Captain William Kidd and Others of the Buccaneers

At that very time the House of Commons had impeached the Earl of Oxford and Lord Somers, for their connection with Kidd, and for the extraordinary commission which they had been instrumental in placing in his hands. It was said that commission and grants had been conferred upon him, which were highly prejudicial to the interests of trade and dishonorable to the king. In accordance with this commission, Kidd could capture any ship, and, without referring the question to any court of inquiry, could, of his own pleasure, declare the ship to be a pirate. He could then confiscate ship and cargo to his own use, and dispose of the crew in any way which to him might seem best. This was the course which, under the commission, he did pursue.

These were certainly very extraordinary powers. It was contended that they were contrary to the law of England and to the Bill of Rights. To these arguments it was replied, by the friends of the impeached nobles, that pirates were the enemies of the human race; that as such any person had a right to destroy them, and seize the property they had so iniquitously acquired, and to which they had no legitimate title. It was also declared, though perhaps the royal commission would hardly sustain the statement, that Kidd was authorized to seize only that property for which no other owner could be found. Certainly there was no provision made for searching out such ownership. It was, however, urged, and very truthfully, that the commission contained the all-important clause:

“We do also require you to bring, or cause to be brought, such pirates, freebooters, or sea-rovers, as you shall seize, to legal trial, to the end they may be proceeded against according to the law in such cases.”

The fact that Kidd entirely ignored these instructions, constituting himself the court to try and condemn, could not justly be brought as a charge against the ministers who commissioned him.

Upon these questions popular feeling ran high. Parties took sides. Agitating rumors filled the air. It was confidently affirmed that the lords then on trial, with the connivance of the ministry, that they might escape the investigation which the trial of Kidd would involve, had set the Great Seal of England to the pardon of the pirate. This roused the anti-ministerial party to the highest state of exasperation. They resolved at all events to hang Kidd, hoping thus to prove that the ministers were alike guilty with him. And on the other hand, the ministers themselves had come to the conclusion that any attempt to shield Kidd would redound to their own ruin. It had become essential to their own reputation that they should manifest more zeal than any others to bring Kidd to the scaffold.

Thus the wretched pirate had no chance of a fair trial. Undoubtedly he was guilty. But it is very doubtful whether he were proved to be guilty when called before the court. The bill of impeachment against the lords was not carried. Though their participation with Kidd in the profits of an expedition which was authorized only by their own official acts was deemed very censurable, when the vote was taken there were but twenty-three in favor of the impeachment, while there were fifty-six opposed to the bill.

The Earl of Bellomont, harassed by the procedure in the House of Commons, and knowing that measures were about to be instituted against him for his recall from the provincial government, and perhaps for his still more severe punishment, was taken sick and died in New York, in March, 1700. Thus he escaped from the further troubles of this ever-troubled world.

At the close of the year 1700, the papers which had been sent for arrived from the East Indies. A petition came from several of the East-Indian merchants, subjects of the King of Persia, giving a minute recital of the capture of the Quedagh Merchant, and praying that the property of which they had thus been robbed, and much of which had been conveyed to the North American colonies, might be restored to them. A very distinguished East Indian, by the name of Cogi Baba, came to London in behalf of the petitioners. He was summoned to appear before the House of Commons. At the same time Kidd himself was brought from his prison before the bar.

After an examination, a motion was made to the House to declare the grant made to the Earl of Bellomont and others of the company, of all the treasure taken by Kidd, to be null and void. But this motion was negatived. A vote was then taken requesting the king to institute immediate proceedings against Captain Kidd for piracy and murder. He was accordingly brought to trial, under this indictment, at the Old Bailey, in the year 1701.

Several of Kidd’s confederates were tried with him. Some of them pleaded the king’s pardon, saying that they had surrendered themselves within the time limited in the royal proclamation. The governor of New Jersey, Colonel Bass, then in court, testified to the truth of this assertion, the surrender having been made to him.

To this it was replied, “There were four commissioners named in the proclamation, Thomas Warren, Israel Hayes, Peter Delanoye, and Christopher Pollard. These commissioners were sent to America to receive the submission of such pirates as should surrender. No other persons were entitled, to receive their surrender. They therefore have not complied with the conditions of the proclamation.”

They were condemned and hanged. One of the crew, Darby Mullens, made the following strong defence:

“I served under the king’s commission. I could not therefore disobey my commander, without exposing myself to the most severe punishment. Whenever a ship goes out upon any expedition, under the king’s commission, the men are never allowed to call their officers to account. Implicit obedience is required of them. Any other course would destroy all discipline. If anything unlawful is done, the officers are to answer for it, for the men, in obeying orders, only do what is imperiously their duty.”

The court replied, “When a man is acting under a commission, he is justified only in doing that which is lawful, not in that which is unlawful.”

The prisoner responded, “I stand in need of nothing to justify me in what is lawful. But the case of a seaman is very hard, if he is exposed to being scourged or shot if he refuse to obey his commander, and of being hung if he obey him. If the seaman were allowed to dispute the orders of his captain, there could be no such thing as command kept up at sea.”

The court replied, “The crew, of which you were one, took a share of the plunder; they mutinied several times; they undertook to control the captain; they paid no regard to the commission; they acted in all things according to the customs of pirates. You are guilty, and must be hanged.” He was hanged.

Kidd was tried for piracy, and for the murder of William Moore. He was not allowed counsel, but was left to make his own defence. On the whole, he appeared remarkably well while passing through this dreadful ordeal. In opening his defence, he said:

“I was a merchant in New York, in good repute and in good circumstances, when I was solicited to engage, under the royal commission, in the laudable employment of suppressing piracy. I had no need of embarking myself in piratic adventures. The men were generally desperate characters, and they rose in mutiny against me. I lost all control over them. They did as they pleased. They threatened to shoot me in my cabin. Ninety-five deserted at one time, and destroyed my boat. I was thus disabled from bringing the ship home. Consequently I could not bring the prizes before any court to have them regularly condemned. They were all taken by virtue of the commission, under the Broad Seal, and they had French papers.”

When the jury was impanelled, and he was invited to find cause, if he wished to do so, for the exclusion of any of them, he replied:

“I shall challenge none. I know nothing to the contrary but that they are all honest men.”

Kidd was greatly agitated during the trial, and frequently interrupted the court with his exclamations and explanations. He was first tried for the murder of William Moore. This indictment gave a very particular account of the event, stating that the gunner died of a mortal bruise received at the hands of the captain; that from the thirtieth day of October to the one-and-thirtieth day, he did languish and languishing did live, but that on the one-and-thirtieth day he did die; and that William Kidd, feloniously, voluntarily, and of malice aforethought, did kill and murder him.

To this Kidd replied, and probably with entire truth, as we have before said, that he had no intention of killing the man; that he struck him down to quell a mutiny, and to prevent the crew from engaging in an atrocious act of piracy; that his conscience never had condemned him for the deed, and that he then felt that for it he merited approbation rather than censure.

He told a very plain, simple story, which, if true, and its truth could not be disproved, would exonerate him in this affair from blame. The intelligent reader of this narrative will perceive that there were many corroborative circumstances to substantiate the accuracy of his account.

“I will inform the court,” he said, “of the facts precisely as they occurred in this case. We were within about three miles of the Dutch ship, when I perceived that many of my men were in a state of mutiny, clamoring for her capture. Moore, addressing the mutineers, said that he could propose a plan by which the ship could be captured, and yet all who were engaged in the enterprise might be perfectly safe.

“‘And how is that to be done,’ I inquired?

“He replied, ‘We will hail the ship, and have the captain and officers invited on board to visit our officers. While they are in the cabin with our captain, we will man the boats and plunder the ship. The captain will shut his eyes and close his ears, and then he and the officers can testify that the ship was not captured.’

“To this I said, ‘This would be Judas-like treachery, to rob the ship under the guise of friendship. I dare not do such a thing.’

“‘We must do it,’ Moore replied. ‘We are already beggars. We have no other resource. You have brought us to utter ruin.’

“‘Shall we be guilty of the crime,’ I said, ‘of capturing this ship because we are poor?’

“Upon this Moore and the mutineers were so violent that I seized a slush-bucket, which chanced to be at hand. With it I struck him in my passion, not intending to kill him. If I had premeditated his death, I should not have made use of so rude and chance-directed a weapon. I am heartily sorry that I killed him. And if the deed cannot be justified as a preventive of mutiny, it certainly should not be adjudged anything more than manslaughter.”

There was much force in these arguments. It is at least doubtful whether an intelligent jury of the present day would under such testimony have brought in a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree. One who has carefully examined all the proceedings of the court on this occasion, writes:

“Yet, it being determined to hang him at all odds, the lawyers were given hints, the witnesses were browbeaten, and the jury were instructed, after tedious iteration, to bring him in guilty.”

This was done. He was pronounced to be the murderer of John Moore, and was, for that crime, doomed to die.

The next day he was tried on the indictment for piracy. Two of his crew, who, by their confession, were sharers in his piratic adventures, turned state’s evidence. One of these was a deck hand, by the name of Palmer. The other was a surgeon, Bradingham by name. Kidd closely cross-examined them, but their stories perfectly agreed, being straightforward and consistent.

Kidd’s only defence was that he had acted only as a privateersman, under his Majesty’s commission. He declared that he had never captured a ship which he had not evidence was a French ship, belonging to French owners, and sailing under French papers. It scarcely admits of a doubt that this statement was utterly false. Kidd assumed of both of the witnesses against him that they were miserable vagabonds, whose testimony was unworthy of the slightest credence. In reference to the testimony of Bradingham, he exclaimed:

“This man contradicts himself in a hundred places. He tells a thousand lies. He knows no more of these things than you do. This fellow used to sleep five or six months together in the hold.”

At another time, when the testimony was going strongly against him, he cried out bitterly:

“It is hard that the life of one of the king’s subjects should be taken away upon the perjured oaths of such villains as these. Because I would not yield to their wishes, and turn pirate, they now endeavor to prove that I was one.”

When the solicitor general asked if Kidd had any further questions to put to the witnesses, he despairingly replied:

“No! no. Bradingham is saving his life by taking away mine. I will not trouble the court any more, for it is a folly. So long as these men swear as they do, no oaths of mine will be of any avail.”

The verdict of guilty was rendered. The judge pronounced the awful doom:

“William Kidd, the sentence that the law hath appointed to pass upon you for your offences, and which this court doth therefore award, is, that you, the said William Kidd, shall go from hence to the place from whence you came, and from thence to the place of execution, where you shall be hanged by the neck until you are dead. And may the God of infinite mercy be merciful to your soul.”

Kidd replied, “My lord, it is a very hard sentence. For my part, I am the most innocent person of them all. I have been sworn against by perjured persons.”

CHAPTER V

Kidd, and Stede Bonnet

The Guilt of Kidd. – Rumors of Buried Treasure. – Mesmeric Revelation. – Adventures of Bradish. – Strange Character of Major Bonnet. – His Piracies. – Encounters. – Indications of Insanity. – No Temptation to Turn Pirate. – Blackbeard. – Bonnet Deposed.

Mr. Charles Elliot, in his History of New England, writes: “It seems to have been felt necessary by those who were charged, in England, with complicity with Captain Kidd, that a vigorous prosecution should be urged, and that an example should be made of him, to satisfy a clamorous public opinion. He was brought to trial, and was convicted and sentenced for the murder of William Moore, one of his own sailors, whom he had struck in an altercation.

“This appears to have been the only blood laid against him; and the charge of piracy could hardly have been proved. As was the custom of that day, Kidd was not allowed counsel. He plead his commissions for what he had done, but was roughly treated by the court; and Livingston, who was one of his partners and sureties, had got possession of his papers, and refused to give them up to him.

“Kidd probably had no idea of being charged with piracy, nor did he consider himself a pirate; and if there had been no charge made against his partners, he would not have died on the gallows. He was hanged at Execution Dock, May 12, 1701; and all England was agog with the doings of the pirate Kidd. It was a mere accident that Kidd was hanged as a pirate instead of being feasted as a victor.”

These scenes occurred one hundred and seventy-five years ago. And yet, for some inexplicable reason, while hundreds of other events of vastly greater moment have passed into oblivion, the name of Captain Kidd, from that hour to this, has been almost a household word in both England and America.

Many believed that the Quedagh Merchant, instead of being burned at sea, was brought into the Hudson River at night, and sunk near the Highlands, with most of her treasure on board. Several circumstances seemed to corroborate this assertion. At the base of the Dunderberg, there could be seen sunk, deep in the bed of the river, and almost buried in its sands, the wreck of some large ship. A pamphlet was published, entitled:

“An Account of Some of the Traditions and Experiments Respecting Captain Kidd’s Piratical Vessel.”

The traditions here referred to asserted that Kidd’s vessel, the Quedagh Merchant, laden with the treasures of the East, was chased up the North River by an English man-of-war. Kidd, finding escape impossible, collected as much money as he could carry, and set fire to the ship, having left by far the larger part of the gold and silver on board. With a portion of the crew he ascended the river much farther, in boats, and then crossed the country, through the wilderness, to Boston.

These traditions are embellished with many romantic stories. It is said that as he and his piratic comrades were journeying along, they came to a log house in the woods. The man of the household was absent at his work. The woman, thinking that they were savages, in terror fled at their approach. In her fright she left one of her children behind. The bloodthirsty pirate, Kidd, in pure wantoness thrust his sword through the child.

An old Indian, who had wandered far away to Michigan, declared that he was on the river-bank when the pirates set fire to the ship and took to their boats. Very graphically he described the midnight scene as, buried in the glooms of the forest, he witnessed it in the brilliant illumination of the blazing vessel. He was induced to come all the way from Michigan to the Hudson to point out the spot of the sunken vessel. And deep in the water the charred timbers were to be seen. Another pamphlet was published, entitled:

“A Wonderful Mesmeric Revelation, giving an Account of the Discovery and Description of a Sunken Vessel, near Caldwell’s Landing, supposed to be that of the Pirate Kidd; including an Account of his Character and Death, at a distance of nearly three hundred miles from the place.”

This strange mesmeric revelation came from a Mrs. Chester, the wife of Charles Chester, of Lynn, Massachusetts. She declared that she had never heard anything about the sunken vessel; that never had she been upon the Hudson River; that she had never read or heard of the career of Kidd; and that she had never even been spoken to upon the subject, until, when placed in the magnetic state, the extraordinary revelation had been made to her.

While in this mesmeric condition, she saw, with clearest vision, the sunken vessel. Her eyes, with supernatural powers, pierced water, timbers, sand, and chests. There she saw bars of massive gold, heaps of silver coin, and precious jewels including many large and brilliant diamonds. The jewels had been enclosed in shot-bags of stout canvas. The bags had decayed, and the jewels were clustered in brilliant heaps. She also saw “gold watches, like ducks’ eggs in a pond of water,” and the wonderfully preserved remains of a very beautiful woman, with a necklace of large and lustrous diamonds around her neck.

A man was seen just leaving the spot, who was preternaturally revealed to Mrs. Chester as Captain Kidd. He was a large, stout man, not very tall, with broad chest and shoulders, thick neck, aquiline nose, piercing eyes, and a head indicative of great power and all destructive qualities.

A very able writer in the Merchant’s Magazine, of 1846, writes sarcastically of this mesmeric announcement:

“This most singular revelation, as it is corroborated by the traditions, presents us with another triumph of animal magnetism, and must serve not only to advance that science, but to demonstrate how much safer it is to rely upon tradition, than upon record evidence made in courts of justice held contemporaneously with the events, or official documents preserved in the public archives.

“In the present case, mesmerism has taken a progressive step; for it has not only disclosed what is now to be found in the waters of Cocks-rack, but also who was there one hundred and forty-five years ago. In this new application of the science we may hope not only to see the earth disembowelled, but the very forms and features of the ancient time brought up to our present view.

“What is more remarkable, if the traditions existed, as is pretended, is, that no individual or company should have undertaken, when the witnesses were living, to raise the vessel, especially as so many persons were found, near the time of the transactions of Kidd, credulous enough to ruin themselves in vain explorations after his money. But that perhaps was not an age of enterprise like the present, nor of humbug.”

There is usually some ground for a tradition. Its basis is generally truth.

As we have mentioned, in the days of Captain Kidd the seas were swarming with pirates. It would require volumes to relate their adventures. Many of these lawless men performed deeds far more extraordinary and infamous than any perpetrated by Kidd. There was, however, at that time, a pirate by the name of Bradish, whose actions, in the popular mind, were blended with those of Kidd.

He was boatswain of a ship, of the same name with that in which Kidd sailed from New York, the Adventure. The ship was bound to Borneo, the largest island in the world, if Australia is recognized as a continent, and sailed from England in March, 1697. On the voyage the vessel stopped at the Island of Polonais for water. Bradish, a desperate man, had formed a conspiracy with several of the sailors to watch their opportunity, seize the ship, and set out on a piratic cruise.

At Polonais, the captain and several of his officers went on shore in one of the boats. Bradish assumed the command, silently raised the anchor, spread the sail, and ran out to sea. The wide world was before them to go where they pleased. The commerce of the seas spread its wealth for their plunder. There was the sum of about forty thousand dollars in gold on board. This money Bradish divided equally with his piratic crew. He then cleared his decks for action, placed a lookout at the mast-head, and commenced his cruise in search of additional treasure.

They directed their course toward the American coast. What vessels they captured on the way is not known. Upon reaching Long Island, Bradish went ashore and deposited with some confederate there a large amount of money and jewels. If pursued by a man-of-war, he could easily run his vessel ashore, and the crew could disperse through the woods. Much of his treasure would still be safe.

He ran along to Block Island. Here they purchased two small vessels, and, dividing into two parties, separated, each party taking its share of the remaining treasure. It is said that there was enough to load both of the small vessels. Many of the men landed on the Rhode Island and Connecticut shore. They behaved very civilly; called at the farm-houses, and bought horses and food, for which they paid abundantly. The rumor of the landing and dispersion of the pirates spread. A proclamation was issued for their arrest. The captain and about eighteen of the men were apprehended, sent to England, tried, and executed. What became of the large ship, the Adventure, is not known.

By many it was supposed that she ran into the North River, and was scuttled and abandoned when near the Highlands.

We now bid adieu to Captain Kidd, leaving it with our readers to form their own opinion, from the facts here given, of the degree of praise or blame to be attached to his character.

About the same time when William Kidd was passing through his strange adventures, there was another buccaneer appearing upon the stage, whose character and career were still more astonishing. There was a gentleman in Barbadoes, of wealth, position, and education, by the name of Stede Bonnet. He had a large fortune, and was highly esteemed for his intellectual culture and his honorable character. He seemed to be exposed to no temptation whatever to enter upon the guilty and perilous life of a pirate. His melancholy fate excited pity rather than condemnation, as it was generally believed that he was the victim of some strange mental hallucination, which, in some degree at least, exonerated him from moral responsibility.

Some domestic griefs rendered him unhappy in his home. He fitted out, entirely at his own expense, a sloop armed with ten guns, and manned by seventy sailors, desperate men, ready for any deeds of violence and crime. The sloop he named the Revenge. It was his avowed intention to prey upon the Spanish commerce, which none of the English courts would then punish as piracy.

But he immediately entered upon the career of a pirate, capturing and plundering every vessel he came across, without any regard to the flag under which she sailed. His first cruise was off the Capes of Virginia. The first vessel he encountered was the Anne, from Glasgow. A few cannon-balls thrown across her bows brought her to. His boats, filled with demoniac men armed to the teeth, boarded the ill-fated prize, and plundered her of everything the pirates desired, money, clothes, provisions, and ammunition. The ship was then allowed to go on her way.