all due means for
the seizing and apprehending all such pirates and sea robbers and such
as may be reasonably suspected for the same, either by reason of the
great quantities of gold and silver of foreign coins they usually have
with them, or by other probable circumstances; and to cause them to be
straightly imprisoned, and their ships, goods, and plunder to be kept
in safe custody; until upon returning to us a full account of the said
persons, ships, goods and plunder, with the evidence relating to them,
His Majesty’s pleasure shall be known and signified concerning them.”
Amongst the signatories to this despatch the name of the Earl of Romney,
another of the adventurers, appears.

As might have been expected, this dispatch produced little if any
practical result. During the next two years the Company continued to
receive repeated reports of the depredations of the pirates, and the
excitement created thereby amongst the natives of India, who had in
some cases seized the Company’s factories and put the factors in irons.
Meanwhile the absence of any news from Kidd had not unnaturally aroused
the suspicions of the Company. Culliford, the captain of one of their
own East Indiamen, the _Moca Frigate_, had run away with their ship
from Madras and joined the pirates; and it may have seemed to them
by no means improbable that Kidd with his American crew had done the
like. At length they received some vague intimation, confirming their
suspicions; and in August, 1698, they informed the Lords Justices “that
they had received _some_ information from their factories in the East
Indies that Kidd had committed several acts of piracy, particularly in
seizing a Moors’ ship called the _Quedagh Merchant_.” As they produced
no evidence from their informants at Kidd’s trial in support of these
allegations, although they had ample time and opportunity for obtaining
it during his two years’ imprisonment, it is not unfair to assume that
the information which they received on this occasion was not such as they
cared to submit to an English Court of Law. But such as it was, the Lords
Justices did not hesitate to act at once upon it, and to assume without
further inquiry not only that Kidd was guilty, but that he was already
a notorious pirate. On the twenty-third of November, 1698, whilst Kidd
was stranded at Madagascar, they sent the following circular to Rear
Admiral Benbow, and the governor of every American Colony: “The Lords
Justices having been informed by several advices from the East Indies
of the notorious piracies committed by Captain Kidd, and of his having
seized and plundered divers ships in those seas, as their Excellencies
have given orders to the commander of the squadron fitted out for the
East Indies that he use his utmost endeavours to pursue and seize the
said Kidd, if he continue still in those parts, so likewise they have
commanded me to signify their directions to the respective governors of
the Colonies under His Majesty’s obedience in America, that they give
strict orders and take particular care for apprehending the said Kidd
and his accomplices, whenever he or they shall arrive in any of the said
plantations, as likewise that they shall secure his ship and all the
effects therein, it being Their Excellencies’ intention that right be
done to those who have been injured and robbed by the said Kidd, and that
he and his associates be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law.
You are to be careful, therefore, to observe the said directions, and if
the said Kidd or any of his accomplices be seized within the provinces
under your government, you are forthwith to transmit an account thereof
hitherto, and take care that the said persons, ships and effects be
secured, till His Majesty’s pleasure is known concerning them.”

It would appear from the wording of this extraordinary and unjustifiable
circular that the great men, who had sent Kidd out, had by this time
abandoned hope of getting any gain out of their adventure, and that their
main desire now was to clear themselves of the suspicion that they were
conniving at the alleged piracies of the distinguished officer, whom
they had induced against his own misgivings to enter their service, and
who now was steadfastly doing his best for them in the face of grievous
difficulties at the other end of the world. It may well be that at this
time they believed him to be guilty. It may even be that they continued
in this belief when report after report came to hand of the piracies of
other English seamen in the East, notwithstanding the marked absence
in those reports of any mention whatever of Kidd or of the _Adventure
Galley_. Whether they continued to believe in his guilt after his own
narrative had been made a Parliamentary paper, and he had been examined
before the House of Commons on it, is a very different question. Neither
they nor the Company were represented at the trial, nor was any evidence
then tendered on their behalf. It was their interest to make Kidd their
scapegoat; and the interest of the Company that some one, guilty or
not, the higher in rank the better, should be publicly hung in infamy,
as a warning to mariners engaged in the Eastern piracy. It was nobody’s
interest in England that Kidd should be acquitted, unless as a condition
for such acquittal he could be induced to make compromising revelations
against his employers. And this, as will be seen, he resolutely refused
to do in the face of strong temptation.

To return now to his relations with Bellamont, who though appointed
Governor of New England as far back as June, 1695, had not apparently
started for America until more than two years afterwards; and had
profitably employed the interval in obtaining further favours from the
government. Not contented with the pension of five hundred pounds
per annum which had apparently been given him on his dismissal by the
late Queen, in 1693, from his post as her Receiver General, he seems
to have succeeded in May, 1696, in obtaining a further grant of one
thousand pounds a year out of the forfeited estates of Lord Kilmeare,
and in March, 1697, to have been made colonel of a regiment of foot. In
the following June it was announced that he would at last start to his
government in the _Deptford_ frigate, but he delayed his departure until
October, by which time he had succeeded in extracting from the Treasury
a further sop in the shape of “twelve thousand pounds, paid him in mault
lottery tickets.”[11]

On the first of July, 1699, Kidd, as already mentioned, landed at Boston,
relying on Bellamont’s word and honor, and assurance that he believed
that the two French passes, which had been handed to him by Emmot,
would justify the seizure of the two prizes taken, and that he made no
manner of doubt that he could obtain the King’s pardon for Kidd and for
the few men left who had continued faithful. It is easy to understand
the relief the old man must have felt in setting foot in a civilized
country once more after all his troubles, with the knowledge that he
had served his employers so well, and the expectation that he would now
receive recognition and reward for all he had gone through on their
behalf. Towards the end of his voyage his wife and family from New York
had come on board, having been informed of his whereabouts by his old
friend Emmot; and all of them were probably looking forward to a warm
reception on their landing. If so, they were soon disillusionized. The
Governor declined to see Kidd except in the most formal manner and in
the presence of witnesses. The truth was that he had placed himself in a
very awkward position with the home authorities by inducing the King’s
ministers to embark in this unlucky adventure, and that he and they
had long since come to the conclusion that the safest course to take
to exonerate themselves from the consequences was to make a scapegoat
of Kidd. Bellamont had been playing a very double game, not only with
Kidd, but also with his own council. His own admissions in his letters
written to the authorities in England before the end of that month, leave
no doubt on this point. His consignment of Kidd to gaol was a foregone
conclusion; and the only difficulty he had to get over, and it was an
insuperable one, was how to do this with some appearance of decency. At
the time when with specious promises he was persuading his victim to
come to Boston, he was well aware that it was his duty to arrest him
immediately on his landing there, in pursuance of specific instructions
from England, which he had carefully concealed from his council. The
letter to Kidd with all its assumed belief in Kidd’s innocence, and his
own solemn assurances on his word and honour that he could obtain the
King’s pardon for him and his men, was a trap laid for Kidd without
the knowledge of his council, to whom he had submitted the letter for
approval. His intention throughout had been to get hold of Kidd and
send him to England, to be dealt with there in such manner as might
be most convenient to the government. In his letters he has not only
confessed this, but has even found it necessary to excuse himself to his
superiors and give the reasons which he considered justified him in not
arresting Kidd the moment he landed. “It will not be unwelcome news to
your Lordships,” he writes, “that I secured Captain Kidd last Thursday
in the gaol of this town. I thought myself secure against his running
away, because I took care not to give him the slightest umbrage of my
design of seizing him. Nor had I, until the day I produced my orders from
the Court to arrest Kidd, communicated them to anybody. But I found it
necessary to produce my orders to my Council to animate them to join
heartily in securing Kidd. Another reason why I took him not up sooner,
was that he had brought his wife and family hither on the sloop with him
who (_sic_) I believed” (poor wretch!) “he would not readily forsake.” At
the same time whilst thus excusing himself for not arresting Kidd more
promptly, Bellamont seems to have felt that some explanation was called
for to justify his arresting him at all. “Your Lordships may observe,” he
writes, and it requires a very microscopical scrutiny of his hypocritical
letter to observe it, “that the promise made Kidd in my letter of a kind
reception, and promising the King’s pardon for him, was conditional, that
is, provided that he was as innocent as he pretended to be. But I quickly
found sufficient cause to suspect him to be very guilty by the many lies
and contradictions he told me.” What these lies and contradictions were,
he is very careful not to say. Kidd’s own narrative, corroborated by
the depositions of several of his crew, are perfectly intelligible and
straightforward documents, far more intelligible and convincing than
Bellamont’s lame reasons for thinking him guilty. The first of these was
that Kidd had communicated in the first instance with his old friend
Emmot, who Bellamont says was “a cunning Jacobite and my avowed enemy.”
The second reason assigned is, “I thought he looked very guilty.” It is
not improbable that poor Kidd was taken aback by his cold reception; but
it is safe to assume that whatever his demeanor had been, it would have
been regarded by the Governor as a sure sign of his guilt. Sometimes
during his examination he seems to have been cheerful and breezy. With
what result? The Governor reports, “Kidd did strangely trifle with me
and the Council three or four times that we had him under examination.”
Finding that his jocular efforts were not appreciated, Kidd not
unnaturally became grave. But the result was still unsatisfactory. “He
being examined two or three times by the Council and also some of his
men, I observed,” says Bellamont, “that he seemed much disturbed.” The
last time he was under examination, his appearance seems again to have
changed, but still, as ever, for the worse. Probably by this time he had
grown restless and restive. “I fancied,” Bellamont writes, “he looked
as if he were upon the wing and resolved to run away.” But after all,
the chief offence for which the poor man was at last consigned to gaol,
was not committed by him, but by his evil genius, Livingstone, who asked
Bellamont to return him the bond he had entered into for Kidd’s good
behaviour. “I thought,” says Bellamont, “this was such an impertinence
that it was time for me to look about me and secure Kidd.” On this last
point the version of the anonymous person of quality is substantially the
same as Bellamont’s. “Above all,” he writes, “Livingstone’s behaviour,
who was come to Boston, and very peremptorily demanded from the Earl
the delivery of the bond which he had entered into for Kidd’s honest
performance of his duty in the expedition (as if that was to be taken for
granted) gave the Earl of Bellamont good reason to conclude that no time
was to be lost. Therefore he caused Kidd to be seized with divers of his
crew.” A lamer set of reasons for throwing a faithful subordinate into
gaol it would have been difficult for the most unintelligent official to
concoct.

The reply of the Lords Justices to Bellamont’s letters was the
dispatch of a man-of-war, the _Rochester_, to bring back Kidd and his
fellow-prisoners to England. This ship set sail before the end of
September; but came back to Plymouth in November for repairs. Her return
led the opposition to believe that the sending of her out had been merely
a pretence, and it was alleged that a great number of other ships that
had gone out in her company had been able to proceed on their voyage and
to reach New England safely. The wildest rumours were in circulation.
The prevailing popular opinion seems to have been that the four great
ministers had sent Kidd out in the _Adventure Galley_ to commit acts of
piracy on their behalf; and that they had naturally selected for this
purpose a past-master in the art of piracy. Some would have it that
Somers, to prevent unpleasant disclosures, had already set the great
seal to his pardon. Evelyn, in his diary of the third of December, says:
“They” (_i. e._, Parliament) “called some great persons in the highest
offices in question for setting the Greate Seale to the pardon of an
arch pirate, who had turned pirate again, and brought prizes to the
West Indies, expecting to be connived at on sharing the spoil.” Burnet,
writing in much the same strain, says, “It was maliciously insinuated
that the privateer turned pirate in confidence of the protection of those
who employed him, if he had not secret orders for what he did.” It is
difficult to say whose reputation suffered more at this juncture--Kidd’s
by his association with the four unpopular ministers, or the four
unpopular ministers, by their association with Kidd.

On the completion of her repairs, the _Rochester_ set sail again from
Plymouth for New York. She carried a letter from the Lords Justices
to Bellamont, approving his zeal and conduct in the whole affair, and
requiring him to put the pirates and their goods on board of her. The
delay in bringing Kidd to England, whether designed or not, was most
unfortunate for him and most opportune for the ministers. The opposition
seem to have had some inkling that Kidd’s return was being purposely
delayed with the object of enabling the government to deal with him
without consulting Parliament. To allay these suspicions, a certificate
was produced signed by all the officers of the _Rochester_, from which,
according to Bellamont’s apologist, it appeared that they had proceeded
on their course to America “as far as their ship was able to bear the
beating of the sea and then resolved to return to England.” “When they
were returned to England,” he says, “by a like certificate they affirmed
the same thing, and that the result was taken merely for securing the
ship and the company’s lives.” “The captain,” he adds, “by his letter to
the Secretary of the Admiralty says they were got 500 leagues before they
met the storms. And orders being sent by the Admiralty to Mr St Lo, the
Commissioner of the Admiralty at Plymouth, to examine into the truth of
the matter, he certified the Lords of the Admiralty that in pursuance of
their commands he, with the assistance of the officers of the Yard, had
made a thorough survey of the ship and (mentioning the several particular
defects) they unanimously found there was a necessity for her coming
back.”

These official assurances by no means satisfied the Commons. On the
sixteenth of the following March they presented an address to the King,
praying that Kidd might not be tried, discharged, or pardoned until the
next session of Parliament, and that Bellamont might be required in the
meantime to transmit over to England all commissions, instructions, and
other papers taken with or relating to him.

The King’s reply to this address was communicated to the House on the
eighth of April, 1700, by Mr. Secretary Vernon, who informed the Commons
that he had presented the address to His Majesty, and that His Majesty
had commanded him to acquaint the House that His Majesty having received
an account of the arrival of Captain Kidd in the Isle of Lundy, by a ship
which the Lords of the Admiralty had sent to fetch him, which was bound
for the Downs, His Majesty had ordered a yacht to be sent to the Downs
in order for the bringing of him up, and that the commissioners of the
Admiralty were likewise directed to send their marshal to take him into
custody.

This reply, so far from appeasing the opposition, seems to have added
fuel to the flame of their indignation. Why could not the King assent at
once to their address? Why had the _Rochester_ gone out of her course
to the Isle of Lundy, unless it were to defer the bringing home of
Kidd until Parliament had risen? Accordingly, a few days afterwards, a
further resolution was moved that “An humble address be presented to His
Majesty to remove John, Lord Somers, Lord Chancellor of England, from his
presence and counsels for ever.” The motion was defeated by a majority of
one hundred and sixty-seven to one hundred and six. But the fact that one
hundred and six members voted for it, shows the bitterness of the party
feeling against Somers, and the widespread suspicions of his honesty that
prevailed amongst his political opponents. It need hardly be said that
these suspicions were not allayed by the well-timed arrival of Kidd and
his fellow-prisoners in London on board the King’s yacht, on the very
day after Parliament had risen. The result of this second curious close
coincidence of date which has occurred in the course of this narrative,
was that Kidd had arrived too late to be examined by the members of the
House. He was therefore privately examined by the Admiralty officials,
sent to Newgate, and ordered to be kept a close prisoner.

The desire of the House of Commons that Kidd should not be tried,
discharged, or pardoned until the next session of Parliament was
most unfortunate for him, because it necessitated his being kept in
confinement with his fellow-prisoners at Newgate for more than a year.
But it cannot be regarded as unreasonable, seeing that the necessary
documents relating to him had not yet been laid before the House; that
time was required for the collection of evidence against him from
abroad; and that such of the facts relating to him and his employers as
had already been disclosed, afforded some ground for suspecting that
the four inculpated ministers were far from blameless. It is the one
satisfactory feature in this very unpleasant case, that no discredit
attaches to the action of the House of Commons in respect of its
treatment of Kidd, either in this session or the next.

On the sixth of March in the following year (1701), the House, having
reassembled, ordered that the examinations of Kidd and all papers
relating to him, transmitted by the Earl of Bellamont (who, it may be
mentioned, was now dead), be laid before them by the Admiralty. On
the next day, they were presented; and it was ordered that such of
them as came from the Admiralty sealed up, be opened, and the private
examinations of Captain Kidd before the Admiralty were accordingly opened
and read. It appeared from them that Kidd had denied that he had ever
seen Shrewsbury or Somers; or had heard more of them than that they were
two of his owners; that he admitted that Bellamont had introduced him to
the Earl of Orford, and that Colonel Hewetson had carried him to the Earl
of Romney, which was all he knew of them.

The papers delivered up by the Admiralty related not only to Kidd,
but also to atrocities which had been committed in the East Indies by
pirates, who had nothing to do with him, and which had apparently been
mixed up with his narrative, with the object of obscuring the case and
creating a prejudice against him. The Commons appointed a committee to
sort them, and to report to the House which of them related to Kidd.
On the twenty-seventh of March this committee reported that they had
done this; and their chairman, Sir Humphrey Mackworth, delivered them
in at the clerk’s table, divided into two parcels, one containing the
papers relating to Kidd, and the other the papers that did not relate
to him. Then Kidd’s private examinations before the Admiralty were again
read; and Kidd, being brought in by the keeper of Newgate, was called
in. A petition from Cogi Babba, which had been presented to the House,
was also read. This petition is noteworthy as being the only complaint
to the House made by those who were alleged at his trial to have been
plundered by him. It purported to be presented by Cogi Babba, on behalf
of himself and other Armenians, inhabitants of Chalfa, the suburb of
Spahow, and subjects to the King of Persia. It merely set forth that the
petitioners had freighted a ship called the _Karry Merchant_ (better
known as the _Quedagh Merchant_--and referred to in the French pass as
_Cara Marchand_), from Surat to Bengal, where the petitioners loaded her
at prime cost to the value of four hundred thousand rupees, besides forty
thousand rupees, the cost of the ship, which was all taken and carried
away by Captain Kidd, on the ship’s returning to Surat about February,
1697; and it merely prayed that Kidd might be examined touching the
premises, and the petitioners relieved concerning the same.

After the reading of these papers Kidd was examined and withdrew, and was
remanded to Newgate; and it was decided that the House would the next day
take into consideration the patent, commission and instructions to Kidd,
which they did with the result that a motion was made that the grant
passed under the Great Seal by Somers to Bellamont and others of the
goods to be taken from the pirates before their conviction was illegal
and void. The question being put, one hundred and eighty-five members
voted in favour of the motion and one hundred and ninety-eight against it.

The House then decided that Kidd should be put on his trial in the
ordinary course; and on the sixteenth of April, about three weeks before
it took place, being informed that he had sent to the Admiralty that he
might have the use of his commission and some other papers at his trial,
ordered that “the said Commission and _such other papers as Captain Kidd
desires_ be delivered by the Clerk of this House to the Secretary of
the Admiralty.” Had this order been complied with, and the papers been
accessible to Kidd or his legal advisers, he would have had a complete
answer to the charge of piracy brought against him. For they included
the precious French passes, which had justified his seizure of his two
prizes.




CHAPTER FIVE




CHAPTER V

KIDD’S FIRST TRIAL AT THE OLD BAILEY


If any of the great personages involved in Kidd’s case took the trouble
to look into the voluminous papers relating to it, which had been sent
over to England by Bellamont for presentation to Parliament, they must
at once have realized that Kidd’s prosecution was attended with great
difficulties. Notwithstanding the public prejudice which had been aroused
against him, and the fact that he was not only a Scotchman, but also a
Colonial, they could hardly have believed that an English jury could
be asked with safety to convict him of piracy, on any of the grounds
on which Bellamont had committed him to gaol at Boston, either because
he had been described by the Lords Justices as a notorious pirate or
because he was thought to look guilty, or because during his examination
he had in Bellamont’s opinion seemed at one time unduly cheerful, and
at another unduly grave, or even because some one else had been so
impertinent as to ask prematurely for the return of a bond. Kidd’s own
simple narrative, which it is impossible to doubt that some of them
must have read with interest, if not with shame, supported as it was by
the depositions of such of his crew as had remained faithful to him,
contained no inherent improbabilities, but bore the impress of truth,
and satisfactorily accounted for his detention at Madagascar. No flaw
was apparent in either of the French passes, which he had taken with
his prizes, and which were included amongst the papers sent over by
Bellamont. It is difficult to believe that any one who read them failed
to come to the same conclusion that Bellamont had expressed, that they
would justify the seizure of the two vessels to which they related. The
sole foundation for the suspicions that attached to Kidd, apart from his
unfortunate and disreputable connection with Lord Chancellor Somers, and
other unpopular members of the Ministry, was the vague allegation made
some years before by the East India Company, that “they had received some
information from their factories that he had committed several acts of
piracy, particularly in seizing the _Quedagh Merchant_.” From the papers
presented to Parliament it seemed now clear that his capture of that ship
was justified; and that he was on his way home with her to New England
with the object of getting her adjudicated a lawful prize, when his
men had gone over to Culliford, and prevented him from carrying her to
Boston. As one at least of the adventurers, Orford, the late First Lord
of the Admiralty, should have known, she could not have been condemned as
a lawful prize in the East Indies, owing to the neglect of the Admiralty
to follow the advice of their own judge, to erect a Vice-Admiralty
Court there, as had been done in the West Indies. The East India Company
must have been pressed after Kidd’s arrest, to substantiate their vague
charges against him. It is inconceivable, having regard to their interest
in his conviction, that they left any stone unturned to procure evidence
against him during the two years that he remained in confinement.
But whatever their efforts may have been, they seem to have been
unsuccessful. No person was found to come forward and allege that he had
any knowledge of Kidd’s alleged piracies, except Cogi Babba, one of the
owners of the _Quedagh Merchant_. And for the reason already explained,
his evidence would be valueless, if the French passes were produced in
Court.

But the Old Bailey practitioners of that day, who were no doubt consulted
in due course, were adepts in their trade, and it is unlikely that they
entertained any serious doubt from the first as to the lines on which
Kidd’s prosecution in the interests of their clients should proceed, or
as to its ultimate success. They knew that he was friendless and that it
was nobody’s interest in England but his own that he should be acquitted.
They knew that no London jury that tried him could fail to be influenced
by their knowledge that he had been denounced by the Lords Justices and
the East India Company as a notorious pirate, or dismiss from their
minds the innumerable wild tales which had for years been disseminated
to his disadvantage.[12] They knew also, none better, the practical
difficulties which confronted every poor wretch brought to trial in those
days on a capital charge by unscrupulous persons, who could afford to
bribe or terrify miscreants into bearing false evidence against him.
Incredible as it may seem to us with our modern notions of fair play and
the belief which has been instilled into some of us of the wisdom of our
ancient common law, much of which was as hopelessly absurd as many of the
nostrums and theories of the medical men of those days, accused persons
in criminal cases were forced to conduct their own defence and were
not allowed the assistance of counsel, for the purpose of examining or
cross-examining witnesses or commenting on any question of fact. Counsel
on their behalf were only permitted to address the Court on questions of
law; the legal fiction being that there was no necessity for a prisoner
to employ counsel to elucidate the facts: that the judge could be trusted
to see that this was properly done: and that the jury could be trusted
to give the prisoner the benefit of any reasonable doubt. Needless to
say this fiction led to the frequent conviction of innocent persons,
and was a great encouragement to perjured witnesses. Many a villain,
who but for it would have hesitated to be suborned, was induced by it
to come forward for a small consideration and swear to anything that
his employers desired. Still more ready were some poor creatures to do
this, if they had brought their own necks within measurable distance of
the noose, and their refusal to swear away the life of the accused would
entail their own death by hanging. In the present case, no trustworthy
evidence of reputable witnesses being forthcoming against Kidd, the legal
advisers of the Crown very naturally had recourse to the well-known
last resort open to them, and set themselves to find some one or more
scoundrels, who would be willing to turn King’s evidence against him.
Twelve seamen, most of whom had remained faithful to their commander,
were now imprisoned with him, awaiting their trial for piracy. We shall
never know how many of these were approached by the prosecution. What we
do know is, that not one of them was induced to become King’s evidence.
If Kidd had been guilty of the crimes of which he was accused, this in
itself would have been a remarkable circumstance: for some of these poor
men might have been expected to reconcile their consciences to the saving
of their own lives by giving evidence against him. Not one of them did
so. The only witnesses who could be found to testify against him were
two rogues, who on their own admission had deserted him at Madagascar,
and joined Culliford in open piracy against all nations. These men had
imprudently returned to London, where unfortunately for themselves and
Kidd, they were unearthed by emissaries of the prosecution before the
trial came on. Their lives would justly have been forfeited if they had
not agreed to give the evidence on which their old commander and comrades
were convicted. What that evidence amounted to, will be seen in due
course.

Another hardship to which the accused were subjected in those days
was this, that besides being deprived of the assistance of counsel to
cross-examine and comment on the evidence, they were left in ignorance
sometimes to the last moment of the charges to be made against them. Kidd
had every reason to believe, when brought into Court for trial, that the
only charge he had to meet was piracy. He had been committed by Bellamont
for piracy, and examined before the Admiralty and the House of Commons on
that charge. The great men with whom he had been associated were supposed
to have employed him because he was a pirate. No suggestion had been made
that he had been guilty of any other crime. And yet when he came into
Court, the first charge against him was not that he had been a pirate,
but that he was guilty of an offence of a totally different character,
a charge of which no notice whatever had apparently been given him, and
to meet which he had had no opportunity of obtaining legal advice or
preparing his defence.

Nor was this all. He was a man of substance in America when arrested.
But in gaol in England he was without money or friends to prepare for
his trial. Although the Court had ordered fifty pounds to be paid to him
that he might have legal advice, the money was not delivered to him till
the night before he was tried. What was, if possible, unfairer than any
of these things was the deliberate withholding from him by the officials
of the papers, which the House of Commons had ordered to be delivered to
the Admiralty for the purposes of his trial, and in particular the two
French passes, on which he relied to prove that he had been justified in
taking the two prizes, in respect of which he was accused of piracy.
No wonder that he pleaded hard for the production of these papers and
the postponement of his trial, until he was allowed access to them. That
there can be no question of the accuracy of the foregoing statements,
appears clearly from the verbatim report of his trial, perused and
approved by the judges and counsel who took part in it. Take first this
extract from that report.

“KIDD. May it please your Lordships, I desire you to permit me to have
counsel.

“RECORDER (_Sir Salathial Lovel_). What would you have counsel for?

“KIDD. My lord. I have some matter of law, relating to the indictment,
and I desire I may have counsel to plead to it.” (He had evidently been
coached up on this point that morning or the night before by his legal
advisers.)

“Dr. OXENDEN. What matter of law can you have?

“CLERK OF ARRAIGNS. How does he know what he is charged with? I have not
told him.

“RECORDER. You must let the Court know what these matters of law are,
before you can have counsel assigned you.

“KIDD. I know what I mean. I desire to put off my trial as long as I can,
till I can get my evidence ready.

“Dr. OXENDEN. It cannot be matter of law to put off your trial.

“KIDD. I beg your Lordships’ patience till I can procure my papers. I
had a couple of French passes, which I must make use of in order to my
justification.

“RECORDER. That is not matter of law.

“KIDD. I sent for them, but I could not have them.

“Dr. OXENDEN. Where were they then?

“KIDD. I brought them to my Lord Bellamont in New England.

“RECORDER. Mr. Kidd, the Court sees no reason to put off your trial--you
must plead.

“KIDD. If your Lordship will permit those papers to be read they will
justify me.

“RECORDER. Mr. Kidd, you must plead.

“KIDD. I cannot plead till I have those papers I have insisted upon.

“Mr. LEMMON (_one of his counsel_). He ought to have his papers
delivered to him, because they are very material for his defence. He has
endeavoured to have them, but could not get them.

“Mr. CONIERS (_one of the counsel for the prosecution_). You are not to
appear for any one until he pleads, and that the Court assigns you for
his counsel.

“RECORDER. They would only put off the trial.

“Mr. CONIERS. He must plead to the indictment.

“KIDD. It is a hard case, when all these things shall be kept from me,
and I shall be called on to plead.

“CLERK OF ARRAIGNS. Make silence.

“KIDD. My papers were all seized, and I cannot make my defence without
them. I desire my trial to be put off until I can have them.

“RECORDER. If he will not plead, there must be judgment.

“KIDD. My lord, I insist upon my French passes. Pray let me have them.

“RECORDER. Mr. Kidd, I must tell you, if you will not plead, you must
have judgment against you, as standing mute.

“KIDD. If your Lordships permit those passes to be read, they will
justify me. If I plead, I shall be accessory to my own death, till I have
persons to plead for me.

“RECORDER. You are accessory to your own death, if you do not plead.

“KIDD. My lord, would you have me to plead, and not have my vindication
by me?”

After a long altercation, Kidd was at length persuaded to hold up his
hand in token that he pleaded not guilty. His first indictment was then
read, of which the following are the most material parts: “The jurors
of our sovereign Lord the King do upon their oath present that William
Kidd, late of London, mariner, not having the fear of God before his
eyes, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the Devil,
against the peace of our Sovereign Lord the King, violently, feloniously,
voluntarily, and of malice aforethought, did make an assault in and upon
one William Moore upon the high seas near the coast of Malabar in the
East Indies, and within the jurisdiction of the Admiralty, with a certain
wooden bucket, bound with iron hoops of the value of eight pence, giving
the said William Moore with the bucket aforesaid upon the right part of
the head one mortal bruise, of which mortal bruise the aforesaid William
Moore did languish and die. How sayst thou, William Kidd, art thou guilty
of this murder, whereof thou standest indicted, or not guilty?”

Poor Kidd may well have been taken aback, as he listened to this
astounding indictment. So this was what that rascally Clerk of Arraigns
had been hinting at, when he said he did not yet know what he was charged
with. What on earth was the meaning of all this legal chicanery? He had
been committed by Bellamont at Boston, because he was supposed to be a
pirate, and sent over to London to be tried, because piracy was not a
hanging offence in America. Murder was a hanging offence in America. If
he was supposed to be a murderer, why had he not been tried for murder
there? If he was to be tried for murder here, why had no notice of this
charge been given him, unless it were to prevent him from preparing his
defence, and getting his evidence ready? He had been examined at great
length by Bellamont and his Council, and by the Admiralty and the House
of Commons as to his supposed piracy; but in neither examination does
it appear that the slightest suggestion had been made that he was a
murderer. By whose trick was it that he was now to be tried for murder?
But although the accusation seemed too ridiculous for any one to bring
against him, except lawyers at their wits’ ends to find some excuse for
hanging him, it had to be met, and he met it promptly by pleading, “Not
guilty.” Then he again proffered his request to have counsel assigned
him, naming Dr. Oldish and Mr. Lemmon, whom he had apparently consulted
that morning or the night before, after getting his fifty pounds. His
application was granted, but subject only to the condition that he had to
plead any matter of law.

His counsel then addressed the Court, but only on the question of the
postponement of his trial for piracy.

“Dr. OLDISH. My lord, he moves that his trial for piracy may be put
off for several reasons. It is very fit that it should be put off for
some time, because he wants some papers very necessary for his defence.
It is very true he is charged with piracy in several ships. But they
had French passes, when the seizure was made. Now if there were French
passes, it was a lawful seizure.

“Justice POWEL. Have you those passes?

“KIDD. They were taken from me by my Lord Bellamont, and those passes
would be my defence.

“Mr. LEMMON. My lord, I desire one word as to this circumstance. He was
doing his King and country service instead of being a pirate. For in
this very ship, there was a French pass, and it was shown to Mr. Davies
and carried to my Lord Bellamont, and he made a seizure of it. And there
was a letter[13] writ to testify it, which was produced before the
Parliament” (apparently neither Kidd nor his counsel were aware that the
passes themselves had been laid before Parliament and delivered over to
the Admiralty for production at the trial), “and that letter has been
transmitted from hand to hand, so that we cannot at present come by
it. There are several other letters and papers that we cannot get, and
therefore we desire the trial may be put off till we can procure them.

“Lord CHIEF BARON WARD. Where are they?

“Mr. LEMMON. We cannot yet tell whether they are in the Admiralty, or
whether Mr. Jodrell hath them.

“Justice POWEL. Let us see on what you go. What ship was it that had the
French passes?

“Mr. LEMMON. The same we were in. The same he is indicted for.

“The SOLICITOR GENERAL. They have had a fortnight’s notice to prepare for
the trial.

“Dr. OLDISH. We petitioned for money, and the Court ordered fifty pounds,
but the person that received it went away, and we had none till last
night.

“Lord CHIEF BARON WARD. You ought to make it out that there is a
reasonable cause to put off the trial, otherwise it cannot be allowed.
What notice have they had?

“The SOLICITOR GENERAL. A fortnight’s notice--this day fortnight.

“Dr. OLDISH. My lord, he should have had his money delivered to him.

“KIDD. I had no money nor friends to prepare for my trial till last night.

“Mr. LEMMON. My lord, we will be ready to-morrow morning.

“The SOLICITOR GENERAL. My lord, this we will do. In the meantime let
him be tried for the murder, wherein there is no pretence of want of
witnesses and passes.”

This preposterous proposal, which in effect was that Kidd should be tried
at once on an indictment for murder sprung upon him a few moments before,
arising out of an incident that had occurred some three and a half years
previously, and be forced on the spur of the moment without conferring
with any legal adviser, to conduct his own defence with the Solicitor
General and other eminent counsel against him, seems to have excited no
comment, but to have been assented to as a matter of course.

“The CLERK OF ARRAIGNS. 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; that Moore
was the spokesman of the mutineers who were prevented by Kidd from
seizing the Dutch ship, and that he and his associates had concocted
a plan, by which they thought they might have seized her and extorted
documentary evidence from the Dutchmen to excuse themselves and Kidd in
the event of their being called in question for doing so. The balance of
evidence is strongly in favor of Moore’s having upbraided Kidd in the
altercation which ended in the fatal blow, for not having allowed the
mutineers to have their own way. When Kidd called him “a lousie dog,”
his answer practically was that if Kidd had taken his advice, he and
his companions, so far from being “lousie dogs,” would have made their
fortune and been gentlemen. Kidd seems to have knocked him down in a
moment of very justifiable indignation, and without any intention of
killing him. It is not even clear from the evidence that Moore died of
the blow. The only two witnesses against Kidd at the trial were Palmer
and Bradenham. On Kidd’s behalf three of the prisoners, Owens, Parrott,
and Barlicorn, gave evidence, and Kidd offered to call the rest of them
if necessary. When he asked Bradenham, the principal witness against him,
with a view to test the value of his evidence, whether he had not been
in the mutiny himself, he was prevented from insisting on an answer by
the Lord Chief Baron Ward, who said, “You will not infer that if he was a
mutineer it was lawful for you to kill Moore.” Not only was he prevented
from eliciting this fact, which would have tended to discredit the chief
witness against him, but he was prevented from calling evidence as to his
own character. The Lord Chief Baron summed up very summarily against him,
being evidently desirous of ending the case as quickly as possible.

“The prisoner is indicted,” said he, “for murder. Now to make the killing
of a man to be murder, there must be malice prepense either express or
implied. The law implies malice, when one man without any reasonable
cause or provocation kills another. You have had this cause opened to
you. What mutiny or discourse might be a fortnight or month before will
not be any reason for so long continuance of passion.” (Had the Lord
Chief Baron ever been in command himself of a mutinous crew, he might
have thought otherwise.) “But what did arise at the time, the witnesses
tell you.” (As a matter of fact, they were far from agreeing as to the
conversation.) “The first witness” (King’s evidence) “tells you, the
first words that were spoken were by Mr. Kidd, and upon his answer, Mr.
Kidd calls him, ‘lousie dog.’ The reply was, ‘If I am so, you have made
me so.’ Now, gentlemen, I leave it to you to consider, whether that
could be a reasonable occasion or provocation to take a bucket and knock
the deceased on the head and kill him. Now for the prisoner on such a
saying, and without any other provocation to take a bucket and knock a
man on the head and kill him must be deemed an unjustifiable act. For, as
I have said, if one man kill another without provocation or reasonable
cause, the law presumes and implies malice; and then such killing will
be murder in the sense of the law, as being done of malice prepense. If
there be a sudden falling out and fighting and one is killed in heat of
blood, then the law calls it manslaughter, but in such a case as this,
that happens on slight words, the prisoner calls the deceased a ‘lousie
dog,’ and the deceased says, ‘If I be so, you have made me so,’ can
this be a reasonable cause to kill him? and if you believe them not to
be a reasonable cause of provocation I cannot see what distinction can
be made, but that the prisoner is guilty of murder. Indeed, if there
had been a mutiny at that time, then there might have been a reasonable
cause for him to plead in his defence, and it ought to have been taken
into consideration. But it appears that what mutiny there was, was a
fortnight at least before.” (There can be little doubt that the crew
were on the brink of mutiny for months before and months after this
occurrence.) “Therefore, gentlemen, I must leave it to you, if you
believe the King’s witness, and one of the prisoner’s own” (Query, and
disregard the evidence of Kidd and the others), “that this blow was given
by the prisoner in the manner aforesaid, and are satisfied that it was
done without reasonable cause or provocation, then he will be guilty of
murder, and if you do believe him guilty of murder on this evidence, you
must find him so, if not you must acquit him.”

The jury then withdrew, and in about an hour returned and gave in their
verdict “Guilty.”

CLERK OF ARRAIGNS. “Look to him, keeper.”




CHAPTER SIX




CHAPTER VI

THE SUBSEQUENT TRIALS FOR PIRACY


On the following day Kidd and his fellow prisoners were tried at the Old
Bailey for the piratical seizure of the _Quedagh Merchant_ and other
alleged piracies of minor importance, this trial having, as has already
been explained, been postponed in order that Kidd might get the papers
which had been ordered by the House of Commons to be handed over to the
Admiralty for the purposes of his trial. With admirable brevity and
lucidity his two counsel, Dr. Oldish and Mr. Lemmon, had explained to
the Court that these papers would constitute his defence, inasmuch as
the French passes would clearly show that his seizure of his two prizes
had been lawful, and that in taking them, so far from being a pirate,
he had done his King and country service. Their plea that the trial
should be put off in order that these papers might be procured had been
allowed as reasonable; and the glibber of his two counsel, Mr. Lemmon,
had apparently satisfied himself that they would be forthcoming; for he
had ended by jauntily observing: “My lord, we will be ready to-morrow
morning.”

What happened during the next few hours can only be conjectured. What
does seem certain is, that when the morning came, neither Dr. Oldish
nor Mr. Lemmon appeared on Kidd’s behalf; nor had the French passes
and other papers that had been promised, been furnished to Kidd; that
his trial began and ended without their production; and that not one
of the judges who took part in it, the most prominent of whom was the
Lord Chief Baron Ward, who had been present in Court the day before, and
heard the arguments for the postponement of the trial, made any comment
on the absence of Kidd’s counsel, or asked for any explanation from the
Admiralty officials or any one else for the non-production of the passes,
which they had been told would constitute Kidd’s defence. Indeed, as will
be seen, the Lord Chief Baron in his summing up went so far as to suggest
that they existed only in Kidd’s imagination.

It is inconceivable that the monstrous miscarriage of justice, which
ensued, was the result of mere accident, negligence, or stupidity. It was
clearly the duty of the officials of the Admiralty, in whose court Kidd
was being tried, to allow him access to the papers, including the passes,
which had been delivered to them by the order of the House of Commons for
that purpose. It was clearly the duty of Kidd’s two paid counsel to put
in an appearance and press for a further postponement of the trial, until
these passes had been produced, instead of leaving him, as they did, in
the lurch to conduct his own defence, with the disastrous results that
might have been anticipated. It is very difficult to avoid the suspicion
of foul play on behalf of one or more of the great personages interested
in the case. In this connection there are certain facts which it is
impossible to ignore. At the time of the trial, impeachments were pending
in Parliament against Orford, the late First Lord of the Admiralty, and
Somers, for their participation in Kidd’s enterprise. No efforts had
been spared by their political opponents to induce Kidd to make damaging
disclosures against them. Thus far they had been unsuccessful. Kidd had
remained faithful to his employers. But dead men tell no tales; and
neither Orford nor Somers could have felt any security against untoward
disclosures on his part so long as he remained alive. Coming to the last
of the very significant close coincidences of date that abound in this
case, we find that Somers deferred putting in his reply to the Articles
of Impeachment drawn up against him by the Commons until the day after
Kidd’s execution. In order to appease public opinion and the East India
Company, some scapegoat was indispensable, if these two great men were
to be allowed to go scot free. Can it reasonably be doubted that it was
this consideration that induced the officials of the Admiralty to keep
back from Kidd and from the Court the two French passes which would have
been his salvation and which had been delivered to them by the House of
Commons, in order that he might have access to them?

The report of his trial will be found melancholy reading by those who
still retain some belief in the impartiality of the judges and the
honesty of the counsel of that age. Three of the latter, the Solicitor
General, the advocate of the Admiralty, and their junior Mr. Coniers,
with their trained wits and long experience in criminal cases, were
long odds for poor Kidd and his companions to contend against,
although the only evidence produced by the prosecution consisted of the
uncorroborated testimony of two of the mutineers who had deserted their
colours at Madagascar and joined Culliford in open piracy. These men had
evidently been carefully taken by the attorneys through every incident
in the voyage of the _Adventure Galley_, which lent itself to ingenious
misrepresentation, tending to the discredit of Kidd and his companions.
In some instances they obviously tried to mislead the jury, and were
only prevented from doing so by Kidd’s simple questioning of them.
Ignorant of the rules of the court he tried more than once to break in
and give his own version whilst they were giving theirs. “Hear me,” he
cried, springing up in court on one occasion; but was promptly reduced
to silence by the reminder that when the time came, he could question
the witnesses. He did ask them some very pertinent questions, from
the answers to which it was clear that they had wilfully endeavoured
to deceive the Court. But he was, of course, no adept in the art of
systematic and persistent cross-examination. As time went on, and it
became evident that whenever he asked any question with the object of
testing the credibility of the two deserters, he was stopped by the
judge, and whenever their evidence was in conflict with his statements
or those of any of his men, it was readily believed, he not unnaturally
became impatient, and after a while gave up the hopeless job in despair.
It must not be forgotten that he and his men were placed at a great
disadvantage by being all included in the same indictment for piracy,
and that consequently not one of them could be called and examined as a
witness for the defence. Kidd seems to have felt this keenly. On being
told by the Junior Counsel for the prosecution, “Now, if you will ask
this witness any question, you may,” he replied, “What signifies it to
ask him any question? We have no witnesses, and what we say signifies
nothing.” At last in reply to the Solicitor General whether he had any
further questions to ask, he replied, “No, no. So long as he swears it,
our words or oaths cannot be taken;” and again, “It signifies nothing to
ask any questions. A couple of rogues will swear to anything.”

The SOLICITOR GENERAL. “Will you ask any further questions?”

KIDD. “No, no, I will not trouble the Court any more: for it is a folly.”

It might have been thought that the testimony given by such unimpeachable
witnesses as Colonel Hewson, Captain Bond, Captain Humphreys, and Mr.
Cooper of the character and eminent public services of Kidd was entitled
to some weight, in cases where the question for the jury to decide was
the relative credibility of Kidd and such of his men as had remained
faithful to him, and that of the two mutineers who had by their own
confession joined Culliford in open piracy, and had since been promised
their lives if they would take Kidd’s. This, however, was clearly not the
view of the Lord Chief Baron. Speaking of Kidd in his summing up he said:
“He has called some persons here to give an account of his reputation,
and of his services done in the West Indies, and one of them says” (as a
matter of fact they all swore to it) “he did good service there. Well,
so he might and might have” (_sic_) “and it is very like he had such
reputation, when the King trusted him with these commissions, else I
believe he had never had them, so that (_sic_) whatever he might be so
many years ago, that is not a matter to be insisted on now, but what he
hath done since, and how he hath acted in this matter charged against
him.” The Lord Chief Baron evidently had no belief in the doctrine “_Nemo
repente fuit turpissimus_.”

Bradenham, before he had been caught by the police in London, had been
seen by one of Kidd’s witnesses, a Mr. 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. It is not to
be questioned, that he would not say anything ill against him then.”
In other words, Bradenham in the judge’s opinion, was a witness whose
voluntary evidence on an ordinary occasion was worthless. His testimony
could only become of value, when given under compulsion, with the object
of saving his own life, and after he had been drilled to cast it into
such a shape that it would in the opinion of the legal advisers of the
Crown, imperil the life of another man of unimpeachable antecedents, whom
the Government desired to destroy. It is to be feared that such views of
the value of King’s evidence were by no means rare in those days. When
questioned by the Judge, why, if he thought the _Quedagh Merchant_ was
a lawful prize, he did not have her condemned, Kidd’s simple answer was
that his men would not allow him to do so. As a matter of fact he was on
his way to the nearest Court of Admiralty competent to condemn her, when
his men mutinied. “My lord,” he said, “there were ninety-five men that
deserted my ship and took away what they pleased. We could not stand in
defence of anything.” He explained that he had nothing to do with the
sharing of the goods amongst his men, and knew nothing of it. He was
never near them. Questioned as to his coming to terms with Culliford,
he replied, “My lord, I designed to take that frigate and I designed
to come to England, I said let us take this ship, and did they not all
consult and say, where there is one that will fire against the pirate
there are ten that will fire against you? And so they went and took the
goods and left me.”

The main question at issue was not however whether Kidd had been
justified in failing to keep the deserters in hand, or in coming to terms
with Culliford, after they had left him, but whether the two prizes which
he had taken had French passes on board when captured.

This was fully recognised by the Lord Chief Baron who in his summing up
in the case of the _Quedagh Merchant_ said: “Now this is the great case
before you, on which the indictment turns. The ship and goods as you have
heard, are said by the witnesses” (_i. e._, by the King’s evidence) “to
be the goods of Armenians and other people that are in amity with the
King: and Captain Kidd would have them to be the goods of Frenchmen, or
at least that the ship was sailed under French passes. Now if it were as
Captain Kidd says, it was a lawful prize and liable to confiscation: but
if they were goods of persons in amity with the King, and the ship was
not navigated under French passes, it is very plain it was a piratical
seizing of them.”

There can be no doubt therefore that if Kidd had been able to produce the
passes in court, he would have had a perfect defence. Unfortunately he
seems to have been unaware that Bellamont had sent them over to England.
His case was that he had given them to Bellamont, and he believed that
Bellamont was keeping them back. Being unable to get them, or to have his
trial postponed until they could be obtained, he tried as a last resource
to get Bradenham and Palmer to admit that they knew of their existence.

KIDD (_to Bradenham_). “Did you not see any French passes aboard the
_Quedagh Merchant_?”

BRADENHAM. “You told me you had French passes. I never did see them.”

KIDD. “Did you never declare this to anybody that you saw the French
passes?”

BRADENHAM. “No, I never did see any; but I only said I heard you say you
had them.”

KIDD (_to Palmer_). “I ask him whether I had no French passes.”

PALMER. “Indeed, Captain Kidd, I cannot say. I did hear him say he had
French passes, but I never saw them. I have heard Captain Kidd say
several times that he had French passes.”

KIDD. “And did you hear nobody else say so?”

PALMER. “No.”

KIDD. “It is in vain to ask any questions.”

LORD CHIEF BARON WARD. “What was that pretence of a French pass?”

PALMER. “I saw none.”

KIDD. “But you have heard of it.”

PALMER. “I have heard of it, but I never saw it.”

Unable to get any admissions from these two, Kidd called another witness,
Mr. Davis.

KIDD. “I desire Mr. Davis may be called--Mr. Davis, pray give an account,
whether you did not see a French pass.”

DAVIS. “I came a passenger from Madagascar, and from thence to Amboyna”
(evidently a clerical error for Anguilla) “and there he sent his boat
ashore, and there was one said Captain Kidd was published a pirate in
England, and he gave him those passes to read--the Captain said they were
French.”

LORD CHIEF BARON WARD. “Who gave them?”

DAVIS. “Captain Kidd gave them.”

KIDD. “You heard Captain Elms say they were French passes.”

DAVIS. “Yes. I heard Captain Elms say they were French passes. Says he,
If you will, I will turn them into Latin.”

Summing up this evidence, the Lord Chief Baron said: “Gentlemen, it is to
be considered what evidence Captain Kidd hath given to prove that ship
and goods to belong to the French King or his subjects, or that the ship
was sailed under a French pass, or indeed that there ever was a French
pass shown or seen. He appeals to the witnesses over and over again, Did
you never see it? No, say they. Nor did not you, saith he, say you saw
it. No, saith the witness. I said that Captain Kidd said he had a French
pass, but I never saw it.”

“Now, gentlemen, this must be observed, If this was a capture on the high
sea, and these were the goods of persons in amity with the King and had
no French pass, then it is a plain piracy.”

“Now what does Captain Kidd say to all this? He has told you he acted
pursuant to his commission: but that cannot be, unless 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; and for aught I can see,
none saw them but himself, if there ever were any.”

Fortunately for Kidd’s memory, these passes, as has already been stated,
had been made Parliamentary papers. Verbatim copies of them will be found
in Appendix C.

The Admiralty may well look back with pride to some of the performances
of its officials, but the shameful suppression of these passes at
Kidd’s trial is not one of them. Had they been produced, as they ought
undoubtedly to have been in accordance with the order of the House of
Commons, it would have puzzled even the Lord Chief Baron to discover an
excuse for directing the jury to find Kidd and such of his crew as had
remained faithful to him guilty of piracy.

Of the latter, three, Barlicorn, Jenkins, and Lumley, apprentices to the
Captain, the Mate and the cook were acquitted by the jury. Four others,
Howe, Churchill, Mullins, and Owens, the cook, pleaded that they had
surrendered under the King’s Proclamation, the first three to Colonel
Bass, the Governor of East Jersey, and the fourth to a Justice of the
Peace in Southwark. There is no question but that these men had been
misled by this proclamation into thinking that if they surrendered as
they did, they would have a free pardon, and that but for being so misled
they would have been at large. Three of them had been in gaol awaiting
their trial for nearly two years. But their plea was disallowed on the
ground that they had surrendered to the wrong persons. The proclamation
was dated the eighth of December, 1698. It had been sent out to St.
Marie’s on board of Captain Warren’s squadron, which was conducting the
ambassador of the Great Mogul on a tour to the Eastern seas that he
might see with his own eyes that the Government was at last making a
serious effort to suppress the Eastern piracy. It declared the King’s
intent to be “That such as had been guilty of any acts of piracy in
the seas East of the Cape of Good Hope, might have notice of His Most
Gracious Intention of extending His Most Royal mercy to such of them as
should surrender themselves, and to cause the severest punishment to be
inflicted upon those who should continue obdurate.” The King’s intent
seemed therefore plain, that he would pardon all those who surrendered
themselves. But the proclamation “required and commanded all persons who
had been guilty of any act of piracy in any place eastward of the Cape
of Good Hope to surrender themselves to the four commissioners named
in it;” and it empowered these gentlemen only, who were traveling about
with the Great Mogul’s ambassador and were not readily accessible, “to
give assurances of the King’s Most Gracious pardon to all such as should
surrender themselves.” The Lord Chief Baron held that the proclamation
must be construed strictly. “It says,” said he, “they must surrender
themselves to such and such persons by name. See if it be not so. Here
are several qualifications mentioned. You must bring yourselves under
them, if you would have the benefit of it.”

Mr. MOXON (_counsel for one of the prisoners_). “But, my lord, consider
the nature of this proclamation, and what was the design of it, which was
to induce pirates to come in.”

LORD CHIEF BARON WARD. “If you would have the benefit of it, you
must bring yourself under the conditions of it. Now there are four
Commissioners named that you ought to surrender to. But you have not
surrendered to any one of these, but to Colonel Bass, and there is no
such man named in the proclamation.”

The consequence of this decision was that all four of the men who had
surrendered under the proclamation were condemned to death along with
Kidd, and their comrades, some of whom when it became clear that they
would be condemned were desirous that their loyal obedience to their
captain should be placed on record, _e. g._:

GABRIEL LOFFE (_a foremast man from New York_). “I have nothing to say,
but to ask him” (Bradenham) “whether I did ever disobey my captain’s
commands, or was in any way mutinous on board the ship.”

BRADENHAM. “No. I cannot say you did.”

PARROT (_the Plymouth boy_). “My lord, I desire you would ask the
witnesses, whether I ever disobeyed my captain’s commands. Mr. Palmer,
did you ever see me guilty of an ill thing? Did I ever disobey my
captain?”

PALMER. “You were always obedient to your captain.”

MULLINS (_the Irishman_). “Mr. Bradenham, did I do anything against my
captain’s commands?” (It is to be feared he did, in leaving him.)

BRADENHAM. “I cannot say, but that he did always obey the Captain’s
commands.”

MULLINS (_again, this time to Palmer_). “Did not Captain Kidd often say
that his commission would bear him out in what he did?”

PALMER. “Yes. I have often heard him say that.”

Judge TURTON. “But how came you to go aboard Culliford?”

MULLINS. “For want, my lord.”

LOFFE (_again_). “My lord, I was a servant under Captain Kidd and always
obeyed his commands, and had no share. I came home with Captain Kidd to
Boston, and went to my Lord Bellamont.”

HOWE. “Have I not obeyed my captain in all his commands?”

LORD CHIEF BARON WARD. “There is no doubt made about that.”

Kidd himself on being asked whether he had anything more to say replied,
“My lord, I had many papers for my defence if I could have had them.”

LORD CHIEF BARON WARD. “What papers were they?”

KIDD. “My French passes.”

LORD CHIEF BARON WARD. “Where are they?”

KIDD. “My Lord Bellamont had them.”

LORD CHIEF BARON WARD. “If you had anything of disability upon you to
make your defence, you should have objected it at the beginning of your
trial. What you mean by it now, I cannot tell.”

In mercy to the memory of this wicked old judge, let us hope that this
obtuseness was not feigned, and that he had really forgotten, though
it is difficult to see how he could have done so, Kidd’s impassioned
entreaties at the beginning of his trial on the preceding day for the
production of these papers, the protracted discussion which took place
thereon in which he had himself taken part and the undertaking that the
papers should be produced.

When the jury had brought in their verdict, Kidd, asked whether he had
anything to say for himself why he should not die according to the
law, replied, “My lord, I have nothing to say, but that I have been
sworn against by perjured and wicked people.” After sentence had been
pronounced, he added, “My lord, it is a very hard sentence. For my part,
I am the innocentest person of them all, only I have been sworn against
by perjured persons.”




CHAPTER SEVEN




CHAPTER VII

KIDD’S END


Kidd’s experience of the legal profession and the procedure of our
English courts, though short, had been painfully instructive. After his
return to Newgate, he seems to have had no more to do with either of
them. But he had yet to reckon with his political and religious advisers,
who combined to beset him to the last.

Bellamont’s apologist says: “Dr. G----g knows who the person was, who
was with Kidd more than once some few days before his execution and
dealt so freely with him as to advise him to charge two lords by name
with somewhat that was material, which he said was the only way he could
save his life. And the more to provoke the poor wretch to follow his
advice, swore to him that those lords and their friends, were restless
in soliciting to have him hanged, and therefore it was reasonable for
him to do their business.” “God,” he adds, “disappointed all these
cursed designs. Perhaps the unhappy creature knew himself incapable to
make a probable story, or to carry on one though made to his hands, and
that deterred him from hearkening to these counsels of devils. I rather
hope that as wicked as he had been, he was not arrived at such a pitch,
as to attempt to take away other men’s lives and honour by deliberate
perjuries.”

It never seems to have occurred to this gentleman, or indeed to any
one else, during Kidd’s last days, that he was innocent of the crimes
laid to his charge, and that he was not likely to go back on his word.
Not only in his statements with respect to his employers, but also in
his simple written narrative to Bellamont and in the oral evidence
given at his trial of the various incidents in his voyage he had told
a plain unvarnished tale, from which he had never deviated. So far as
his dealings with his employers were concerned he had sworn in his
examinations before the Admiralty and also in the House of Commons, that
he had never seen Somers or Shrewsbury, or heard more of them, than that
Bellamont had told him they were two of the owners of the _Adventure
Galley_; that Bellamont had introduced him to Orford and that Colonel
Hewson had carried him to Romney in his coach which was all that he knew
of them. He had been recalled and pressed to make some further disclosure
with regard to these great personages, and asked categorically if he knew
anything in relation to Bellamont, Romney, Shrewsbury, Somers, or Orford,
or any of the other owners, in relation to his expedition, or any other
matter, touching any private directions, articles or instructions, given
to him by word of mouth or otherwise. And after taking time “to recollect
himself well,” he had affirmed that “he had nothing more to say in
relation to the owners than that he had before declared.” It may safely
be assumed that his answer to Dr. G----g’s mysterious friend, whoever he
may have been, was to the same effect.

It remained now for him to undergo that last trial of his patience, to
which all condemned prisoners had in those days to submit, the well-meant
attempts on the part of the Chaplain of the gaol to extort from them
confessions of their guilt. If Kidd had yielded to this cruel pressure,
he would have left this world with a lie upon his lips, as it is to
be feared many poor creatures did before and after him. Witness the
confessions of some of those convicted of witchcraft. It is no small
confirmation of his innocence that he was able to emerge even from this
trying ordeal without discredit to his veracity.

The Ordinary of Newgate at that time was the Rev. Paul Lorrain, well
known in his day as the author of innumerable “Last Dying Speeches and
Confessions” of noted criminals, who seems to have combined with the more
serious duties of his calling as confessor to the doomed the somewhat
incongruous functions discharged in these latter days by enterprising
press interviewers of celebrities in whose personal peculiarities and
proclivities the reading public may be supposed to take an interest.
He can rarely, if ever, have had more promising subjects for his
professional treatment, or men of whose last days his account was likely
to have a wider circulation, than Kidd and his fellow sufferers.

There are two extant records of the “Behaviour, Confessions and Last
Dying Words of Kidd and the other Pirates that were Executed with Him.”
Both were published by the same printer, E. Mallet at the Hat and Hawk
in Bride Lane. One of these accounts is signed by Lorrain on the day of
the execution, and concludes with these words: “This is all the account,
which (in this hurry) can be given of these persons by Paul Lorrain.
Friday, May the 23rd 1701.” It is clear from internal evidence that the
earlier part of this account had been carefully composed before the day
of execution, and that it was only the concluding portion of it which
was hurriedly written on that day. No inconsiderable part of the earlier
paragraphs is devoted to the texts and heads of the discourses delivered
by the Ordinary to the prisoners, on the two preceding Sundays when they
had had the privilege of listening to him. These, admirable as they may
be, it is unnecessary to reproduce in the present narrative. From the
remainder of this account it appears that Lorrain on the day after their
trial visited the prisoners, and “did pray with them and admonish them
to self examination and repentance,” that during his whole attendance on
them, which was “every day, both forenoon and afternoon” until the day
of execution, he “pressed upon them the acts of faith and repentance,
exhorting them to confess their crimes.” “I at last,” he says, “prevailed
on them to uncover and own those crimes which they had before so
industriously endeavoured to hide or excuse, particularly Captain Kidd,
who vainly flattering himself with hopes of a reprieve, deferred his
confession so long that there was hardly any time left for taking it in
any exactness or order.” (It is clear from the latter part of his account
that Kidd never confessed to any of the crimes of which he had been
convicted.) “Darby Mullins, one of the condemned pirates was of all the
rest the most ready and free to open himself to me: and therefore I shall
begin with his confession.” Let us see what the free and open confession
of this poor man amounted to and what were the heinous crimes, which he
had so industriously endeavoured to hide or excuse.

“I. _Darby Mullins_, about 40 years old, born in Ireland hard by
Mullingfelt, about 16 miles from Londonderry. He said he lived in his own
country and with his parents and followed the plough, while he was young,
but being kidnapped he was carried away into the West Indies, where he
served a planter for the space of four years. Afterwards he turned a
waterman, and followed several other employments in and about Jamaica.
And when the earthquake happened there he was miraculously preserved,
yet took no great notice of his deliverance, so as to be thankful (as he
ought) to God for it, which is now matter of trouble and grief to him.
After this earthquake he went to Kingston, a town in these parts, and
there he built himself a house and sold liquors, etc. Then he came to
New York, with his family in the _Charity_, Captain Sims commander, and
continued there two years. At the end of which he took his passage on
board _Captain Slade_ to the Madeiras, where he stayed but three weeks
and then returned to New York; and some time after having bury’d his
wife there, he was not able any longer to keep house; but apply’d himself
to carrying and fetching wood from place to place in a boat of his own,
about 20 tons. Then he left off this employment and engaged himself with
Captain Kidd and afterwards with Captain Culliford, not knowing but
that it was very lawful (as he said he was told) to plunder the enemies
of Christianity. But now he being shew’d that those were the greatest
enemies to Christ and his religion, who did such unaccountable things, as
he and his companions did, contrary to the laws of Christianity, which
they profess, he said he heartily begged pardon of God and the world for
it, and wished he had not been such an offender. He confessed he had been
a great sinner in that he had not served God as he should have done,
but far from that had of late very much given himself up to swearing,
cursing and profaning the Sabbath Day, which had deservedly brought this
calamity upon him. He seemed to be very penitent of the facts, for which
he was justly condemned, and prayed to God to forgive both these and the
other errors and miscarriages of his past life. He was a poor unlearned
person, not very much acquainted with the principles of religion. Yet he
was very willing to be directed and express’d great hopes that through
the merits of Christ he should find mercy and salvation.”

“II. _Captain William Kidd_, condemned for murder and piracy. He was
about 56 years of age. I found him very unwilling to confess the crime
he was convicted of, or to declare anything, other than that he had been
a great offender, and lived without any due consideration either of
God’s mercys or judgments, or of his wonderful works which had so often
been set before him. That he” (like Mullins) “never remembered to have
returned Him thanks for the many great deliverances he had received from
him, or call’d himself to account for what he had done. But now he owns
that God is a just God, and he is a vile and wretched sinner. He says
he repents of all his sins and hopes to be saved through the merits of
Christ. He further declares that he dies in charity with all the world.”
So far, it is clear, he had made no confession either of murder or piracy.

“On the day being the day of execution, I went betimes to these condemned
persons, and had them up to the Chappel both morning and afternoon,
where having given them further admonitions to Faith and Repentance,
they seemed to me very desirous and earnestly striving to die in God’s
favour. Only I was afraid the hardness of Captain Kidd’s heart was still
unmelted. I therefore apply’d myself with particular exhortations to him”
(‘the innocentest person of them all,’ to quote his own words) “and laid
the judgment of God against impenitent and hardened sinners, as well
as his tender mercies to those that were true and sincere penitents,
very plainly before him. To all which he readily assented and said that
he truly repented of all his sins, and forgave all the world: and I was
in good hopes that he did so. But having left him to go a little before
him to the place of execution, I found to my unspeakable grief, when he
was brought thither, that he was inflamed with drink,” (Some kind fellow
countryman had possibly given the poor old man a wee drappie of which
he must have stood sorely in need, after all these exhausting religious
exercises and his confinement for over a year in Newgate), “which had
so discompos’d his mind that it was now in a very ill frame, and very
unfit for the great work now or never to be perform’d by him. I prayed
for him, and so did other worthy divines that were present, to whom as
well as to myself the Captain appeared to be much out of order, and not
so concerned or affected as he ought to have been. ’Tis true he spoke
some words expressing his confidence in God’s mercys through Christ,
and likewise declared that he died in Charity with all the world. But
still I suspected his sincerity” (Why?) “because he was more reflective
upon others than upon himself” (as he might well be) “and would still
endeavour to lay his faults upon his crew and others, going about to
excuse and justify himself much about the same manner, as he did upon
his trial. When I left him at Newgate he told me he would make a full
confession at the tree,” (so he did, of everything he had to confess)
“but instead of that he was unwilling (contrary to my expectation) to
own the justice of his condemnation or so much as the providence of
God, who for his sins had deservedly brought him to this untimely end.
I continued to pray for him and the rest, who (to outward appearance)
were very humble and penitent, particularly Darby Mullins, who persisted
in asserting what he had told me before and said it was the truth and
he had nothing to add to or diminish from it. This being done and the
Captain having warned all mariners of ships and others to have a care
of themselves, and take warning from him” (the words of his warning
were very significant as will be seen below) “I then sang with them a
Penitential Psalm, and after another short prayer, recommending them to
God, I parted with them and left them to the Divine Mercy. And then they
were turned off.”

“But here I must take notice of a remarkable (and I hope a most lucky)
accident which then did happen,” (it may be doubted whether the reverend
gentleman would have considered it so lucky if it had befallen himself)
“which was this, that the rope by which Captain Kidd was ty’d broke, and
so falling to the ground he was taken up alive, and by this means had
opportunity to consider more of that Eternity he was launching into.
When he was brought up and ty’d again to the tree, I desired leave to
go to him again, which was granted. Then I showed him the great mercy of
God in giving him unexpectedly this further respite, that so he might
improve the few moments left now so mercifully allowed him in perfecting
his Faith and Repentance. Now I found him in much better temper than
before. But as I was unwilling, and the station also very incommodious
and improper for me to offer anything to him by way of question, that
might have perhaps discomposed his spirit, so I contented myself to
press him to embrace (before it was too late) the Mercy of God now again
offered him upon the easy conditions of Stedfast Faith, True Repentance
and Perfect Charity, which now he did so fully and freely express, that I
hope he was hearty and sincere in it, declaring openly that he repented
with all his heart, and dy’d in Christian Love and Charity with all the
world” (as he had repeatedly said before). “This he said, as he was on
the top of the ladder (the scaffold being now broken down) and myself
halfway on it, as close to him as I could, who having for the last time
prayed with him, left him with a greater satisfaction than I had before,
that he was penitent.”

From the later account above referred to which purports to be “The only
True Account of the Dying Speeches of the Condemned Pirates,” and is
possibly a revised edition of the earlier account by Paul Lorrain, we
learn that “all the prisoners were conveyed from Newgate to the execution
dock in Wapping by the officers of the Admiralty and others, carrying
the Silver Oar before them according to the usual custom:” that Kidd’s
“behaviour in Newgate after condemnation was not so serious and devout as
became a person under his circumstances, but whether it proceeded from
an heroick temper in not seeming to be in any way terrified or afraid on
the approaches of death (tho’ in a violent manner) he being naturally of
an undaunted mind and resolution, or from a conceited hope of obtaining
a reprieve, there being great endeavours tho’ in vain used for that
purpose, is yet unknown.”

The author of this account also informs us that Kidd “could hardly be
brought to a charitable reconciliation with those persons, who were
evidences against him alleging that they deposed many things that were
inconsistent with truth and that much of their evidence was by hearsay:
and in the general part of his discourse seemed not only to reflect on
them _but on several others, who instead of being his friends as they
professed, had traitorously been instrumental in his ruin_!” “He further
declared that as to the death of William Moore, his gunner, the blow that
he gave him, it was in a passion, as being provoked by him to do so, but
not with an intention of any manifest injury, much less to kill or murder
him. Nay, he was so far from bearing any malice against him, that he
freely gave £200 for his ransom, and further said that all his sailors
knew he always had a great love and respect for him; adding that if any
one concerned in his tryal had acted contrary to the dictates of his or
their own conscience he heartily forgave them, and desired that God would
do the like.” “He expressed abundance of sorrow for leaving his wife and
children without having the opportunity of taking leave of them, they
being inhabitants in New York. So that the thoughts of his wife’s sorrow
at the sad tidings of his shameful death was more occasion of grief to
him than that of his own sad misfortunes.” “_He desired all seamen in
general, more especially Captains in particular to take warning by his
dismal unhappiness and shameful death and that they would avoid the means
and occasions that brought him thereto, and also that they would act
with more caution and prudence, both in their private and public affairs
by sea and land, adding that this was a very fickle and faithless
generation._” (He had undoubtedly found it so.) “After he had ended his
discourse to the people, he spent the rest of his time in Prayer and
other pious and Godly exercises with the Ordinary of Newgate and other
ministers: and at last seemed very devout and penitent, expressing his
hearty sorrow for his manifest transgressions, especially the unhappy and
sudden death of William Moore his gunner--but would not call it murder to
the very last, esteeming it rather an accidental misfortune than a murder
by reason that there was but one blow given and that in passion without
any premeditated malice.”

No reference is made in this account to Kidd’s being “inflamed with
drink.” It is clear from it that whether or not he had been given a
drop of whiskey on his way to execution, he was to the end in the full
possession of his faculties.

The only member of his crew who was hung with him was poor Darby
Mullins, the remainder being at the last moment reprieved. Why Mullins,
who had surrendered himself to the Governor of East Jersey along with
two others, relying on the King’s proclamation, was selected as Kidd’s
fellow-sufferer, is not clear. It is true that he was an Irishman, and in
the opinion of the chaplain in a better frame of mind to meet his death
than any of his companions: but neither of these circumstances in itself
seems quite a satisfactory justification for hanging him. He had no doubt
joined Culliford, unquestionably by far the most guilty of all the seamen
implicated, but for whose presence at Madagascar, when the _Adventure
Galley_ arrived there, Kidd in all probability would have been able to
bring his prizes home before the hue and cry had been raised against
him. But Culliford, though indicted for several piracies about the same
time as Kidd, apparently escaped scot free, having been clever enough
to save his neck by surrendering to the right persons under the King’s
proclamation, and to secure the services of a counsel who did not fail to
put in an appearance on his behalf, when his case came on for hearing;
the result of which was that “his case” (according to a note in the State
Trials) “being particular and argued by Counsel he was respited.”

To come now to the last painful incident in this disgraceful tragedy. The
day after Kidd’s corpse had been hung aloft in chains on the gallows,
Somers dared at last to break the silence he had so long maintained and
to put in his reply to the Articles of Impeachment brought against him by
the Commons. The allegations he had to meet were that in the grant of the
goods of the pirates to the co-adventurers, the name of Samuel Newton,
one of the Grantees, had been “used in trust and for the sole benefit of”
himself: that “the grant manifestly tended to the obstruction of trade
and navigation, the great loss and prejudice of merchants and others,
His Majesty’s subjects, and the dishonour of the King and his Kingdom:”
and that “by procuring and passing it,” he had been guilty of a notorious
breach of his duty. In his reply he was forced to admit that Newton had
been named in the grant, “by and in trust for him,” and was apparently
unable to give any excuse whatever for this discreditable deception. He
pleaded that the grant “did not in any way tend to the obstruction or
discouragement of trade or navigation, or to the loss or prejudice of His
Majesty’s subjects, nor to the dishonour of His Majesty or His Kingdom.”
He denied (and the denial implied what would be considered in these days
a very low estimate of official honesty) that the passing of the grant
was any breach of duty, inasmuch as it “was formed as a recompense to the
grantees, who at their own charge had provided and fitted out the said
Ship” (the _Adventure Galley_) to enable Kidd “to execute the powers in
the said grant mentioned, _whereby the public might have received great
benefit had the said William Kidd faithfully discharged the trust reposed
in him by His Majesty and the Grantees, which he failing to do, the
owners of the said ship had lost their expenses, and had not received any
benefit from the grant_.”

As a matter of fact, it may well be doubted whether any of the grantees,
excepting Kidd and Livingstone, lost any part of their expenses. As
has already been shown, one of the conditions on which their legal
advisers had been careful to insist had been that if the prize moneys
were insufficient to make good the full amount advanced by the grantees,
other than Kidd and Livingstone, the deficiency was to be made good by
Kidd and Livingstone, both of them men of substance. We have seen with
what eagerness, and with what disastrous results to Kidd, Livingstone
had endeavoured to get his bond restored to him by Bellamont. That
Kidd’s estate of itself, notwithstanding the fact that he was unable in
Newgate to get funds for his defence until the night before his trial,
was sufficient to have covered any loss sustained by the great men, who
had exploited him, is clear from the fact that of his effects forfeited
to the Crown, six thousand four hundred and seventy-one pounds were
afterwards given by Queen Anne towards the establishment of Greenwich
hospital.[14] But whether or not these great men found it inconvenient to
reclaim their one thousand pounds apiece, it is impossible to doubt that
when making this cruelly unjust charge of faithlessness against Kidd the
day after his death, Somers was fully acquainted with the essential facts
of the case. It is incredible that he had not read Kidd’s narrative,
the depositions of his men, and Bellamont’s correspondence, and that he
was not cognizant of all the proceedings at Kidd’s trial, the keeping
back of the French passes by the Admiralty officials: the failure of
Kidd’s counsel to put in an appearance on the critical day when he was
tried for piracy; the break-down of the most material parts of the
King’s evidence; and the manner in which the trials had been conducted
throughout by the Lord Chief Baron. It is to be feared that he not only
knew all this, but that his was the unseen master hand that had held the
strings, which had been so skilfully and ruthlessly manipulated as to
bring about Kidd’s death so opportunely by the verdicts of London juries.
If this be so, what is to be said of the Whig historians, who have dealt
with Kidd’s case? Is it possible to believe in the face of indisputably
recorded facts, that Somers really was the immaculate politician of his
day depicted for us by Macaulay, “whose integrity,” we have been assured,
“was ever certain to come forth bright and pure from the most severe
investigation”? In the foregoing pages an attempt has been made, it is
believed for the first time, to allow the personages who took part in
this melancholy business to speak for themselves, so far as the extant
records permit. Hitherto by a conspiracy of silence, their voices have
been hushed, and the facts of the case studiously suppressed or perverted
by eminent advocates, who have thought it necessary, if the memories
of Somers and his colleagues were to be cleansed from the stigma which
clung to them in their own day from the part they took in it, that
Kidd’s reputation should be blackened, and that he should be depicted as
a villain of the deepest dye, whom, on account of his unexceptionable
antecedents, these great men were fully justified in employing, but whose
character underwent so rapid a deterioration after he had once come into
contact with them, that he betrayed them for the purpose of enriching
himself with spoils, of which as a matter of fact he stood in little
need and which he made no effort to secure for himself. He has been
represented by Macaulay not only as a rapacious pirate, but also as a
monster of cruelty, who for his own ends depraved his crew and led them
into every kind of wickedness. To quote but one passage from Macaulay’s
indefensible and inexcusable travesty, “With the rapacity he had the
cruelty of his odious calling. He burnt houses: he massacred peasantry.
His prisoners were tied up and beaten with naked cutlasses, in order to
obtain information about their concealed hoards. One of his crew, whom he
had called a dog, was provoked into exclaiming in an agony of remorse,
‘Yes, I am a dog: but it is you that have made me so.’ Kidd in a fury
struck the man dead.”

These accusations have obtained ready credence; but their absurdity will
be evident to any one who will take the pains to examine the records.
There is no reason whatever for believing that Kidd was cruel or
rapacious. The only ground for suggesting that “he massacred peasantry”
is the one case, when his cooper’s throat having been cut by the natives,
he retaliated by ordering one native to be shot. This was the only time
when it was ever alleged in his own day that he had burnt houses: and we
have it on the authority of Palmer, the King’s evidence against him, that
on this occasion Kidd had given express orders to his men to spare the
houses that had white flags hoisted on them, because their inmates had
helped to water his ship. The episode on the strength of which Macaulay
accuses him of causing his prisoners to be beaten with cutlasses, in
order to extort from them information as to their concealed hoards, has
already been explained. The men in question were not his prisoners. He
allowed them to proceed peacefully on their voyage, and their ship was
not taken from them. Kidd never went on board of her, much less did he
give directions to his crew to ill-use them. Questioned as to whether any
gold had been taken from them, Palmer freely admitted that he did not see
any. Asked further by Kidd, whether it was not the case that a parcel of
rogues had gone on board and done the deed complained of, he virtually
admitted that it was so by making no reply. In the matter of cruelty
there is a marked difference between the reported doings of Kidd and of
the pirates of whom the East India Company were repeatedly complaining.
In these complaints mention is often made of the outrages committed: but
in the case of Kidd the Company made no complaint of similar misdeeds.
From all that can be learned of him, he seems to have been a kind-hearted
man. There is no reason to doubt the truth of his dying statement that
he had paid two hundred pounds for his gunner Moore’s ransom, probably
on the occasion when the natives had cut his cooper’s throat. One of
the reasons which led Bellamont to employ him is stated by Bellamont’s
apologist to have been Kidd’s well-known affection for his wife and
family, which was also relied on by Bellamont as being strong enough to
prevent him from attempting to escape by forsaking them on his return.
And we have it on the record of a witness who certainly had no bias
in his favour that his chief solicitude in Newgate after he had been
sentenced to death was for them and not for himself.

The suggestion that Moore, when knocked on the head by Kidd, was “in an
agony of remorse” for acts of piracy which Kidd had led him to commit, is
almost too ludicrous to call for comment. It is absolutely clear from the
evidence of every witness of the occurrence that so far from Kidd having
led Moore astray, Moore had vainly endeavoured to induce Kidd to become a
pirate, and that it was his failure to succeed in this endeavour that led
to the altercation which ended in his death.

But the most flagrant fiction fabricated by a Whig historian in relation
to poor Kidd, is not to be found in Macaulay’s history, but in the pages
of a grave historical work, compiled by an eminent lawyer, who in his
day had filled not only the office of Lord Chief Justice, but also that
of Lord Chancellor. That great legal luminary, Lord Campbell, in his
“Life of Somers” has not hesitated to insert a circumstantial fable
to the effect that Kidd was caught red-handed on the high seas in the
midst of his criminal career. In the fifth volume of his “Lives of the
Chancellors,” pages 126 and 127, he tells the tale thus: “A noble vessel
called the _Adventure Galley_ was fitted out, and the command of her
given to William Kidd, a naval officer, esteemed for honour as well as
for gallantry. On arriving in the Indian Seas, he turned pirate himself,
and cruised against the commerce of all nations indiscriminately, till
after a sharp engagement with an English frigate in which several fell
on both sides, he was captured and brought home in irons.” To such depths
can history sink when written by political partisans of the highest rank
and respectability.




APPENDIX A

1. COPY OF GRANT OF PIRATES’ GOODS

2. ARTICLES OF AGREEMENT BETWEEN BELLAMONT, LIVINGSTONE, AND KIDD

3. KIDD’S SAILING ORDERS




APPENDIX A


1. COPY OF GRANT OF PIRATES’ GOODS

_William_ the Third, by the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland,
France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc., To our Right-trusty and
Well-beloved Counsellor, Sir John Somers, Knight, our Keeper of our Great
Seal of England, Greeting.

We will and command you, That, under our said Great Seal of England, in
your custody being, you cause these our letters to be made forth Patents,
in Form following:

_William the Third_, by the Grace of God, etc., To all to whom these
Presents shall come, or may in any wise concern, Greeting. Whereas upon
divers Complaints and Informations to Us made, That _Thomas Too_, _John
Ireland_, _Thomas Wake_, _William Mace_, alias _Maze_, and divers other
our Subjects, Natives or Inhabitants of _New England_, _New York_, and
elsewhere in our Plantations in _America_, had associated themselves with
divers other wicked and ill-disposed Persons, in order to commit, and
did frequently commit, many great Piracies, Robberies and Depredations,
upon the Seas in the Parts of America, and in other Parts and places; in
Violation of the Laws of Nations; to the Obstruction and Discouragement
of Trade and Navigation; and to the Loss and Prejudice of our Subjects,
and the Subjects of our Friends and Allies; and also to the Dishonouring
of our Royal Authority, in case any of our Subjects, guilty of such
great and detestable Enormities, should go unpunished; We did, by our
Commission under our Great Seal of _England_, bearing Date the 26th Day
of _January_, in the Seventh Year of our Reign, in order to bring the
said Pirates, Free-booters, and Sea Rovers, and their accomplices, to
Justice, give and grant full Power and Authority to Captain _William
Kidd_, Commander of the Ship _Adventure Galley_, and to the Commander
of the said Ship for the Time being, to apprehend, seize and take into
Custody, the said _Thomas Too_, _John Ireland_, _Tho Wake_, and _William
Maze_, and all other Pirates, Free-booters, and Sea Rovers, of what
Nation soever, whom he should find, or meet with, upon the said Coasts or
Seas of _America_, or in any other Seas or Parts, with their Ships and
Vessels, and all such Merchandise, Money, Goods, and Wares, as should be
found on board of them; and, in case of Resistance, to fight with, and
compel the said Pirates, Free-booters, and Sea Rovers, to yield; and them
to bring or cause to be brought, to a legal Tryal, to the end they might
forthwith suffer condign Punishment, according to their Demerits: And
we did also, by the same Commission, require the said Captain _William
Kidd_ to keep an exact Journal of his Proceedings, in relation to the
Execution of our Royal Pleasure in the said Premises; and therein to set
down the Names of such Pirates, and of their Ships and Vessels, as he
should, as aforesaid, seize or take; and also to specify the Quantities
and Particulars of the Arms, Ammunition, Provision, and Loading, of
such Ships, and the true Values thereof: And whereas the said Ship
_Adventure Galley_ was, with our Knowledge, and Royal Encouragement,
fitted out to Sea, for the Purposes aforesaid, at the great and sole
charges of our right trusty and right well-beloved Cousin _Richard_ Earl
of Bellamont in the Kingdom of Ireland, and our trusty and well-beloved
_Edmund Harrison_, Merchant, _Samuel Newton_, Gentleman, _William Rowley_
Gentleman, _George Watson_ Gentleman, and _Thomas Renolls_, of St.
Martins: Now know ye, that We, out of due Regard to the Premises, and
being graciously inclined that so chargeable an Undertaking, tending to
such good and laudable Ends, should have meet and proper Encouragement
and Reward; of our special Grace, certain Knowledge, and mere Motion have
given and granted, and by these Presents do give and grant, unto the
said _Richard_ Earl of _Bellamont_, _Edmund Harrison_, _Samuel Newton_,
_William Rowley_, _George Watson_, and _Thomas Renolls_, their Heirs,
Executors, and Assigns, all and whatsoever Ships, Vessels, Goods, and
Merchandizes, and Treasure, and other Things whatsoever, which since the
Thirtieth Day of _April_, Anno Domini, 1690, have been taken or seized
upon or with, or did belong to, or which shall be taken or seized upon
or with, or which do or shall belong to the said _Thomas Too_, _John
Ireland_, _Thomas Wake_, _Wm. Maze_ or their Adherents, or any other
Pirates, Free-booters, and Sea Rovers, by the said Captain _William
Kidd_, or other Commander of the said _Adventure Galley_, or which by, or
by means of the said Ship or Galley, shall be taken, or forced ashore,
in any of our Plantations in _America_, or other our Dominions; as far
as the said Premises, or any of them, do, shall, or may belong to Us, or
can or may be granted or grantable by Us, or is or are in our Power to
dispose of, in Right of our Crown of _England_, or as Perquisites of our
Admiralty, or otherwise howsoever, and all our Right, Title, Interest,
Claim and Demand whatsoever, of, in or unto the same, and every Part
thereof; To have, hold, take, receive, and enjoy the said Ships, Vessels,
Goods, Merchandizes, Treasure, and all and singular other the Premises
hereinbefore-mentioned, and intended to be hereby granted, and every of
them, and every Part and Parcel thereof, or such and so many of them,
are, can or may be, in any manner granted or grantable by Us, unto the
said _Richard_ Earl of _Bellamont_ _Edmund Harrison_, _Sam Newton_,
_Wm. Rowley_, _George Watson_, and _Thomas Renolls_, their Executors,
Administrators and Assigns, to their sole Use and Benefit, and as their
own proper Goods and Chattels, without any Account thereof and therefore
to be made or rendered to Us, our Heirs and Successors: And We do hereby
for Us, our Heirs and Successors, charge and command the Commissioners
of our Treasury now being, and the High Treasurer, or Commissioners
of our Treasury for the Time being, and all other our officers of our
Revenue, our Commissioners for executing the office of Lord High Admiral
of England, now, and for the Time being, and all other our Admirals,
Vice Admirals, Judge and Judges of our Court and Courts of Admiralty,
Governors of all and every our Colonies, Islands and Plantations in
_America_, Magistrates, Officials Military and Civil, and all other our
loving Subjects whatsoever, That they be aiding and assisting in all and
every matters and Things, as to them respectively shall appertain, as
well as to the said Captain _Wm. Kidd_, in the seizing, apprehending,
taking and securing, the said Pirates and their Ships and Vessels, and
other the Premises hereinbefore mentioned, and intended to be hereby
granted, every or any one of them, and in bringing the said offenders to
Justice; as also unto the said Captain _Wm. Kidd_, and all others whom it
may concern, in the seizing, securing, and delivering to them, the said
_Richard_ Earl of _Bellamont_, _Edmund Harrison_, _Samuel Newton_, _Wm.
Rowley_, _Geo. Watson_, and _Tho. Renolls_, their assigns, Agents, and
Servants, all and every the said Ships, Vessels, Goods, Merchandizes,
Treasure, and other Things hereinbefore mentioned, and intended to be
hereby granted, according to the true Intent and meaning hereof; and
in such manner, as may most effectually contribute to the putting in
Execution our gracious Intentions in and about the Premises, for and on
the behalf of the said _Richard_ Earl of _Bellamont_, _Edmund Harrison_,
_William Newton_, _William Rowley_, _Geo. Watson_, and _Thomas Renolls_;
And lastly, We do hereby declare and grant, That these our Letters
Patents, or the Enrollment thereof, shall be, in and by all Things, firm,
good, valid, sufficient, and effectual in the Law, notwithstanding the
not naming, or not rightly naming, the Premises, or any Part thereof, or
the true Value, or the Nature or Kind thereof; and notwithstanding the
not mentioning, or not rightly mentioning, the Names of the said Pirates,
Free-booters, and Sea Rovers, or any of them, or of the Possessors of the
said Sloops, Vessels, Merchandizes, Goods, Treasure, and Premises, or
any Part or Parcel thereof; and notwithstanding the ill naming, or not
naming, or any Seas, Havens, Countries, or Places, wherein, or in which,
the Premises hereby granted, or any Part or Parcel thereof, is or are,
shall or may be found; and notwithstanding any mis-recital, non-recital,
Incertainty, Defect, or Imperfection, whatsoever. In witness, etc.,

Witness, etc., Given under our Privy Seal, at our Palace of
_Westminster_, the 30th Day of April, in the Ninth Year of our Reign.

THO. WATKINS.

                                                  Recepi vicesimo septimo
                                                           Die. Maii 1697


2. ARTICLES OF AGREEMENT BETWEEN BELLAMONT, LEVINGSTON AND KIDD

Articles of Agreement, made this 10th Day of October 1695, between the
Right Honourable _Richard_, Earl of _Bellamont_, of the one Part; and
_Robert Levingston_ Esquire, and Captain _William Kidd_, of the other
part.

Whereas the said Captain _Kidd_ is desirous to obtain a Commission as
Captain of a private Man of War, in order to take Prizes from the King’s
Enemies, and otherwise to annoy them: And whereas also, certain Persons
did some time since depart from _New England_, _Rhode Island_, _New
York_, and other Parts in _America_, and elsewhere, with an Intention to
become Pirates, and to commit spoils and Depredations against the Law of
Nations, in the _Red Sea_ or elsewhere, and to return, with such Goods
and Riches as they shall get, to certain Places by them agreed upon, of
which said Persons and Places the said Captain _Kidd_ hath Notice, and
is desirous to fight with and subdue the said Pirates, as also all other
Pirates, with whom the said Captain Kidd shall meet at Sea, in case he
be employed to do; And whereas it is agreed between the said Parties,
That for the Purposes aforesaid, a good and sufficient Ship to the Liking
of the said Captain Kidd, shall be forthwith bought, whereof the said
Captain Kidd, is to have the Command. Now these Present witness, and it
is agreed between the said Parties:

1. The said Earl of _Bellamont_ doth covenant and agree at his
proper charge, to procure from the King’s Majesty, or from the Lords
Commissioners of the Admiralty, as the Case shall require, One or more
Commissions, impowering him the said Captain _Kidd_ to Act against the
King’s Enemies, and to take Prizes from them, as a private man of War in
the usual manner; and also to fight with, conquer, and subdue Pirates;
and to take them and their Goods, with such other large and beneficial
Powers, and Clauses in such Commissions, as may be most proper and
effectual in such cases.

2. The said Earl doth covenant and agree, That within Three months after
the said Captain _Kidd’s_ departure from England for the Purpose in these
Presents mentioned, he will procure, at his proper charge, a Grant from
the King, to be made to some indifferent and Trusty Person, of all such
Goods, Merchandizes, Treasure and other Things, as shall be taken from
the said Pirates, or any other Pirates whatsoever, by the said Captain
_Kidd_, or by the said Ship, or any other Ship or Ships under his Command.

3. The said Earl doth agree to pay Four Fifth Parts, the Whole in Five
Parts to be divided, of all Monies, which shall be laid out for the
buying such good and sufficient Ship for the Purposes aforesaid, together
with Rigging and other Apparel and Furniture thereof, and providing the
same with competent Victualing, the said Ship to be approved of by the
said Parties; and the said other Fifth Part of the charges of the said
Ship to be paid by the said Robert Levingston and _William Kidd_.

4. The said Earl doth agree, That in order to the speedy buying of
the said Ship, and in Part of the said Four Parts of Five of the said
Charges, he will pay down the Sum of 1,600_l._ by Way of Advance, on or
before the 6th Day of November next ensuing.

5. The said _Robert Levingston_ and Captain _William Kidd_ do jointly
and severally covenant and agree, That on or before the said 6th Day of
_November_, when the said Earl of Bellamont is to pay the said sum of
1,600_l._ as aforesaid, they will advance and pay down 400_l._ in Part of
the Share and Proportion which they are to have in the said Ship.

6. The said Earl doth agree to pay such further Sum of Money, as shall
complete, and make up, the said Four Parts of Five, of the Charges of
the said Ship’s Apparel, Furniture and Victualing, unto the said Robert
Levingston and William Kidd, within Seven Weeks after the Date of these
Presents, and, in the like manner, the said _Robert Levingston_ and
_William Kidd_, do agree to pay such further Sum as shall amount to a
Fifth Part of the whole charge of the said Ship, within Seven Weeks after
the Date of these Presents.

7. The said Captain _Kidd_ doth covenant and agree to procure and take
with him, on board the said Ship, one hundred Mariners and Seamen, or
thereabouts, and to make what reasonable and convenient Speed he can to
set out to Sea with the said Ship; and to sail to such Places or Parts
where he may meet with the said Pirates; and to use his utmost Endeavour
to meet with, conquer and subdue the said Pirates, or any other Pirates;
and to take from them their Goods, Merchandizes and Treasure; also to
take what Prizes he can from the King’s Enemies, and forthwith to make
the best of his Way to _Boston_ in _New England_; and that without
touching at any Port or Harbour whatsoever, or without breaking Bulk, or
diminishing any Part of what he shall take or obtain, on any Pretence
whatsoever; of which he shall make Oath, in case the same shall be
desired by the said Earl of Bellamont; and there to deliver the same into
the hands or Possession of the said Earl.

8. The said Captain _Kidd_ doth agree, That the Contract and Bargain
which he will make with the said Ship’s Crew, shall be, No Purchase, No
Pay; and not otherwise: And that the Share and Proportion which his said
Crew shall, by such Contract, have of such Prizes, Goods, Merchandizes,
and Treasure, as he shall take as Prize, or from any Pirates, shall not,
at the most, exceed a Fourth Part of the same; and shall be less than a
Fourth Part, in case the same may reasonably and conveniently be agreed
upon.

9. The said Robert Levingston, and Captain Wm. Kidd, do jointly and
severally agree with the said Earl of Bellamont, That in case the said
Captain Kidd do not meet with the said Pirates, which went from _New
England_, _Rhode Island_, _New York_, or elsewhere, as aforesaid; or
do not take from any other Pirates, _or from any the King’s Enemies,
such Goods, Merchandizes, or other Things of Value, as being divided as
hereinafter is mentioned, shall fully recompense the said Earl, for the
monies by him expended in buying the said Four Fifth Parts of the said
Ship and Premises; that then they shall refund and repay to the said Earl
of Bellamont, the whole Money by him to be advanced, in Sterling Money,
or Money equivalent thereunto_, on or before the 25th Day of March which
shall in the Year of our Lord 1697; the Danger of the Seas, and of the
Enemy, and Mortality of the said Captain Kidd, always excepted: _Upon
Payment whereof, the said Robert Levingston and Captain Kidd are to have
the sole Property in the said Ship and Furniture; and this Indenture
to be delivered up to them, with all other Covenants and obligations
thereunto belonging_.

10. It is agreed between the said Parties, That as well the Goods,
Merchandizes, Treasure and other Things which shall be taken from the
said Pirates, or any Pirates, by the said William Kidd, as also all such
Prizes as shall be by him taken from any of the King’s Enemies, shall
be divided in manner following; that is to say, Such Part as shall be
for that Purpose agreed upon by the said Captain Kidd, so as the same do
not in the Whole exceed a Fourth Part, shall be paid or delivered to the
Ship’s Crew, for their Use; and the other Three Parts to be divided into
Five equal Parts, whereof the said Earl is to have, to his own Use, Four
full Parts, and the other Fifth Part is to be equally divided between
the said Robert Levingston and the said _Wm. Kidd_; and is to be paid
and delivered them by the said Earl of Bellamont, without Deduction or
Abatement or any Pretence whatsoever. But it is always to be understood,
that such Prizes as shall be taken from the King’s Enemies, are to be
lawfully adjudged Prizes, in the usual manner before any division, or
otherwise intermeddling therewith, than according to the true Interest of
the same Commission, to be granted in that behalf.

Lastly, it is covenanted and agreed between the Parties to these
Presents, That in case the said Captain _Wm. Kidd_ do bring to _Boston_
aforesaid, and there deliver to the Earl of _Bellamont_, Goods,
Merchandizes, Treasure and Prizes to the Value of 100,000_l._ or upwards,
which he shall have taken from the said Pirates, or from other 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.

                                                               BELLAMONT.

Memorandum.

Before the Sealing and Delivery of these Presents, it was covenanted and
agreed by the said Earl of Bellamont with the said _Robert Levingston_
Esquire and Captain _William Kidd_ That the Person to whom the Grant
above-mentioned in these articles shall be made by his Majesty, shall
within Eight Days at the most, after such Grant has passed the Great
Seal of _England_, assign and transfer to each of them, the said _Robert
Levingston_ Esquire, and Captain _William Kidd_, respectively, their
Heirs and Assigns, One full Tenth Part (the Ship’s Crew’s Share and
Proportion being first deducted) of all such Goods, Treasure or other
Things, as shall be taken by the said Captain Kidd, by virtue of such
Commission as aforesaid: And the said Grantee shall make such Assignment
as aforesaid, in such manner as by the said _Robert Levingston_ Esquire,
and Captain _William Kidd_, or their Counsel learned in the Law, shall be
reasonably devised and required: And then these Presents were sealed and
delivered, the Sixpenny Stamp being first affixed, in the Presence of us.

                                                            MARTHA BREKEN
                                                            JOHN MADDOCKE
                                                            JOHN MOULDER.

WHEREAS the necessary Fitting, Equipping and Outset, of the ADVENTURE
GALLEY, bought by the above-mentioned WM. KIDD, in pursuance of these
Articles, could not be completely finished and perfected within the time
thereby limited; and consequently, that all the several Sums of Money,
therein covenanted to be paid were not actually paid by all or any
the Parties to the above-written Covenants and Agreements, within the
Time thereby expressed, limited and directed; but that, nevertheless,
all the said Sums have since been paid; and the Ship bought for the
Voyage and Design expressed in these Articles, is now completely fitted
out and provided with all Things necessary, and lies ready to depart,
and that also the several Commissions have been obtained by the Earl
of _Bellamont_. It is hereby further mutually declared, covenanted and
agreed, by and between the abovesaid Right honourable _Richard_ Earl of
_Bellamont_, and _Robert Levingston_, and _William Kidd_, on behalf of
themselves, and all others concerned therein, That, notwithstanding the
Delay in the Dispatch of the said Ship or Galley, and of the Payments
of the Monies expressed in the above-mentioned Agreement, that, yet,
nevertheless, all and singular the several Agreements, articles and
Clauses, therein mentioned and intended, as hereby declared to be, and
are and shall be and remain in as full Force and Virtue, as if the said
Ship, and all the Sums of money, had been actually paid within the time
limited and directed by the said Articles, anything therein to contrary
notwithstanding.

Dated in London, the 20th Day of February 1695/6.

                                                               BELLAMONT.

Witness present at the Signing and Sealing thereof.

                                                             SARAH OAKLEY
                                                             JOHN STANLEY


3. KIDD’S SAILING ORDERS

                                           LONDON, 25th February, 1695/6.

CAPTAIN WILLIAM KIDD,

You being now ready to sail, I do hereby desire and direct you, that
you and your Men do serve God in the best Manner you can: That you keep
good Order, and good Government, in your Ship: That you make the best of
your Way to the Place and Station where you are to put the Powers you
have in Execution: And, having effected the same, You are, according
to Agreement, to sail directly to _Boston_ in _New England_, there
to deliver unto me the Whole of what Prizes, Treasure, Merchandizes,
and other Things, you shall have taken by virtue of the Powers and
Authorities granted you: But if, after the Success of your Design,
you shall fall in with any English Fleet bound for England, having
good convoy, you are, in such case to keep them Company, and bring all
Your Prizes to _London_, notwithstanding any Covenant to the contrary
in our Articles of Agreement. Pray fail not to give Advice, by all
Opportunities, how the Galley proves; how your Men stand, what Progress
you make; and, in general, of all remarkable Passages in your Voyage, to
the time of your Writing. Direct your Letters to Mr. _Edmund Harrison_. I
pray God grant you good Success, and send us a good Meeting again.

                                                               BELLAMONT.




APPENDIX B

1. NARRATIVE OF HIS VOYAGE BY KIDD

2. THE EXAMINATION OF WILLIAM JINKINS, RICHARD BARLEYCORNE AND ROBERT
LUMLEY

3. THE EXAMINATION OF HUGH PARRATT

4. THE EXAMINATION OF GABRIEL LOFF

5. THE DEPOSITIONS OF ABEL OWEN AND SAMUEL ARRIS, ENGLISH SMITH, HUMPHRY
CLAY AND HUGH PARRATT




APPENDIX B


1. A Copy of a Narrative of the Voyage of Captain William Kidd, Commander
of the “Adventure Galley,” from London to the East Indies.

BOSTON, 17th July, 1699. Mr. John Gardner of Gardner’s Island presented
this note to His Excellency in Council, which he made oath was delivered
to him by Captain Kidd, as was wrote with the said Kidd’s own hand on
board his sloop, and all the particulars therein mentioned were committed
to his custody.

Examined by Isa Addington Secretary.

That the Journal of the said Captain _Kidd_, being violently taken from
him in the Port of St. Marie’s in Madagascar, and his Life being many
times threatened to be taken away from him by Ninety-Seven of his Men
that deserted him there, he cannot give that exact Account he otherwise
could have done: but as far as his Memory will serve, is as followeth,
viz.,

That the said _Adventure Galley_ was launched in _Castle’s_ Yard at
_Deptford_, about the Fourth of _December_ 1695; and about the latter end
of _February_ the said Galley came to the _Buoy in the Nore_: and about
the 1st Day of _March_ following, his Men were pressed for him for the
Fleet; which caused him to stay there for Nineteen Days; and then sailed
for the _Donnes_, and arrived there about the Eighth or the Tenth Day of
_April_ 1696; and sailed thence for _Plymouth_; and on the Twenty-third
Day of the said month of _April_ he sailed on his intended Voyage: and,
some time in the month of _May_, met with a small French Vessel, with
Salt and Fishing Tackle on board, bound for _Newfoundland_, which he
took and made Prize of, and carried the same into _New York_, about the
Fourth Day of _July_, when she was condemned as lawful Prize: The Produce
whereof purchased provisions for the said Galley, and for her further
intended Voyage.

That about the Sixth Day of _September_ 1696, the said Captain Kidd
sailed for the _Maderas_, in company with one Joyner, Master of a
Brigantine belonging to _Bermudas_, and arrived there about the 8th Day
of _October_ following: and thence to _Bonavista_, where they arrived
about the nineteenth of the said month, and took in some Salt, and stayed
Three or Four Days; and sailed thence to _St. Jago_, and arrived there
the Twenty-fourth of the said Month, where he took in some Water, and
stayed about Eight or Nine Days; and thence sailed for the _Cape of
Good Hope_; and in the Latitude of Thirty-two, on the Twelfth Day of
_December_ 1696, met with Four English Men of War: Captain _Warren_
was Commodore; and sailed a week in their Company; and then parted,
and sailed to Telere, a Port in the _Island of Madagascar_, and being
there about the Twenty-ninth Day of January, came in a Sloop belonging
to _Barbadoes_, loaded with Rum, Sugar, Powder and Shot, one _French_
Master, and Mr. _Hatton_ and Mr. _John Batt_, Merchants; and the said
Hatton came on board the said Galley, and was suddenly taken ill and
died in the Cabin: And, about the latter end of _February_, sailed for
the _Island of Johanna_, the said Sloop keeping Company, and arrived
there about the Eighteenth Day of _March_; where he found Four East India
Merchantsmen outward bound; and watered there all together, and staid
about Four Days: And from thence, about the Twenty-second of _March_,
sailed for _Mehila_, an Island Ten Leagues distant from _Johanna_, where
he arrived the next Morning, and there careened the said Galley; and
about Fifty men died there in a Week’s Time.

That on the 25th Day of _April_ 1697, set sail for the Coast of India,
and came upon the Coast of _Mallabar_, the Beginning of the Ninth of
_September_; and went into _Carwarr_ upon that Coast about the middle
of the same Month, and watered there: And the Gentlemen of the English
factory gave the Narrator an account, That the _Portuguese_ were fitting
out Two Men of War to take him; and advised him to put out to Sea, and to
take Care of himself from them, and immediately to set sail thereupon; …
about the 12th of the said month of _September_; and the next morning,
about Break of Day saw the said Two Men of War standing for the said
Galley; and spoke with him and asked him, Whence he was? Who replied
from _London_; and they returned answer, From _Goa_; and so parted,
wishing each other a good Voyage; And making still along the Coast, the
Commodore of the said Man of War kept dogging the said Galley all the
Night, waiting an Opportunity to board her; and in the Morning, without
speaking a Word, Fired Six great Guns at the Galley, some whereof went
through her, and wounded Four of his Men; and thereupon he fired upon him
again; and the Fight continued all Day; and the narrator had Eleven Men
wounded: the other _Portuguese_ man of War lay some Distance off, and
could not come up with the Galley, being calm; else would have likewise
assaulted the same; the said Fight was sharp, and the said _Portuguese_
left the said Galley with such Satisfaction, that the Narrator believes
no _Portuguese_ will ever attack the King’s Colours again, in that Part
of the World especially. And afterwards continued upon the same Coast,
cruising upon the coast of _Cameroone_, for Pirates that frequent that
Coast, till the Beginning of the month of _November_ 1697, When he met
with Captain _How_ in the _Loyal_ Captaine, an _English_ Ship belonging
to _Maderas_, bound to _Surratt_, whom he examined; and finding his Pass
good, designed to freely to let her pass about her Affairs; but, having
Two _Dutchmen_ on board, they told the Narrator’s Men, That they had
divers _Greeks_ and _Armenians_ on board, who had divers precious Stones
and divers other rich Goods on board, which caused his Men to be very
mutinous, and got up their Arms, and swore they would take the Ship: and
two-thirds of his Men voted for the same: The narrator told them, the
small Arms belonged to the Galley, and that he was not come to take any
_Englishmen_, or lawful Traders; and that if they attempted any such
thing, they should never come on board the Galley again, nor have the
Boat, or small Arms; for he had no Commission to take any but the King’s
Enemies, and Pirates, and that he would attack them with the Galley,
and drive them into _Bombay_; the other being a Merchantman, and having
no Guns, might easily have done it with a few Hands; and, with all the
Arguments and Menaces he could use, could scarce restrain them from their
unlawful Design; but at last I prevailed, and with much ado I got him
clear, and let him go about his Business. All which the said Captain
_How_ will attest, if living.

And that, about the 18th or 19th Day of the said month of _November_,
met with a _Moors_ Ship of about 200 Tons coming from _Surratt_, bound
to the Coast of _Mallabar_, loaded with Two Horses, Sugar and Cotton, to
trade there having about Forty _Moors_ on board, with a _Dutch_ Pilot,
Boatswain, and Gunner; which said Ship the Narrator haled, and commanded
on board; and with him came Eight or Nine _Moors_, and the said Three
_Dutchmen_, who declared it was a _Moors_ Ship; and demanding their pass
from _Surrat_, which they shewed; and the same was a _French_ Pass, which
he believes was shewn by a Mistake; for the Pilot swore Sacrament she was
a Prize, and staid on board the Galley; and would not return on board
the Moor Ship; but went in the Galley to the Port of _St. Marie_.

And that, about the First Day of _February_ following, upon the same
Coast, under _French_ Colours with a Design to decoy, met with a Bengall
Merchantman belonging to _Surratt_, of the Burden of 4 or 500 Tons, 10
Guns; and he commanded the Master on board; and a _Frenchman_, Inhabitant
of _Surratt_, and belonging to the _French_ Factory there, and Gunner of
the said Ship, came on board as Master; and when he came on board, the
Narrator caused the _English_ Colours to be hoisted; and the said Master
was surprised, and said, You are all _English_; and asking, which was the
Captain? Whom when he saw, said, Here is a good Prize, and delivered him
the _French_ Pass.

And that, with the said Two Prizes, sailed for the Port of _St. Marie’s_
in _Madagascar_; and, sailing thither, the said Galley was so leaky,
that they feared she would have sunk every Hour, and it required Eight
men every Two Glasses to keep her free; and was forced to woold her round
with Cables to keep her together; and with much ado carried her into the
said Port of _St. Marie’s_, where she arrived about the First of _April_,
1698: And about the 6th day of _May_, the lesser Prize was haled into the
careening Island or Key, the other not being arrived; and ransacked and
sunk by the mutinous men; who threatened the Narrator, and the men that
would not join with them to burn and sink the other, that they might not
go home and tell the news.

And that, when he arrived in the said Port, there was a Pirate Ship,
called the _Moca_ Frigate, at an Anchor, _Robert Culliford_, Commander
thereof; who with his Men, left the same at his coming in, and ran into
the Woods: and the Narrator proposed to his Men to take the same, having
sufficient Power and Authority so to do; but the Mutinous Crew told
him, If he offered the same, they would rather fire Two Guns into him,
than one into the other; and thereupon Ninety-seven deserted, and went
into the _Moca_ Frigate, and sent into the Woods for the said Pirates,
and brought the said _Culliford_, and his Men, on board again; and all
the time she staid in the said Port, which was the Space of Four or Five
Days, the said Deserters, sometimes in great Numbers, came on board the
said Galley and _Adventure Prize_, and carried away great Guns, Powder,
Shot, small Arms, Sails, Anchors, Cables, Surgeons, Chests, and what else
they pleased; and threatened several times to murder the Narrator, as he
was informed, and advised to take care of himself; which they designed
in the Night to effect; but was prevented by him locking himself in his
Cabin at Night, and securing himself with barricading the same with Bales
of Goods; and, having about Forty small Arms, besides Pistols, ready
charged, kept them out; Their Wickedness was so great, after they had
plundered and ransacked sufficiently, went Four Miles off to one _Edward
Welche’s_ House, where his the Narrator’s Chest was lodged, and broke it
open; and took out Ten Ounces of Gold, 40 Pound of Plate, 370 Pieces of
Eight, the Narrator’s Journal, and a great many Papers that belonged to
him, and the People of _New York_ that fitted them out.

That about the 15th _June_, the _Moca_ Frigate went away, being manned
with about 130 Men, and Forty Guns, bound out to take all Nations: Then
it was that the Narrator was left with only Thirteen men; so that the
_Moors_ he had to pump and keep the _Adventure Galley_ above Water, being
carried away, she sunk in the Harbour; and the Narrator, with the said
Thirteen men, went on board the _Adventure Prize_; where he was forced
to stay Five Months for a Fair Wind; In the meantime, some Passengers
presented, that were bound for these Parts; which he took on board, to
help to bring the said _Adventure Prize_ home.

That, about the beginning of _April_, 1699, the Narrator arrived at
_Anguilla_ in the _West Indies_, and sent his Boat on Shore; where his
Men had the News That he and his People were proclaimed Pirates, which
put them into such Consternation, That they sought all Opportunity to run
the Ship on Shore upon some Reef or Shoal, fearing the Narrator should
carry them into some _English_ Port.

From _Anguilla_ they came to _St. Thomas’_; where his Brother-in-law
_Samuel Bradley_ was put on shore, being sick; and Five more went away,
and deserted him: Where he heard the same News, That the Narrator, and
his Company, were proclaimed Pirates, which incensed the People more and
more.

From _St. Thomas_ set sail for _Moona_, an Island between _Hispaniola_
and _Porto Rico_; where they met with a Sloop called the _St. Anthony_,
bound for _Antega_ from _Curaso_, Mr. Wm. _Boulton_ Merchant, and
_Samuel Wood_, Master: The men on board then swore, they would bring the
Ship no further. The Narrator then sent the said Sloop _St. Anthony_
for _Curaso_, for Canvas to make Sails for the Prize, she not being
able to proceed; and she returned in Ten Days; and after the Canvas
came, he could not persuade the Men to carry her for _New England_; but
Six of them went and carried their Chests and Things on board of Two
_Dutch_ Sloops; bound for _Curaso_; and would not so much as heel the
Vessel, or do anything, the Remainder of the men not being able to bring
the _Adventure_ Prize to _Boston_, the Narrator secured her in a good
Harbour in some Part of _Hispaniola_ and left in the Possession of Mr.
_Henry Boulton_ of _Antegua_, Merchant, the Maker, Three of the old Men,
and Fifteen or Sixteen of the men that belonged to the said Sloop _St.
Anthony_, and a Brigantine belonging to one Mr. _Burt_ of _Curaso_.

That the Narrator bought the said Sloop _St. Anthony_ of Mr. _Boulton_,
for the Owner’s Account; and after, he had given Directions to the said
_Boulton_ to be careful of the said Ship and Lading, and persuaded him
to stay Three Months till he returned; and then made the best of his
Way to _New York_; where he heard the Earl of _Bellamont_ was, who was
principally concerned in the _Adventure Galley_; and hearing his Lordship
was at _Boston_, came thither; and has now been 45 Days from the said
Ship.

                                                                WM. KIDD.

BOSTON. 7th July, 1699.

       *       *       *       *       *

Further the Narrator saith, That the said Ship was left at _St.
Katharina_, on the South East Part of _Hispaniola_, about Three
Leagues to Leeward of the Westerly End of _Savona_: Whilst he lay at
_Hispaniola_, he traded with Mr. _Henry Boulton_ of _Antegua_, and Mr.
_Wm. Burt_ of _Curaso_, Merchants, to the Value of 11,200 Pieces of
Eight; whereof he received the Sloop _Antonio_ at 3000 Pieces of Eight,
and 4200 Pieces of Eight by Bills of Exchange, drawn by _Boulton_ and
_Burt_ upon Messieurs _Gabriel_ and _Lemont_, Merchants in _Curaso_, made
payable to Mr. _Burt_, who went himself to _Curaso_; and the Value of
4,000 Pieces of Eight more in Dust and Bar Gold; which Gold, with some
more traded for at Madagascar, being Fifty Pounds Weight, or upwards, in
Quantity, the Narrator left in Custody of Mr. _Gardner_ of _Gardner’s
Island_, near the Eastern End of _Long Island_, fearing to bring it
about by Sea: It is made up in a Bag put into a little Box, locked,
nailed, corded about, and sealed: Saith he took no Receipt for it of Mr.
_Gardner_.

The Gold that was seized at Mr. _Campbell’s_, the Narrator, traded for at
_Madagascar_, with what came out of Galley.

Saith, That he carried in the _Adventure Galley_, from _New York_, 154
Men: Seventy whereof came out of _England_ with him. Some of his Sloop’s
Company put Two Bales of Goods on shore at _Gardner’s Island_, being
their own proper Goods. The Narrator delivered a Chest of Goods, viz.,
Muslins, Latches, Romalls, and flowered Silk, unto Mr. _Gardner_ of
_Gardner’s Island_ aforesaid, to be kept there for the narrator: Put no
Goods on shore anywhere else: Several of his Company landed their Chests,
and other Goods, at several Places.

Further saith, He delivered a small Bale of coarse Calicoes unto a Sloop
Man of _Rhode Island_, that he had employed there. The Gold seized at Mr.
_Campbell’s_ the Narrator intended for Presents to some, that he expected
to do him Kindnesses. Some of his Company put their Chests and Bales on
board a _New York_ Sloop lying at _Gardner’s Island_.

                                                                WM. KIDD.

Presented and taken, die praedict before his Excellency and Council.

Copy Examined by

                                              ISA ADDINGTON, _Secretary_.


2. THE EXAMINATION OF WILLIAM JINKINS, RICHARD BARLYCORNE AND ROBERT
LUMLEY

The Examination of _William Jinkins_, of Bow, near _London_, aged about
18 years. Apprentice to _Geo. Bullen_, deceased, late chief Mate to the
_Adventure Galley_, Captain _Wm. Kidd_, Commander:

Who saith, That, some time after _Christmas_ in the Year 1695, he sailed
with the said _Adventure Galley_ from _Plymouth_, in _England_; and the
said Galley made her Course for _New York_; took a _French_ Prize in her
way, which was carried in with the same.

That the said Galley, some time after her arrival at _New York_ sailed
from thence to _Madera_; from _Madera_ to _Bonavista_ and _St. Jago_,
where they took in Provisions, and steered for the _Cape de Bon
Esperance_, but put not in there; but proceeded for an Island named
_Joanna_; staid there about a Week, took on board some Water, and then
went from thence to Mohilla; where the said Galley was laid on shore and
cleaned; and then returned again to the said Island of _Joanna_; from
whence the said Galley sailed to _Motta_ in the _Red Sea_, and there
watered; and then proceeded to a Place called _Bobs Key_, to wait for
Shipping: And, during the time of their being there, the _Moca_ Fleet
passed by; but the said Galley did not endeavour to come up or speak with
any of them, apprehending they were too strong; afterwards we spoke with
a small Bark coming from the _Red Sea_, commanded by one _Parker_, out
of which the Company belonging to the said Galley took about a Bushel of
Pepper: Then the said Galley went into a Port called _Callacut_, where
was an _English_ Factory; remained there Four or Five Days, and then
went a cruising upon that Coast; and sometime afterwards gave Chace to
a Ship about 150 Tons Burden, and, after about Nine Hours Chace, came
up with the same; then Captain _Kidd_ ordered Two Shot to be fired at
the same, to bring her to; whereupon she accordingly brought to; and the
Master, being a _Dutchman_ called _Skipper John_ came on board: There
was belonging to the said Ship Three _Dutchmen_, a Boy, and the rest
_Moors_, between Twenty and Thirty in Number; the _Dutchmen_, and Two or
Three _Moors_, were kept on board the said Galley, and the rest of the
said _Moors_ had the Long-boat given to them to go on shore, being then
about Two Leagues distant from the same: the said Ship was loaded with
Cotton, and had two Horses likewise on board the same; which Cotton and
Horses Captain _Kidd_ and his Company sold to the Natives of the Country
for Money and Gold; kept the said Ship with them, the Galley being leaky,
and carried her to _Madagascar_; When the said Galley came up with the
said Ship, the said Galley had aboard _French_ Colours, and the Master
of the said Ship brought on board a _French_ Pass, having other Passes
besides: The Time when the said Ship was taken, as above mentioned, was
about 13 or 14 Months since, about a Month or Five Weeks after which,
the said Galley gave Chace to another Ship; and, having chaced her about
Four Hours, came up with the same, the said Galley having aboard _French_
Colours, and the other Ship _Armenian_; which Ship was of the Burden of
about 400 Tons, called the _Quedah Merchant_, and was commanded by one
_Wright_, an _Englishman_, had on board the same, Two _Dutchmen_, who
were Mates of the said Ship; and a _Frenchman_, who was a Gunner, Six
or Eight _Armenians_; and the rest of the Company Moors, being about
ninety in Number; all of which Captain _Kidd_ sent on shore in the Boats
that came off from thence: the said Ship came from _Bengall_, bound for
_Surratt_; was mounted with 16 or 18 guns; the _French_ Gunner of which
brought on board a _French_ Pass, and said, She was a good Prize to the
_English_: the said Captain was loaded with Bale Goods, Sugar, Iron and
Saltpetre: Captain _Wright_ who commanded the said Ship, declared she was
in the employment of the _English_; that the Lading belonged to them:
And, about Four or Five Days after the said Ship was taken by the said
Galley, Captain _Kidd_ called the Company together, and proposed to them
to return the said Ship to those from whom they had taken her, or sell
her to them; and said, He would agree to anything they should do therein,
were it for the Value of a Piece of Eight: Said also to his Company, The
Taking of the said Ship would make a great Noise in England, and they
should not know what to do with the Goods taken in the same: But the
Company of the Galley agreed not to the said Captain Kidd’s Proposal; but
carried the said Ship into _St. Marie’s_, off _Madagascar_, and there
unloaded her, and shared; Whereupon each of the said Galley’s Company,
being then about 115 in Number, shared, one with another Three Bales
and some loose Goods, besides about Two Thirds of a Bale: and Captain
_Kidd_ had Forty Shares: The Bales contained Calicoes, Romalls, Muslins,
some Silks, some striped, some flowered, and some Plain. After sharing of
the said Goods, Ninety and upwards, of the Company belonging to the said
Galley, deserted the same, and went to the _Mocha_ Frigate, then lying at
_St. Marie’s_ aforesaid: And the said Captain _Kidd_, with the Men that
remained with him, carried their Shares on board the Prize Ship, called
the _Quidah Merchant_, and ran the said Galley on shore, being very
leaky; and having stript her of her Furniture, set her on Fire to get
her Iron-work; and put all that they could save, of, or belonging to the
said Galley, on board the said Prize Ship; with which the said Captain
_Kidd_, and the men that remained with him, and some others that he had
procured there, came from _St. Marie’s_ aforesaid, and arrived in some
time afterwards at the Island of Anguilla, in the West Indies: Where
being informed that the said _Kidd_, and his Company, were proclaimed
Pirates, the said Captain _Kidd_, and the men on board with him, went
with the said Ship to the Island of _St. Thomas_; but the Governor of the
said Island would not allow the said Ship to come in there: Whereupon
we sailed to _Mona_; and there met with one Mr. _Bolton_, of _Antegoa_,
Merchant; of whom Captain _Kidd_ bought the Sloop _Antonio_, in which he
lately came to _Boston_; gave, as this Examinant was informed 3000 Pieces
of Eight for the same, and took from out of the Prize Ship, into the said
Sloop, Forty Bales of the Goods on board the said Ship, and about Thirty
Bales of Sugar; and left the said Ship at _Hispaniola_, about Six or
Seven Weeks since in the Custody of the said Mr. _Boulton_, and 12 Men
more: And the said Captain _Kidd_ promised to return again to the said
Ship, in the Space of Three Months; and the said _Boulton_ promised to
stay with the same for so long time; 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; but seeing several Ships coming down
towards them, the said Galley, with the other two Prizes she had taken,
came to sail, and left the said last Prize at a Place between _Brin John_
and _Angingo_, so called being an _English_ and _Dutch_ Factory, and left
on board the same all the Company belonging thereto, except the Master,
Merchant, and Seven Men more, that came on board the Galley when she
first took the said Ship: And the Vessel that was first taken by the said
Galley, as before-mentioned, was, by the said Galley’s Company, sunk at
_St. Marie’s_ aforesaid, after they had brought her thither.

And the said _William Jinkins_ the Examinant further saith, That whilst
Captain _Kidd_ and his Company, lay with the said Ship _Quidah Merchant_
at _Mona_ aforesaid, one _Burt_, Merchant of _Curaso_, came to them in a
Brigantine, and purchased several Goods of the said Captain _Kidd_; for
which he paid Part in money, and Part in Flour.

Further saith, That the first Place that the Sloop _Antonio_ aforesaid
touched at, after the said Captain _Kidd_, and his Company, left the said
Ship at _Mona_ aforesaid, was the _Horekills_ in _Dellaware Bay_, where
the said Sloop staid Two Days: and one _James Gillam_, a Passenger that
came with the said _Kidd_ from _Madagascar_, being one of the _Mocha’s_
Frigate’s Crew, sent his Chest on shore there, being a large chest and
heavy; which the Examinant supposeth to be full of _India_ Goods, and was
stowed in the said Sloop’s Hold in the Passage from _Mona_: After the
said Sloop had staid at the _Horekills_ aforesaid about Two Days, she
sailed to _Gardner’s Island_, and anchored there; where Captain _Kidd_
sent on shore Two Bales of Goods, Two Negro Boys, and a Negro Girl, and
delivered them to Mr. _Gardner_; and were not brought on board the Sloop
again, the Examinant remaining on board almost all the time; neither was
anything more carried on shore, there, to this Examinant’s knowledge:
And there was, in Company with the said Sloop under Captain _Kidd’s_
command, a Sloop said to belong to _New York_, whereon one _Hardrick_, a
_Dutchman_, a young Man, was either Skipper, or one of the Company; into
which Sloop there was put Two or more Bales, One of them being Bengall
Silks, all belonging to one _Humphry Clay_, and Four or more Chests
belonging to said _Humph Clay_, _English Smith_, _Gabriel Luffe_, and
_Martin Skinke_: This Examinant was informed, the said Sloop was bound on
a trading Voyage to _Martha’s Vineard_, with Rum and Fruckin Cloth; but,
having received the said Bales and Chests on board, did not proceed to
_Martha’s Vineard_, but went back again for _New York_. The said Captain
_Kidd_ and his Company, then proceeded with his Sloop to _Block Island_:
and put nothing on shore there, only Two Guns about Two or Three hundred
Weight apiece, which Captain _Kidd_ gave to one _Sands_: Then the Sloop
went to _Tarpolin Cove_, where One or more Bales of the Captain’s were
put on shore, and delivered to the Man that dwells there.

And the Examinant saith, That nothing that was put on shore at any of
the Places aforesaid, was, to his Knowledge, received on board the said
Sloop again: and that nothing was put on shore at any other Place, than
what is before-mentioned.

The Examinant further saith, That Captain _Kidd_ traded with Mr.
_Boulton_ and Mr. _Burt_ aforesaid, for the Quantity of Twenty Bales
of Goods or thereabouts, as he supposes; besides what those of his
Company with them: Six of which, viz., _Michael Callaway_, _John Hales_,
_John Beovender_, _Wm. Boyer_, _Neece_, a _Dutchman_ and _Nouter_, a
_Dutchman_, went to _Caracao_ in Burt’s Brigantine, and one other, named
_John Ware_, went thither also in a small sloop.

Signed

                                                   WILLIAM W. G. JINKINS.

BOSTON, 6 July, 1699. Taken before his Excellency and Council

                                              ISA ADDINGTON. _Secretary._

       *       *       *       *       *

The foregoing examination of _Wm. Jinkins_ being read unto _Richard
Barlycorne_, aged about Eighteen Years, Apprentice to Captain Wm. Kidd,

He saith, That the same is true, as to the Substance thereof.

And further saith, That _James Gillam_ carried Two Chests on shore at
the Horekills, which were stowed in the Hold of the Sloop: After they
came from the Horekills, they stopt at _Gardner’s Island_; and went
from thence to _Oyster Bay_; there took in Mr. Emott of _New York_; and
set him on shore at _Rhode Island_; in some Days afterwards, Mr. Emot
returned to the Sloop again, as she lay off _Rhode Island_; then they
went to _Gardner’s Island_; who went from thence, in a Whale Boat, over
to _Long Island_: And at _Gardner’s Island_, Captain _Kidd_ sent on
shore there, Two Bales of Goods, a Box, and Two Negro Boys, and a Girl,
committed to the Charge of Mr. Gardner. The Examinant also sent Two Bales
of his own, and his Chest, on shore there; and _Dick the Black_, another
Bale: and one _Robert Avery_, a Passenger that came with them from
_Madagascar_, went on shore there, and carried some Bundles of Muslin,
Silks, and other Goods of his own; and a Box about Three Foot long, and a
Foot deep: Knows not what was in it; It was handed over the Sloop’s Side.
There was also a Sloop of _New York_, lying at _Gardner’s Island_, into
which there was put about the Quantity of 15 or 16 Bales of Goods, Whole
or in Pieces; and about 9 or 10 Chests; Which Goods and Chests belonged
to _Humphry Clay_, _Gabriel Luffe_, _Samuel Wood_, Captain _Davis_ a
Passenger, _Martin Skinke_, _John Arris_, and _English Smith_: The Sloop
was full. From _Gardner’s Island_ we sailed to _Block Island_, and there
took in Captain _Kidd’s_ Wife, and one Mr. _Clark_ of _New York_; and
then stood towards _Gardner’s Island_ again, and met a _New York_ Sloop,
bound home, and put Mr. Clark on board of her: And Captain _Kidd_ put
a Chest on board said Sloop: He knows not what was in it: _John Arris_
put another chest on board: and _Wm. Jinkins_, a Bale of Goods; and
some other Bundles, that were made out of the Bales, were also put on
board said Sloop; and all, as aforesaid, committed unto the said Mr.
_Clark_: The Captain’s Chest was hoisted out of the Hold. 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.

Further the Examinant saith, That, when they came from _Hispaniola_,
Captain _Kidd_ told Mr. _Boulton_, whom he left in Charge of the Ship
that he would return to him again in a short time, after he had spoken
with my Lord _Bellamont_; and that the _New York_ Sloop, whereinto they
put the Goods at _Gardner’s Island_ as aforesaid, was an open Sloop,
manned with Two Men, named _Coster_ and _Hendrick_: There was Three Bales
of Goods, and Two Bags of Sugar, delivered out of the Sloop _Antonio_ at
Boston, unto Mr. _Duncan Campbell_. Saith, He knows not what sum Captain
_Kidd_ paid for the Purchase of the Sloop.

                                                      RICHARD BARLYCORNE.

BOSTON. 8th July 1699: taken before us

                                                  ELISHA COOKE  } J. Pac.
                                                  ISA ADDINGTON }

                                                  BOSTON, 8th July, 1699.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Two foregoing Relations of _Wm. Jinkins_ and _Richard Barlycorne_,
being distinctly read over to me _Robert Lamley_, Apprentice to
_Abel Owen_, Cook of the _Adventure Galley_, Captain _William Kidd_,
Commander; and I, having been in the said Galley throughout her whole
Voyage, and, since the Loss of her, in the Ship _Quidah Merchant_, and
Sloop _Antonio_, do affirm and testify to the Truth of the said Relations
respectively, as to the Substance of the same, as the several Articles
thereof.

                                                           ROBERT LUMLEY.

Taken before us.

                                                  ELISHA COOKE  } Just P.
                                                  ISA ADDINGTON }

Copy examined by

                                              ISA ADDINGTON, _Secretary_.


3. A COPY OF THE EXAMINATION OF HUGH PARROTT, OF PLYMOUTH IN THE COUNTY
OF DEVON, MARINER

                                                 BOSTON. 10th July, 1699.

Who saith, That, at the Island of _Joanna_, he left the Vessel he then
belonged to, and entered himself on board the _Adventure Galley_, Captain
_William Kid_, Commander; and from thence we sailed to the _Red Sea_,
and there cruised for Privateers and Pirates; but finding none, went
upon the Coast of India, and in our Cruize there, espied a Ship, which
we gave chace to, and came up with, being a Ship of near 200 Ton Burden,
whereof a _Dutchman_, _Mich Dicker_, the _Sound_: From _Gardner’s Island_
they was Master, being commanded on board the Galley, brought a _French_
Pass, and as the Examinant was informed, declared, That his Ship and
Lading was lawful Prize; and accordingly was made Prize of by the said
_Kidd_ and Company: The _Dutch_ Master remained in the Galley with the
other Two Dutchmen, and took up Arms to serve under Captain _Kidd_; the
_Moors_ were set on shore, being then not above Two Leagues from the
same: The Examinant knows not what the Ship was laden with; only saw Two
Horses sent on shore from her. And in about Six Weeks time afterward,
they took another Ship of 400 Tons, or upwards, mounted with about 12
or 14 Guns, commanded by one Captain _Wright_, an _Englishman_; and
there was also on board Two or Three _Dutchmen_; the rest of the Company
were _Armenians_ and _Moors_ to the Number of about Sixty or Seventy:
The Ship came from _Bengall_, bound to _Persia_, as it was said; and
that she belonged wholly to the _Moors_: 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; and when she arrived at _Madagascar_,
they took out of her all the Bale Goods, and shared them among the
Galley’s Company, being about One hundred in Number more or less; some
had Three, others Four Bales to a Share; the Examinant has Four for his
Share, which he sold at _Hispaniola_, to Mr. _Boulton_ and Mr. _Burt_,
for 400 Pieces of Eight, which was paid him down in Money; 200 Pieces
of which he lost by Gaming, on board the Sloop _Antonio_, that he came
from _Hispaniola_ in; the rest of his money was stolen from him. They
arrived in the said Sloop, first, at the _Horekills_ in _Delaware Bay_,
where they put out Two Chests, belonging to _James Gillam_, a Passenger,
who also went on shore there; which Chests, the Examinant believes, were
full of _India_ Goods; From the _Morekills_ they went to _Oyster Bay_ on
_Long Island_; and there took in Mr. _Emot_ of _New York_, and carried
him to _Rhode Island_, and sent him on shore there; Then went, with their
said Sloop to _Block Island_, and put on shore Two Guns, delivered to
Two Men that came from the Shore, and cruised between _Block Island_ and
_Rhode Island_ until Mr. _Emott’s_ Return; and having taken him on board
went to _Gardner’s Island_, and there let him on shore: And there was
landed at the said Island, from out of the Sloop _Antonio_, some Goods
and Chests; and also several Bales and Chests were put into another Sloop
that lay at the said _Gardner’s Island_ bound up sailed, with the Sloop
_Antonio_ to _Block Island_; and there took up the Captain’s Wife, and
a Gentleman that accompanied her; and then stood to _Gardner’s Island_;
and there put the said Gentleman, which, the Examinant thinks, was named
_Clark_, into a Sloop bound up the _Sound_: into which Sloop, there was
also several Bales and Chests put, out of the Sloop, _Antonio_, by Order
of the said Captain _Kidd_: And then we came to _Tarpolin Cove_, where
there was a Bale and one or two Barrels of Goods landed: And from thence
we came over the Shoals, and there met a Sloop from _Campechea_, bound to
_Boston_; the Master of which Sloop, in the Canoe belonging to her, came
on board our Sloop; and at his going off there was put into the Canoe
a _Turkey_ work Carpet, Two or Three Small Arms; which is all that the
Examinant took notice of.

The Examinant further saith, That at their sharing at _Madagascar_,
Captain _Kidd_ struck for, and received several Shares; knows not how
many; there might be Forty. They stript the Galley at _Madagascar_, and
burnt her to save her Iron-work; and also sunk their lesser Prize there.
About Ninety of the said Galley’s Company deserted at _Madagascar_.
The greater Prize was called the _Quedah Merchant_; which they left in
_Hispaniola_, under the care of Mr. _Boulton_, and about Seventeen or
Eighteen men to assist: Captain _Kidd_ promising to return to him in a
short time: The Examinant supposes there might be about 150 Bales of
Goods remaining on board her, about Eighty or Ninety Tons of Sugar, the
Saltpetre, Iron, Guns and Anchors. Captain _Kidd_ traded with Messieurs
_Boulton_ and _Burt_, for a considerable Quantity of Goods taken out of
the said _Quidah Merchant_, at and about _Hispaniola_.

                                                            HUGH PARROTT.

Taken before us, _die praedict_.

                                                  ELISHA COOKE  } J. Pac.
                                                  ISA ADDINGTON }

                                                     BOSTON, New England.
                                                     July 25th, 1699.


4. A COPY OF THE EXAMINATION OF GABRIEL LOFF, OF LONG ISLAND, WITHIN THE
PROVINCE OF NEW YORK, SEAMAN,

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 there gave chace to a Ship,
which shewed us _French_ Colours, and _Moorish_ Colours, and some others;
and after some Chace, came up with her: Captain _Kidd_ commanded the
Commander of her to come on board; who accordingly did: The Examinant
knows not what Nation he was of; but he brought a _French_ Pass, and
told Captain _Kidd_, That his Ship was a Prize and Captain _Kidd_ made
Prize of her, and her Lading: She was about 150 Tons in Burden, laden
with Cotton Wool, Bees Wax, Tobacco and Two Horses: The company were
chiefly _Moors_;--only Three _Christians_;--he knows not the Number; the
_Christians_ remained in the Galley, and took up Arms there; The _Moors_
were sent on shore. Soon after the Taking of this Ship, the Examinant was
taken sick, and lay so most of the Voyage: Knows not what they did with
the Lading: The Ship they carried to _Madagascar_; and there sunk her.
Some weeks after the Taking of the said Ship, they took another Ship, at
the Coast of _India_, of Burden of 400 Tons, or upwards, commanded by one
_Wright_, an _Englishman_; which Ship came from _Bengall_: The Ship was
chiefly manned with _Moors_ and _Armenians_: There was Three _Christians_
on board.

The Examinant further saith, They carried the said Ship and Lading with
them to _Madagascar_; and there landed all the Bale-goods on board,
consisting of Callicoes, Muslins, Silk, and White, striped and plain,
Romalls, Bengalls, and Laches: 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 for himself, and his Ship; most of his men deserted. At
_St. Marie’s_, a difference arose between the Captain and his Company;
Captain _Kidd_ proposing to them to take the _Mocha Frigate_, which lay
there; but the generality of the men refused, saying, They would sooner
shoot him than into the said _Mocha_ Frigate: And they went aboard the
said Frigate.

Further the Examinant saith, That the aforesaid Ship, commanded by
Captain _Wright_, and taken by Captain _Kidd_ in the Seas of _India_,
was called the _Quiddah Merchant_: And that the said _Kidd_, and his
Company that remained with him, bought the said Ship from _Madagascar_
into _Hispaniola_, in the _West Indies_; and there the said Captain
_Kidd_ traded with Two Persons, named _Boulton_ and _Burt_, for some
of the Bale-goods, which were delivered out of the Ship: And Captain
_Kidd_ bought a Sloop of the said Mr. _Boulton_, and laded the said
Sloop with Bale-goods taken out of the said Ship for so much as he
could conveniently stow, and lodge the men besides: The Number of
Bales he knows not: And, leaving the said _Boulton_, with Seventeen or
Eighteen men, on board the Ship, the said Captain _Kidd_, with several
of his Company, proceeded in the said Sloop towards _New York_; and the
Discourse was, That Captain _Kid_ was to return to the Ship again within
the Space of Three Months: And, after their Departure from _Hispaniola_
they arrived, with the said Sloop, first at _Horekills_ in _Delaware
Bay_, where they landed a Chest belonging to one _James Gillam_, a
Passenger with them from _Madagascar_: Knows not what was in it: And from
the _Horekills_ they sailed with the said Sloop into the Sound, and put
some Goods on shore at _Gardner’s Island_; the Quantity the Examinant
knows not: Also put some Goods and Chests on board the _New York_ Sloop,
one _Coster_, Master, then lying at said _Gardner’s Island_: And also
put a Pack of Goods on shore at _Tarpolin Cove_. Whilst they lay with
the said Sloop off _Rhode Island_, _James Gillam_, before-named, went on
shore in a Boat, that came on board the same Sloop; Knows not from whence
the said Boat came, nor who she belonged to.

                                                            GABRIEL LOFF.

Taken, die praedict before us

                                                  ELISHA COOKE  } J. Pac.
                                                  ISA ADDINGTON }

Copy examined per

                                               J. ADDINGTON, _Secretary_.


5. THE DEPOSITIONS OF ABEL OWEN, MARINER OF FULL AGE, LATE COOK OF THE
“ADVENTURE GALLEY,” CAPTAIN WM. KIDD, COMMANDER; AND SAMUEL ARRIS,
MARINER, LATE STEWARD OF THE SAME SHIP, OF FULL AGE; DEPOSE AND TESTIFY,
AS FOLLOWETH, VIZ.,

That the said Ship was launched at _Deptford_ at _Castle’s_ Yard, about
the 4th Day of _December_, 1695: And that the said Ship came to the
_Buoy_ and _Nore_ about the latter End of _February_; and about the First
Day of _March_ the men were pressed from on board the said Galley for the
Fleet; and she was staid about Nineteen Days, and there sailed for the
_Dounes_; and, about the Eighth or Tenth Day of _April_ arrived there;
and thence sailed for _Plimouth_; and, on the 25th Day of the Month of
_April_ 1696, the said Ship sailed from _Plymouth_; and, sometime in the
Month of _May_, met with a small French Vessel, bound for _Newfoundland_,
which they took, and made Prize of, and carried the same into _New
York_ about the 4th Day of July following; and the same was condemned
there as lawful Prize: And that, about the 6th Day of _September_ then
also following, the said Galley sailed for the _Maderas_; and thence to
_Bonavista_; thence to _St. Jago_; thence to _Telere_, and the _Island of
Madagascar_; thence to _Johanna_, thence to _Mehila_, where they buried
about Fifty of their Men in the Month of _May_ 1697; and thence sailed
upon the Coast of _India_; and, returning back to _St. Marie’s_ the Ship
was all along so leaky, that they feared she would have sunk every Hour;
and that it required Eight Men every Two Glasses, to keep her free; and
were forced to woold her round with Cables, to keep her together; and,
with much ado, kept her above Water, and carried her into the said _Port
of St. Marie’s_.

And that they took Two Vessels, which they carried into the said Port;
and the Men, which afterwards deserted the Galley, sunk one of them
there; and threatened the Captain, and these Deponents, and others, now
arrived here, to sink the other, that they might not go thence to tell
News: And that about Ninety of the said Galley’s Crew deserted the same
there; and that the said Galley proved so insufficient and leaky, that
she possibly could not be repaired; and sunk at an Anchor in the same
Port.

And these Deponents further testify, That there was in the said Port a
Pirate called the _Mocha_ Frigate: And the said Captain _Kidd_ proposed
to his Men to take the same, having sufficient Power so to do; but the
said Deserters, then being on board, told the said Captain _Kidd_, That,
if he offered the same, they would fire Two Guns into him, rather than
One into the Other; and immediately deserted the said Galley, and went on
board the _Mocha_ Frigate.

And these Deponents also further Depose, That with what Guns, Powder, and
Sails, the said Captain _Kidd_ could save out of the said Galley from the
Violence of the said Deserters, he purchased, at least, between Thirty
and Forty Bales of Goods, which he has brought in the Sloop _St. Antonio_
into this Port, for the Use of the Owners of the said Galley.

                                                              Abel O Owen
                                                              His Mark

       *       *       *       *       *

_English Smith_, and _Humphry Clay_, Mariners, of full age, lately
belonging to the said _Adventure Galley_, testify, That they sailed in
the same from _New York_ on the time before specified: and testify to the
Truth of the above-written Deposition from that time: And that the Goods,
now on board the said Sloop _St. Antonio_, were purchased, as aforesaid,
for the Use of the Owners of the said Galley.

                                                            ENGLISH SMITH
                                                            HUMPHRY CLAY.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Hugh Parrat_ Mariner, of a full Age, also deposeth, That he went
on board the Galley at _Johanna_; and testifies to the Truth of the
above-written Deposition from that time; and that the Goods now on board
the said Sloop _St. Antonio_ were purchased, as aforesaid, for the Use of
the Owners of the said Galley.

                                                            HUGH PARRATT.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Five Deponents within-named, did severally declare, That, whereas,
in their within written Affidavits, they speak of the Taking of Two
Vessels, they do further explain themselves; and testify, That the said
Two Vessels were _Moorish_ Ships, and taken by them upon the coast of
_India_: One of them of Burden betwixt Four and Five Hundred Tons, the
other about Two Hundred Tons; They surrendered to them without firing
any Gunns at them: The greater Ship came from _Bengall_; the lesser
Ship came from _Surratt_: The smaller Ship was taken in _November_
1697; the greater Ship in _February_ following: The Master, Gunner and
Boatswain of the smaller Ship were Dutchmen, the rest of the Company were
_Moors_, being about Forty in Number in the Whole: Her Lading consisted
of some _Persian_ Silks and other Dry Goods with some Horses. The Three
_Dutchmen_ afterwards took up Arms on board the Galley: The greater of
the Two Ships is the same that they lately left at _Hispaniola_: She had
about Ninety men on board: She was commanded by an _Englishman_ named
_Wright_: The Mate and Gunner were _Dutch_; all the rest of the Company
were _Moors_: She was mounted with Ten Guns; and laden with _Bengall_
Goods.

The Deponents further say, They met with the _Mocha Frigate_ at the _Port
of St. Marie’s_; and the Company belonging to her took the Companies
belonging to the aforesaid Two Ships, forcibly, from on board the
_Adventure Galley_; and Ninety of the Company of the said Galley there
also left her, and entered themselves on board the said _Mocha Frigate_;
having first plundered the Two Ships before-named, and taken out of them
a considerable Quantity of Goods and disposed of them at their pleasure.

                                                            (Signed)

                                                            ABEL O. OWEN
                                                            SAM ARRIS
                                                            ENGLISH SMITH
                                                            HUMPH CLAY
                                                            HUGH PARRATT.

BOSTON, 4th July, 1699.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Five Deponents within-named, and subscribed to this Affidavit,
severally made Oath to the Truth of this their Deposition, before his
Excellency the Governor and Council.

                              Copy Examd. per ISA ADDINGTON, _Secretary_.




APPENDIX C

The French Passes sent to Bellamont by Kidd, included amongst the papers
ordered by the House of Commons to be delivered to the Secretary of the
Admiralty for the purposes of Kidd’s trial.

Pass. No. 1. PASS TAKEN ON BOARD THE QUEDAGH OR KARRY MERCHANT (“le
Navire Cara”).

Pass. No. 2. PASS TAKEN ON BOARD KIDD’S OTHER PRIZE. Copies of these
passes will be found in the 13th Volume of the Journals of the House of
Commons, page 21.




APPENDIX C

A COPY OF THE FRENCH PASS.


No. 1.

DE PAR LE ROY.

Nous Francois Martin, escuir, conseiller du Roy, directeur general du
Commerce pour la Royalle compagnie de France dans la royaume de Bengalle,
coste de Coromandelle, et autres lieux a tous ceux qui ces presentes
lettres verront, salut. Les nommés Coja Ouannesse et Coja Jacob Armenien,
Nacodas du navire Cara[15] Marchand, que le nomme Agapiris, Kalender
Marchand Armenien a Strete a Surate du nommé Cohergy Nannabaye Parsy, le
dit navire du port de trois cent cinquante tonneaux, ou environ, sur
lequel est pilote Rette tandel ou Besseman Ginannatou et ecrivain Gassou;
nous ayants remontré, quayante pris, avant, leur depart de Surate,
un passeport de la compagnie, qu’ils nous ont representé en datte du
premier Janvier mil six cents nonante sept, signé Martin; et plus bas,
de Grangemont; qu’ils apprehendoient d’etre inquietéz dans le voyage
qu’ils doivent faire de ce port a celuy de Surate, sous pretexte que
le dit passeport est furanné et qu’ainsy ils nous privient instemment
de leur en faire un novent: à ces causes recommendons a tous ceux, qui
sont sous l’autorite de la compagnie, prions les chefs d’escadres, et
commandons des vaisseaux de sa majesté, requirons tous les amis et aliez
de la Couronne, de n’apporter aucun empéchement, qui puisse retarder
son voyage; ains luy donner toutes sortes d’aydes, et d’assistance;
promettant en cas pareil faire semblable. En foy du quoy, nous avons
signé ces presentes. Fait contresigner, par le secretaire de la
compagnie; et à icelle apposer le sceau de ces armes, au comptoir general
D’ongly, le quatorze Janvier mil six cent nonànte huit.

                                                                  MARTIN.

                                             _Par mon dit Sieur Desprez._


No. 2.

DE PAR LE ROY.

Nous Jean Baptiste Martin, directeur général de la royalle compagnie
de France des Indes Orientalles, à tous ceux qui ces presentes lettres
verront, salut. Savoir-fasons que le nommé Vamel das Narendas, marchand
de Baroche, desirant envoyer son navire nommé Rouparelle du pont de cent
cinquante tonneaux ou environ, partant du part de Baroche, pour aller à
Malabare, Bengalle et Bassora, commandé par le Nacoda Abdel Reyin, sur
lequel est pilate Issac Condel, ou Bosseman Joquy, et écrivain Dalet
Mamet, nous auroit justemment prié de lui donner nôtre passeport: ce
que nous luy avons octroyé: à ces causes ordonnons à tous ceux qui sont
sous notre autorité, prions les commandants des navires de sa Majesté,
de l’ayder et secourir en tout ce qu’il aura besoin si leur ordres ne
sont contraires, et de faire saisir comme deserteurs, les François,
qui seroient dessus sans congé, par écrit de messieurs les directeurs
généraux de Bengalle ou de nous, et requirons à tous nos amiz et aliez
de n’apporter aucun empéchement, qui puisse retarder son voyage: ains
au contraire de luy donner toute ayde et secours: promettont en cas
pareil, faire semblable. En foy de quoy nous avons signe ces presentes.
Fait contre signer par le secretaire de la ditte compagnie et à icelles
apposer le sceau de ces armes. Fait a comptoir de Surate le

                                                                  MARTIN.




APPENDIX D




APPENDIX D

REPORT OF DUNCAN CAMPBELL POSTMASTER OF BOSTON TO BELLAMONT


                                              BOSTON, June the 19th 1699.

The Memorial of _Duncan Campbell_, of _Boston_, humbly presented to his
Excellency the Earl of _Bellamont_.

I, the said _Duncan Campbell_, being at _Rhode Island_ on _Saturday_ the
17th _June_ current; that Morning I went in a Sloop, in Company with Mr.
_James Emott_ of _New York_, and Two other Men belonging to the said
Sloop, towards _Block Island_; and, about Three Leagues from that Island,
I met a Sloop commanded by Captain _Kidd_, and having on board about
Sixteen men besides: after hailing of which Sloop, and being informed,
That the said _Kidd_ was Commander thereof, he the said _Kid_ desired
me to come on board the same; which I accordingly did; and, after some
Discourse passed, the said _Kidd_ desired me to do him the Favour as to
make what Speed I could for _Boston_, and acquaint your Excellency, That
the said _Kid_ had brought a Ship, about 5 or 600 Tons from _Madagascar_,
which some considerable time since he met within … and commanded her
there to bring to; and that thereupon the Pilot, being a _Frenchman_,
came on board the said _Kid’s_ Ship, and told him, the said _Kidd_, He
was welcome, and that the said Ship, to which the said Pilot belonged,
was a lawful Prize to him, the said _Kidd_, she sailing under a French
pass, whereupon he, the said _Kid_, and Company, took the said Ship; and
afterwards, understanding that the same belonged to the Moors, he, the
said _Kid_, would have delivered her up again; but his Men violently fell
upon him and thrust him into his Cabin, saying, The said ship was a said
Prize (sic); and then carried her into _Madagascar_, and rifled her of
what they pleased: But before they got into _Madagascar_, the Galley
under Command of him, the said _Kidd_, became so leaky, that she would
scarce keep above Water; whereupon the Company belonging thereto, having
taken out her Guns, and some other Things, and put them on board the
Prize, set the said Galley on Fire.

The said Captain _Kidd_ further told me, That, when he and his Company
were arrived at _Madagascar_ several of his Company moved him to go and
take a Ship called the _Moca_ Frigate, that lay ready fitted at a Place
not far distant from them, in the Possession of certain Privateers; and
to go in the same for the _Red Sea_; but that he the said _Kid_ said,
That if they would join with him, he would attempt the Taking of the said
Ship, supposing her a lawful Prize, being formerly belonging to the King
of _England_; but would not afterwards go with them on the said Design to
the _Red Sea_: Whereupon Ninety of his, the said _Kidd’s_ Men, deserted
him, went and took the said Ship, and sailed with the same on the said
Design, as he, the said _Kid_, was informed; obliging one Captain
_Culliver_, the then Commander of her, to go along with them.

And the said _Kidd_ further told me, That his Men having left him,
and his Design frustrated, he thought it his best Way to preserve the
said Ship then in his Possession, and the Goods on board her, for his
Employers, or the proper Owners thereof; And accordingly, with the few
Men he had then left, which would not join with the other Ninety in their
aforesaid Design, being about Twenty in Number, and with a few other men,
that he procured at _Madagascar_, to assist him in navigating the said
Ship, he intended to have brought the same to _Boston_, according to his
Orders; but, touching in his Way at the Island of _St. Thomas_, and other
Places in the _West Indies_, he there heard, That great Complaints were
preferred against him, and he proclaimed a Pirate; which occasioned
him to sail to a Place called _Mona_, near _Hispaniola_: from whence
he sent to _Curaso_, and brought there the Sloop on which he is now on
board, and took into her to the Value of about 8 or 10,000_l_ in Goods,
Gold, and Plate: for which Gold and Plate he traded at _Madagascar_, and
was produced by the Sale of sundry Goods and Stores, that he took out
of the _Adventure Galley_, formerly commanded by him; and hath left the
Ship taken by his Company, and carried to _Madagascar_, as aforesaid,
at or near _Mona_ abovesaid, in the Custody of about Six Men of his own
Company, and Eighteen others that he got from _Curaso_; the Merchant of
whom he bought the said Sloop, being intrusted therewith; unto which he
had promised to return again in Three Months; the said _Kidd_ resolving
to come into _Boston_ or _New York_, to deliver up unto, your Excellency
what Goods and Treasure he hath on board; and to pray your Excellency’s
Assistance, to enable him to bring the said Ship left by him at _Mona_
aforesaid, from thence; the said Ship being disabled from coming for want
of Furniture.

But the said Captain _Kidd_ further informed me, That by reason of what
his Men had heard in the _West Indies_, as aforesaid, of their being
proclaimed Pirates, they would not consent to his coming into any Port
without some Assurance from your Excellency, That they should not be
imprisoned nor molested: And the said Captain _Kidd_ did several times
protest solemnly, That he had not done anything since his going out in
the said Galley contrary to his Commission or Orders, more than what he
was necessitated unto, being overpowered by his Men that deserted him, as
aforesaid; who evil-intreated him several times for his not consenting
to, or joining with them in, their Actions: And all the men on board the
Sloop now with him did, in like manner, solemnly protest their Innocence;
and declared, That they had used their utmost Endeavours in preserving
the aforesaid Ship and Goods for the Owners or Employers.

The said _Kidd_ also saith, That, if your Lordship should see Cause so to
direct, he would carry the said Ship for _England_, there to render an
Account of his Proceedings.

Which beforegoing contains the Particulars of what Captain _Kidd_ and his
Men related to

Your Lordship’s most humble Servant

                                                         DUNCAN CAMPBELL.




APPENDIX E




APPENDIX E

EXTRACTS RELATING TO BELLAMONT AND KIDD FROM NARCISSUS LUTTRELL’S BRIEF
HISTORICAL RELATION OF STATE AFFAIRS FROM SEPTEMBER, 1678, TO APRIL, 1714.


1 April 1693. A patent is passing the seals for settling £500 per annum
on the Lord Bellamont in consideration of his past services. Vol. III, p.
67.

11 June 1695. The Lords Justices have given order for passing a
Commission for the Lord Bellamont to be Governor for New England. Vol.
III, p. 483.

25 June 1695. Lord Bellamont is hastening to his government of New
England. Vol. III, p. 489.

4 July 1695. The Lord Bellamont’s warrant for his patent runs to be
Governor, Captain General and Admiral of New England. Vol. III, p. 494.

29 Aug. 1695. Complaint being made to the Committee of foreign
plantations against Fletcher, governor of New York, ’tis said the
Council will annex that government to that of New England, and that Lord
Bellamont goes governor of both.

12 May 1696. The Lord Bellamont has obtained a grant of £1,000 per annum
out of the estate of Lord Kilmeare (formerly Sir Valentine Brown). Vol.
IV, p. 57.

7 Jan. 1697. The Lord Bellamont, ’tis said, will not only be governor of
New England, but also of New York. Vol. IV, p. 166.

18 March 1697. On Tuesday the Lord Bellamont was declared governor of New
England, and ordered to hasten thither. Vol. IV, p. 198.

20 March 1697. The Lord Bellamont is made governor of New York and New
Hamstead[16] as well as New England and Colonel of a regiment of foot.
Vol. IV, p. 199.

5 June 1697. The Lord Bellamont’s commission to be governor and captain
general of New England and New York is passing the seals, and his
Lordship will suddenly goe to his government in the Deptford frigate.
Vol. IV, p. 235.

11 Sept. 1697. The lords of the treasury have paid the Earl of Bellamont,
governor of New England, £12000 in mault lottery tickets. Vol. IV, p. 227.

4 Oct. 1697. This day the Earl of Bellamont, governor of New England,
went on shipboard. Vol. IV, p. 285.

24 Nov. 1698. The East India Company have acquainted the lords justices
with the action of Captain Kidd, commander of a man of war, sent to
suppress the pyrates in the Persian seas, but instead thereof joyned
them. Several great lords were concerned in sending him out, and to be
sharers of what he should take from those pyrates. Vol. IV, p. 454.

29 Nov. 1698. A proclamation is ordered to be published to pardon all the
pyrates settled at Madagascar except Captain Kidd and 3 others, provided
they submit within a certain time: which proclamation Captain Warren
takes with him. Vol. IV, p. 456.

3 Dec. 1698. The Earl of Bellamont, governor of New England and New York
has sent advice that he has caused several persons to be arrested there,
accused for corresponding and trading with the pyrates at Madagascar, by
which means they have got great riches. Vol. IV, p. 457.

1 Aug. 1699. We have a report that Captain Kidd, who some time since
turned pyrate in the _Adventure Galley_ and took from the subjects of
the Great Mogull and others to the value of £400,000 is taken prisoner
by a French Ship, the commander of which sent him in irons to the Great
Mogull. Vol. IV, p. 543.

3 Aug. 1699. We now have letters from the West Indies, which contradict
the taking of Captain Kidd the pyrate: and say that after the _Adventure
Galley_ was sunk, he went on board a Portuguese, and sailed directly for
Darien where the Scots received him and all his riches. Vol. IV, p. 544.

5 Aug. 1699. Captain Kidd the pyrate some time since said to be taken
by a French man of war, afterwards contradicted and that he was gone to
Darien, we now hear was at Nassau Island, near New York, and sent for
Mr. Livingston, one of the Council there, to come on board: accordingly
he went to him, and he proffered £30,000 to give the owners, who first
fitted out the _Adventure Galley_, and £20,000 for his pardon: but ’tis
presumed the same will not be accepted. Vol. IV, p. 545.

17 Aug. 1699. Letters from Curassau say that the famous pyrate Captain
Kidd, in a ship of 30 guns and 250 men offered the Dutch Governor of St.
Thomas 45,000 pieces of eight in gold and a great present in goods, if he
would protect him a month, which he refused: but the said pyrate bought
afterwards of an English Ship provisions to the value of 25,000 crowns
and since supplyed with necessaries from other ships. Vol. IV, p. 549.

22 Aug. 1699. There are letters which say the famous Captain Kidd has
surrendered himself to the Lord Bellamont, governor of New England. Vol.
IV, p. 551.

5 Sept. 1699. Captain Kidd the pyrate having surrendered himself to
the earl of Bellamont, governor of New England, after examination
was committed to prison and commissioners appointed by his lordship
to inspect the effects he had on board, to the end that there might
be a true inventory taken thereof: and his lordship sent to the said
commissioners the present of jewells, which Kidd had caused to be given
his lady, esteemed at £10,000 an account of which his lordship has
dispatched hitherto to the Commissioners of trade, and to know how he
shall be disposed of. Vol. IV, p. 557.

23 Sept. 1699. His Majestie’s Ship Rochester, Captain Ellis, commander,
is sailed to New York, to bring over Captain Kidd, the pyrate and his
men, in order to be tried here. Vol. IV, p. 563.

26 Sept. 1699. Last week the old East India company attended the lords
justices with a petition, humbly praying that Captain Kidd the pyrate,
may be brought to a speedy trial before the high court of admiralty,
and that all his effects unjustly taken from the subjects of the Great
Mogull may be sent back to them as satisfaction for their losses. Their
excellencies promised to consider it. Vol. IV, p. 564.

2 Nov. 1699. The trial of the pyrates is put off till the arrival of
Captain Kidd, who is to be brought hither from New England in order to be
tried with them: his effects are valued at £200,000. Vol. IV, p. 578.

2 Dec. 1699. The lords of the admiralty have an account that the man of
war sent to New England to bring hither Captain Kidd, the pyrate, is
returned, not being able to make her voyage, the winter being too far
advanced in those parts. Vol. IV, p. 589.

6 April 1700. Last night the lords of the admiralty had an express from
Bristoll that Captain Kidd, with 33 pyrates more, were arrived in that
channel from New England, in order to be tried for robbing the subjects
of the Great Mogull. Vol. IV, p. 632.

16 April 1700. The same day Captain Kidd, the notorious pyrate, was
examined before the lords of the admiralty and committed to Newgate: and
yesterday 13 more pyrates were likewise examined and sent thither. Vol.
IV, p. 634.

23 April 1700. Captain Kidd upon his petition has got his irons taken
off. Vol. IV, p. 637.

27 April 1700. This day 10 of the pyrates lately brought from New England
were examined and ordered to be tried by a high court of admiralty:
Captain Kidd will be kept close prisoner till the sitting of the
Parliament, to the end that they may have the examination of him. Vol.
IV, p. 638.

23 July 1700. The jewels taken on board the ship of Captain Kidd the
pyrate, have been valued and said to be worth £30,000. Vol. IV, p. 669.

27 March 1701. This day the commons examined Captain Kidd the pyrate
and Cogi Babba, a Persian Merchant attended in order to accuse him of
robbing him in those seas to £60,000 value. Kidd discovered little or
nothing. Vol. V, p. 32.

1 April 1701. Captain Kidd was examined again yesterday: he confessed
nothing material, so was remanded to Newgate. Vol. V, p. 34.

10 April 1701. This day the house, being acquainted that Captain Kidd
since his being in Newgate, had been with the Lord Hallifax, examined the
person who affirmed it and sent for the keeper of Newgate, who averred it
to be false, whereupon they distrust him. Vol. V, p. 37.

1 May 1701. Letters yesterday from New York advise that the Earl of
Bellamont, governor of that place and of New England dyed the 5th of
March of the gout in his stomach. Vol. V, p. 44.

10 May 1701. This afternoon Captain Kidd was found guilty of murder for
killing a seaman on board a ship, also of one piracy: and to-morrow will
be tried upon the others. Vol. V, p. 47.

10 May 1701. Capt. Kidd is found guilty upon 6 indictments of pyracy, and
8 other pyrates are condemned. Vol. V, p. 48.

24 May 1701. Yesterday Capt. Kidd and 3 others condemned for pyracy, were
executed at execution dock at Wapping. The halter of the 1st broke, but
he was tied up again. Vol. V, p. 53.





FOOTNOTES


[1] A copy of this grant will be found in Appendix A.

[2] See Appendix A.

[3] The narrative of this voyage written by Kidd and the depositions of
such of his crew as remained faithful to him, will be found in Appendix
B. Other details are to be found in the verbatim reports of his trials.

[4] The port of Madagascar to which she was afterwards taken.

[5] In the petition of Cogi Babba to the House of Commons she is said to
have cost forty thousand rupees and her cargo four hundred thousand.

[6] These sailing orders will be found in Appendix A.

[7] See Appendix B.

[8] See Appendix B.

[9] A copy of this memorial will be found in Appendix D.

[10] At St. Marie’s.

[11] See Appendix E.

[12] According to one of these, he was said to have been captured by a
French Man-of-War, the commander of which had sent him in irons to the
Great Mogul. According to another, he had gone to Darien, where the Scots
had received him, and all his riches. At one time he was reported to have
offered the Dutch Governor of St. Thomas, forty-five thousand pieces of
eight in gold and a great present in goods, if he would protect him for
a month. At another he was said to have proffered twenty thousand pounds
for his pardon. In the popular imagination he had in fact figured as the
Prince of Pirates for some three years before his trial. See Appendix E.

[13] Bellamont’s hypocritical letter to Kidd of the nineteenth of June,
1699 (see Chapter III).

[14] See Lyson’s “Environs of London,” Vol. IV, page 448.

[15] The Quedagh Merchant was spoken of by some of the witnesses at the
trial and in Cogi Babba’s relation as the Karry Merchant.

[16] Probably a misprint for New Hampshire.





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