The Real Captain Kidd

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[4] 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[5] 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[6] 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[7] 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[8] 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[9] 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[10] 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[11] 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[12] 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[13] 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[14] 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[15] 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 bona 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[16] 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[17] 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,[18] 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[19] 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[20] 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[21] 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[22] 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)[23] 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?"

[24]

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[25] 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[26] 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[27] 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[28] 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[29] 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[30] 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[31] 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[32] 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[33] 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[34] 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,[35] 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."