Raiders and Rebels

by Frank Sherry

  After action with the fleet, Kidd and Blessed William had put in at Antigua for provisions prior to returning to New York. While Kidd was conducting his business ashore, however, his crew, stirred up by the mate, Robert Culliford, had mutinied and sailed away with the ship. (Culliford eventually made his way to Madagascar and was elected captain of several pirate ships. The fate of the Blessed William is unknown.)

  If this event embarrassed Kidd, at least it had cost him no financial loss. The British governor of the Leeward Islands, in recognition of his services to the fleet, had presented Kidd with a captured barkentine, the Antegoa, to replace the stolen Blessed William. Thereupon the grateful captain had sailed home to New York.

  A few months later, the Massachusetts colony—mindful of Kidd’s good work against the French in the West Indies—had hired him to chase a notorious French privateer away from the American coast—and Kidd had succeeded in that mission.

  Although the intriguing Livingston probably saw Kidd as the commander of his pirate killer from the first moments of their meeting in London, he was careful not to broach the subject of his eastern enterprise too abruptly. Instead, he concentrated on ingratiating himself with the bluff seafarer, succeeding so well that Kidd even testified on Livingston’s behalf in his suit against the retiring Governor Fletcher.

  It is likely that Livingston encouraged Kidd’s preposterous conviction that he could become the captain of a Royal Navy man-of-war. In doing so, however, Livingston further excited in Kidd a hitherto-inconsequential propensity for self-delusion, which was a basic, if not obvious, aspect of the captain’s character. For there seems to have been in William Kidd a deep streak of stubborn fantasy, a penchant to believe a thing possible because he desired it, an inclination to regard something as true simply because he wanted it to be true. This tendency toward magical thinking, so clearly exposed in his dream of a Royal Navy command, seems to have operated by blinding Kidd to the reality of his situation when his deepest desires were engaged. It also seems to have led him often to misinterpret the intentions of others, as he had for example misinterpreted the character of the mate, Culliford, who had made off with his ship. It seems likely that this inclination toward wishful thinking also made it difficult for Kidd to see himself as others saw him. Thus, in his fantasy, he was able to envision himself with ease as the polished and dashing commander of one of His Majesty’s men-of-war.

  Probably, in his rough world of privateers and cutthroat merchants, this facet of Kidd’s personality had not mattered very much. More than likely it was usually dismissed as a quirk, a rather laughable inclination of the captain’s to put on airs. It did not, in any case, interfere very much with his professional performance as either a self-employed privateer or as a merchant captain.

  But for a project like Livingston and Bellomont’s, a commander was needed who was not only discreet and competent but also capable of acting on his own in remote waters, capable of weighing the reality of his situation, capable of making critical judgments under pressure. To put in command of such an enterprise a man whose view of reality might be determined by his desires was a prescription for disaster. Yet Livingston, although a shrewd man of experience, apparently failed to perceive this flaw in Kidd—or if he did recognize it, he did not believe it would adversely affect his enterprise, for he had now fixed on William Kidd as his captain.

  Livingston waited for an appropriate moment—and then put forward his privateer proposition to his fellow New Yorker. Kidd professed himself uninterested. He had no wish to command a privateer, he explained to Livingston, even one with so lofty a mission as suppression of the Madagascar outlaws.

  Livingston, however, refused to accept Kidd’s negative response. Perhaps, as a crafty salesman, he sensed that the bluff sea captain could be pressured or cajoled into accepting the post offered.

  Perhaps Kidd himself created this impression in Livingston’s mind in order to retain Livingston’s friendship. Like many unsophisticated people with ambitions beyond their talents, Kidd often thought himself more clever than he really was. He probably believed that if he did not entirely close the door to Livingston’s project, he would be better able to cultivate Livingston and Bellomont, and perhaps even secure their help in obtaining his commission in the Royal Navy. In this sense Kidd himself opened the door to the pressure that, with single-minded tenacity, Livingston now exerted on him.

  Livingston began his campaign by taking Kidd to see Lord Bellomont himself. The great man suggested to the duly impressed captain that perhaps the best way to achieve his life’s dream of a Royal Navy career would be to accept the special privateering commission he and Livingston were now offering to him. It was a mission, after all, that had been proposed by the king himself, Bellomont no doubt pointed out, and it had the backing of some of the most influential men in the realm, not the least of whom was himself, soon to be governor of Kidd’s own province and in a position to do him a great deal of good. On the other hand, Bellomont no doubt implied, to refuse such a service to the Crown might be construed by some as a disloyal act unworthy of a Royal Navy captain.

  Even Kidd must have understood the message: Take the proposition offered to him by Bellomont and Livingston, and he would prosper; refuse, and his dream of a navy command might come to nothing.

  The pressure on Kidd to accept immediately was enormous. But he did not buckle under. He pointed out that as an experienced privateer, he saw a number of major flaws in the proposed venture to the East.

  Foremost among these flaws was the fact that even with a pirate-killer vessel, pirate ships would be most difficult to capture. Pirates were not only fast sailers, well armed, and crewed by tough fighting men, they were impossible to identify at sea unless they attacked or broke out a black flag. No pirate would be fool enough to willingly engage a fighting ship like Bellomont and Livingston’s privateer. Nor would any pirate ever be stupid enough to show his true colors to such a fighting ship.

  Moreover, even if the pirate killer did manage to overtake a pirate on the high seas, there would be little likelihood of finding booty aboard her since it was not the pirate custom to remain long under sail after making a big score but rather to get quickly to some safe haven and there share out the plunder. As for rooting the pirates out of their bases on Madagascar, no single ship, no matter how well armed, could possibly accomplish that objective.

  Bellomont and Livingston brushed off these objections. They told Kidd that the commission they would arrange for him to receive from the king would also empower him to capture French ships, since England and France were at war. Thus, they assured their chosen captain, there would be plenty of opportunity for him to capture plunder even if pirate vessels eluded him.

  It seems very clear that as his private conversations with Bellomont and Livingston proceeded, Kidd gained the distinct impression that he would be given great latitude in carrying out his mission. If he should find it necessary to commit any “irregularities” in the course of it, such as “requisitioning” supplies from the East India Company, the great men backing the project would protect him.

  “Lord Bellomont assured me again and again,” Kidd later wrote, “that the noble lords would stifle all complaints.”

  Whether Bellomont or Livingston deliberately fostered this impression in Kidd’s mind, or whether it was due to Kidd’s own propensity for fooling himself and for misconstruing the intentions of others, it is impossible to tell. It was probably a combination of Kidd’s fantasy and Bellomont and Livingston’s guile that created the perception that the mission would be carried out under special auspices and that the captain’s role in that mission would be a lofty one: He would be, in effect, the king’s own privateer.

  With this fantasy before his eyes, Kidd consented to captain the enterprise.

  On October 10, 1695, Lord Bellomont, Livingston, and Captain Kidd met to sign a final agreement covering their project. The contract called for Bellomont and his high-ranking partners to put up 80 percent of th
e cost of the venture. Livingston and Kidd would put up the rest, some £1,500. The document also spelled out how the booty was to be shared: 10 percent to the Crown; 55 percent for Bellomont and his backers; 22.5 percent to the crew; and 12.5 percent for Kidd and Livingston. If there should be no booty, Kidd and Livingston agreed to pay back all the money put up by their sponsors, retaining the ship as their own compensation.

  There were other clauses as well: Kidd was to sign his crew on a “no prey, no pay” basis. He was to complete his cruise and report to Bellomont in Boston no later than March 20, 1697, with all his booty intact—at which time the spoils would be properly assessed and divided by an Admiralty court. Kidd was also required to put up a good conduct and performance bond of £20,000. A similar bond for £10,000 would be posted by Livingston.

  As a veteran privateer captain Kidd must have realized that this agreement placed him in a dangerously vulnerable position: He had to find booty—or he would suffer grievous financial harm, since he and Livingston would have to make good any losses to their backers if the venture failed. Furthermore, if anything went wrong—if his crew mutinied, for example, or a friendly ship was attacked in error, he alone would be responsible.

  Moreover, as a more than competent seaman, Kidd must also have recognized that it would be impossible for him to accomplish his mission by the deadline spelled out in the agreement. It was simply not feasible to prepare a ship, sail to the Indian Ocean, capture elusive pirates laden with spoil—almost all as well as or better armed than he would be—and then bring his prizes halfway around the world again to Boston—and do it all in fourteen months. Why, it would take at least two months just to reach the Cape.

  What is more, it could not have escaped Kidd’s notice that because of King William’s War, much of France’s merchant fleet was concentrated in European waters and operating as privateers against the English. Potential French prey in the eastern seas would not be plentiful.

  Finally, topping all these negative factors was one further reality: To finance his share of the expedition Kidd would have to sell his sloop, Antegoa. From Kidd’s point of view, the whole scheme seemed a poor risk indeed.

  Nevertheless, he signed the agreement proffered by Bellomont.

  Why did he accede to so dubious and unfair a contract? No doubt he felt trapped by Bellomont’s veiled threats against him, as well as flattered by the thought that he would be serving the king and the great men of the realm. He may also have been confident that the strictures written into his agreement would not apply in reality, and hopeful that completion of his mission to the East would bring that which he hungered after: a command in the Royal Navy.

  Captain Kidd, it would seem, was blinded by the peculiar defect in his makeup that caused him to believe a thing true because he wished it so. There is no other way to explain Kidd’s acceptance of the deal offered to him by Bellomont and Livingston, except to say that he refused to acknowledge the reality of his situation.

  Now, with Kidd signed up for the voyage, events moved rapidly. In December 1695 the Admiralty issued a commission to Kidd, empowering him to “apprehend, seize, and take the Ships, Vessels, and Goods belonging to the French King or his Subjects or Inhabitants within the dominions of the said French King; and such other Ships, Vessels, and Goods as are or shall be liable to confiscation.”

  In January 1696 Kidd received a special commission signed by the king himself.

  “To our Trusty and well-beloved Captain Kidd,” it began. It then instructed Kidd to seize pirates wherever he found them, but added: “We do hereby jointly charge and command you, as you will answer the same at your utmost Peril, That you do not, in any manner, offend or molest any of our Friends or Allies, their Ships or Subjects.”

  During this time Kidd also had had audiences with the Earl of Romney and with Admiral Sir Edward Russell, the first sea lord. These great dignitaries, both investors in the privateer scheme, applauded Kidd’s mission. Their attentions no doubt further fed Kidd’s fantasy of present protection and future preferment.

  As Kidd himself wrote later about his state of mind during this period: “I, thinking myself safe with a King’s commission and protection of so many great men, accepted, thinking it was in my Lord Bellomont’s power as Governor of New York, to oppress me if I still continued obstinate. Before I went to sea I waited twice on my Lord Romney and Admiral Russell. Both hastened me to sea, and promised to stand by me.”

  For William Kidd the die was now cast.

  He had already chosen his ship for the voyage. She was a 287-ton three-masted vessel named Adventure Galley that had been specially designed for speed, maneuverability, and armament. Ship’s carpenters at Deptford on the Thames, where she was being fitted out, had equipped her with special adaptations for her mission: oars, for example, to allow her to maneuver during notorious Indian Ocean calms, and an enormous spread of sail to give her extra speed. Under full sail Adventure Galley could make fourteen knots. Even becalmed, her forty-six oars would give her three knots of speed. Only 124 feet from stem to stern, she had been built flush-decked, adding to her nimbleness when under way and permitting her to carry a greater spread of sail. She carried thirty-four guns, and Kidd was confident that she would prove the equal of any vessel she was likely to encounter in the Indian Ocean.

  Kidd chose his crew with great care. He wanted no potential mutineers, no officer who would, like Robert Culliford, seize Adventure Galley and go off “on his own account.”

  Kidd carefully recruited 70 honest sailors, most of them married men with families in England. With this crew, less than half the ship’s full complement of 150, he intended to sail across the Atlantic to New York where he would settle his personal business, visit briefly with his family, explain his mission to associates, and recruit an additional 80 men.

  At the end of February 1696, Adventure Galley slid down the Thames to begin her fateful voyage.

  Matters went wrong from the start.

  As Adventure Galley proceeded downriver she encountered a Royal Navy yacht near Greenwich. Kidd failed to dip his colors to the naval vessel as custom dictated. The yacht then fired a shot across Adventure Galley’s bow as a reminder of the respect that a privateer owed to any ship of the Royal Navy. Kidd’s crew then delivered an incredible insult to the naval vessel: They turned and slapped their backsides derisively in the direction of the yacht.

  It was a stupid and gratuitous affront. It was probably traceable to Kidd’s delusion that his commission made him the equal of an officer in the Royal Navy, and Adventure Galley the equal of a Royal Navy man-of-war. Thus he did not consider it necessary to salute the yacht—and his crew’s insolent mockery had been no more than a sailor’s rude statement in support of his captain. The incident, however, was to cost Kidd dear.

  When he later anchored, still in the Thames, a Royal Navy press gang, probably under specific orders, came aboard Adventure Galley and carried off more than twenty of Kidd’s handpicked crew. Furiously Kidd brandished his commission at the press-gang’s officer. Angrily he protested that he was on the king’s business and was not to be treated with such high-handed contempt. But the Royal Navy officer directing the press gang ignored all Kidd’s protestations. He had his duty—and no doubt he took great pleasure in discomfiting the arrogant privateer who had insulted His Majesty’s navy.

  After the loss of his best men, Kidd, certain that his special commission exempted Adventure Galley from the ravages of a navy press gang, hurried off to complain to one of his powerful patrons, Admiral Russell. While he might not have agreed with Kidd that Adventure Galley was the equal of a navy frigate, Admiral Russell did order that Kidd’s abducted crewmen be returned to him. In the event, the Royal Navy delivered twenty seamen back to Adventure Galley—but they were not the same men whom Kidd had earlier lost to the press gang. Instead they were a score of hardcases and troublemakers whom the Royal Navy was glad to get rid of.

  Realizing that he was not likely to get any satisfaction from the
Royal Navy, Kidd set sail for New York. On the way he captured a French fishing boat, a lawful prize that he took to New York with him.

  Arriving in New York in July, Kidd sold the French fishing boat and used the proceeds to purchase additional provisions for the long cruise to eastern waters.

  Obtaining the additional eighty men he needed, however, turned out to be more difficult than Kidd had anticipated. New York was at that time a major port in the Pirate Round, a place where seamen were more interested in sailing as pirates than in sailing as pirate catchers. There was little interest in an expedition in which the crew’s share would amount to less than one quarter of whatever booty they took.

  In order to attract new hands, therefore, Kidd—in conscious violation of his agreement with his backers and acting on his own authority—drastically revised the ship’s articles of Adventure Galley: The crew would now receive 60 percent of any profits rather than the 22.5 percent stipulated in Kidd’s agreement with Bellomont and Livingston. Probably Kidd convinced himself that he could explain away this arbitrary decision when the time came. Perhaps he also felt that as the king’s privateer, his mission was so important he was justified in changing the terms of his agreement with his backers in order to carry it out.

  Eventually Kidd managed to sign on enough men to fill out his crew of 150. Many of them were the dregs of the New York waterfront: drifters, ex-privateers, deserters, and a variety of toughs. Benjamin Fletcher, who was still governor pending Lord Bellomont’s appearance in the New World, observed the new crewmen of Adventure Galley with a cynical eye. “Many flocked to him from all parts, men of desperate fortunes, and necessities in expectation of getting treasure,” Fletcher wrote of Kidd’s New York recruits. “It is generally believed here, that if he misses the design named in his commission, he will not be able to govern such a villainous herd.”