The Real Captain Kidd

t so much by reason of any enormities of which they have themselves been guilty, as because it has been their

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

t 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

cter, 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 in

lf 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

aving 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 ob

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 Colon

t 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] p

reat 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 Londo

nd itself to the mercantile community; and any plausible project for its furtherance that would not necessitate his immedi

s 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 confesse

"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 th

he 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 We

u think I wa

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 inclinati

ton. "Who told

2

"Yes,

rehend that his intention in tha

me his business was to go cr

. "Did he tell you he

death before he would do any such thing. H

d Captain Humphreys that he had known Kidd at the beginning of the late war, and that he had the applause of t

n 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

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 d

ing 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

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 n

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 Liv

ach 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

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

aught 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 priz

ver, 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 justifie