Captain Kidd

 

 

Captain Kidd’s story has everything an epic pirate yarn should – adventure on the high seas, a treasure map, a violent murder and an enduring legend. Like the greatest of literary heroes, Captain Kidd was a victim of circumstance, and his untimely death, like his dramatic life, pays testament to this fact.

 

 

Captain Kidd will forever be remembered as the pirate who left a cache of hidden treasure on an island, hoping one day to return and reclaim it. In the event, he was unable to get back to the island, because he was hung in England for piracy, but the legend of the buried treasure, and the map, lived on, becoming a central part of pirate lore.

 

Successful privateer

William Kidd was born around 1645 in Scotland. Accounts vary as to his place of birth. Recent research suggests that it was Dundee, but according to the Newgate Calendar, which recorded the misdeeds of criminals at the time, he came from Greenock. When he was five years old, his father died, and his family moved to New York, then a colony of Britain. As an adult, he became a sailor, working in the service of several prominent colonial governors.

He soon rose to the rank of captain, and was commissioned to attack French vessels during England’s war with France, a task he accomplished with such élan that he became well known among the London traders. He travelled to England to seek privateering work, and while he was there, received a commission from the Governor of New York, The Earl of Bellomont, to command a new ship, the Adventure Galley. This was a state-of-the-art warship armed with 34 cannons and a crew of 80 men. Kidd’s brief was to attack all French shipping on the high seas, and he was also asked, as a side earner, to attack pirate ships as well. At first he refused, knowing the severity of the penalties for lawlessness on the high seas, but under pressure from the investors, he eventually agreed.

 

Ill-fated voyage

The project seemed ill-fated from the start. As the ship made its way down the Thames, it was ordered to lower its flags in deference to Royal Navy shipping, but instead, Kidd’s sailors took down their trousers and waggled their bottoms in the air. For this silly misdemeanour, the ship was boarded and many of the crew taken off. Thus, when he reached New York, Kidd had to hastily assemble more sailors. The new recruits were, for the most part, a rough and ready lot, many of them former pirates.

The ship set sail for Madagascar, but the problems continued. There was an outbreak of cholera on board ship, and many died. To make matters worse, the supposedly modern ship began to spring leaks everywhere. Weakened and demoralized, the crew began to demand that Kidd turn pirate.

 

Murder or manslaughter?

Afraid of mutiny, Kidd engaged in a fight with the ship’s gunner, William Moore, who was pressing him to attack a passing Dutch ship. Kidd called Moore a lousy dog, to which Moore responded that if he was, it was Kidd’s fault. At this, Kidd smashed him over the head with a bucket, killing him dead.

Although it was common at the time for captains to discipline men harshly, murder was unusual, and could be punished by hanging. Kidd, however, believed that he would not be executed for such a crime, having friends in high places at home.

 

Turning pirate

As the voyage progressed, Kidd decided that the only viable option open to him was to become a pirate. After this, his fortunes improved. His most successful venture was the capture of the Quedagh Merchant, an Armenian ship loaded with treasure. When it transpired that it was captained by an Englishman, Kidd reportedly asked his crew to return it, but the crew refused, so in the end Kidd gave in, making sure to keep the passes in the captain’s possession, so that he could show them as evidence if he was later tried for piracy.

 

Burying the treasure

Eventually, after many more adventures at sea, Kidd decided to return home to New York to clear his name. On the way, he stopped off at Gardiner’s Island near New York, to bury some treasure for his retirement. The treasure consisted of gold, silver, rubies, diamond, candlesticks and porringers. Kidd gave the proprietors of the island, Mr and Mrs Gardiner, a piece of gold cloth and a bag of sugar in exchange for their help, and warned them that if the treasure was touched before he got back, they would be killed.

Kidd then returned home, hoping that if he turned himself in, he would receive clemency from the authorities as a result of his connections. However, once he did so, his powerful friends deserted him. He was imprisoned and put into solitary confinement, suffering very harsh conditions there. He was then sent to England for questioning.

 

Hideous death

In England, Kidd found himself a political pawn. There was a new Tory government in office, who were hoping to discredit their opponents, the Whigs, by getting Kidd to name the officials who had backed him. But Kidd refused, thinking that they would help him in his hour of need. He was wrong.

He was imprisoned at Newgate and charged with the murder of William Moore and five counts of piracy. The passes he had obtained from the Quedagh Merchant were not shown as evidence, and he received no legal representation. On 23 May 1701 he was hanged at Execution Dock in Wapping. During the hanging, the rope broke. Kidd was left gasping for air while another rope was found, and the hanging performed for a second time. When Kidd was finally dead, his body was put in an iron cage and hung up over the Thames as a warning to other pirates of the fate that would befall them.

 

Sunken galleon

As for the treasure on Gardiner’s Island, it was dug up and used as evidence against Kidd in his trial – unfairly, since some of the treasure had been bought, not plundered, and there were papers to prove it. Many continue to believe that Kidd also buried treasure on other islands around the world, pointing to the existence of a map among Kidd’s possessions showing the China Sea, a lagoon, a smuggler’s cove and some treacherous reefs, but to date no buried treasure has been found.

There was however, an exciting discovery in 2007, when a scuba diver came across an underwater shipwreck off the coast of Catalina Island in the Caribbean. A team of archaeologists and anthropologists confirmed that this was almost certainly the wreckage of the Quedagh Merchant, verifying that the size of the cannons tallied exactly with the historical records. The team was thrilled with the discovery, describing the legendary sunken galleon as ‘a living museum’.

 

Tragic story

Today, it seems likely that Captain Kidd was unfairly hanged. He probably killed gunner Moore by accident, and although he undoubtedly indulged in occasional piracy, along with many privateers of the time, most of his voyages appear to have been perfectly legal. Until the age of 50, when he took on the ill-fated task of commanding the Adventure Galley, he was clearly a respected man with the support and friendship of high-ranking figures such as Benjamin Fletcher, Governor of New York. But when he ran into trouble, they deserted him, and he was strung up like a common thief, earning the reputation he carries today.