Under the Black Flag

by David Cordingly

  Kidd was a victim of circumstance, but he was also the victim of defects in his character. He seems to have had some of the same traits as Captain Bligh of the Bounty. He was a good seaman, but he had a violent temper and a fatal inability to earn the respect of his crew. Unlike Bligh, who was a small man, Kidd was large and powerful and bullied his men. He was constantly engaged in arguments and quarrels. A local agent who met him at the Indian port of Carwar described him as a “very lusty man, fighting with his men on any occasion, often calling for his pistols and threatening any one that durst speak anything contrary to his mind to knock out their brains, causing them to dread him.…”4 He annoyed dockworkers and sea captains by his arrogant manner and his habit of boasting about his grand connections. He deluded himself about his motives and his actions when he turned pirate in the Indian Ocean, and no doubt deserved the biting comment which was made by a Member of Parliament at the time of his trial: “I thought him only a knave. I now know him to be a fool as well.”5

  William Kidd was born about 1645 at Greenock, the Scottish port on the Firth of Clyde. His father was a Presbyterian minister. Nothing is known of his early years except that he went to sea, and by 1689 had become the captain of a privateer in the Caribbean. While in command of the ship Blessed William, he joined a squadron led by Captain Hewetson of the Royal Navy which raided the French island of Marie Galante and then fought a pitched battle with five French warships off the island of St. Martin. Unfortunately, Kidd’s crew were more interested in buccaneering than in fighting for their country, and soon after they dropped anchor at Nevis, they seized Kidd’s ship and sailed away without him. However, the Governor of Nevis was grateful for Kidd’s actions against the French and presented him with a recently captured French vessel, which was renamed the Antigua.

  In 1691 Kidd arrived in New York in command of his new vessel. On May 16 he married a wealthy widow, Sarah Oort, and in due course they moved into a fine house in Pearl Street at the southern end of Manhattan Island, near the quays of the old harbor. For the next four years Kidd developed business interests, cultivated friendships with politicians and merchants, and did some occasional privateering. He seems to have become bored with this life, and in 1695 he sailed for England, hoping to make his fortune from privateering.

  With the help of Robert Livingstone, a New York entrepreneur who arrived in London around the same time, Kidd set about looking for sponsors who would put up the money for a privateering voyage. After much lobbying they gained the support of Lord Bellomont, a Member of Parliament and a staunch supporter of the ruling Whig party. Bellomont was in need of money and was to play a key role in the story because he had recently been nominated Governor of Massachusetts Bay. The three men devised an unusual scheme for making money: they would form a syndicate, buy a powerful ship, and dispatch it to the Indian Ocean to capture the pirates who were plundering shipping and selling the stolen goods to merchants in New York. Bellomont agreed to find financial backers for the venture, while Kidd undertook to command the ship and to recruit the crew under the usual privateering system of “no purchase, no pay.”

  Bellomont persuaded four other Whig peers to become financial backers: the Lords Somers, Orford, Romney, and Shrewsbury. Edmund Harrison, a wealthy City merchant and a director of the East India Company, also agreed to participate, and they approached the Admiralty for a privateering commission. At this date England was still at war with France, so there was no problem about obtaining a letter of marque which authorized the capture of French ships. This did not extend to the capture of pirate ships, but the shortcoming was overcome by issuing a patent under the Great Seal signed by the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, who happened to be Lord Somers. This second commission authorized Kidd to hunt down “Pirates, Freebooters, and Sea Rovers” and in particular four pirates who were named in the document: Captain Thomas Tew, John Ireland, Thomas Wake, and William Maze, or Mace.

  The most surprising part of the whole deal was that the King himself was persuaded to take part in the venture. William III gave formal approval to the scheme and signed a warrant which authorized the partners to keep all the profits from Kidd’s captures, thus bypassing the usual arrangement whereby all prizes must be declared in the Admiralty Courts. The King was induced to agree to this unusual arrangement because Lord Shrewsbury arranged for him to reserve a share of 10 percent.

  The vessel selected for the privateering voyage was the thirty-four-gun Adventure Galley. On April 10, 1696, the Adventure Galley anchored in the Downs, and the Thames pilot was dropped off. After a brief stop at Plymouth they set off across the Atlantic to New York, where Kidd hoped to make up the crew numbers needed. News of the privateering voyage rapidly circulated on the waterfront, and he had no problem in recruiting 90 more men. When he left New York on September 6, 1696, there were 152 men in his crew. Governor Fletcher of New York described them as “men of desperate fortunes and necessitous of getting vast treasure.”

  They spent a day at Madeira to collect freshwater and provisions, then headed south. On January 27, 1697, they dropped anchor at Tulear (Toliara), a small port on the west coast of Madagascar. Kidd stayed here a month to give his men time to recover from the voyage. Several were sick with scurvy. He then sailed north to Johanna in the Comoros Islands and from there to the nearby island of Mohilla, where he careened his ship. While there he lost thirty men to tropical disease. The survivors were now becoming restless. He had taken on more men during his various stops in the Indian Ocean, and a number of former pirates had now joined the crew. The “no purchase, no pay” arrangement meant that they must capture a prize soon or go home penniless.

  Kidd decided to head for the Red Sea and see whether he could intercept one of the ships of the pilgrim fleet. He told his crew he was heading for Mocha at the mouth of the Red Sea: “Come boys, I will make money enough out of that fleet.” This was not part of his brief and was not covered by either of the privateering commissions which he carried, and so would be difficult to justify to his backers. The pilgrim fleet left Mocha on August 11, 1697, under the protection of three European ships, one of them, the thirty-six-gun Sceptre, commanded by Edward Barlow, recently promoted from first mate following the death of the captain. Barlow is much revered today among maritime historians for the vivid journal which he wrote and illustrated describing his life at sea.6 Early on the morning of August 14, Barlow spotted the Adventure Galley closing with the convoy. Ominously, she was flying the red flag of piracy at her masthead. Barlow fired his guns in warning and raised the flag of the East India Company. The wind was light, so Kidd used his oars, steered toward a Malabar ship, and fired a broadside. Barlow was not prepared to lose one of his convoy. He lowered his boats and had his crew tow the Sceptre toward Kidd’s ship. He ordered his men aloft to yell threats and fired off his guns. Kidd lost his nerve. He retreated out of range and after a while abandoned all hope of capturing a prize and sailed away.

  His situation was deteriorating fast. His ship was leaking, supplies were short, and his crew were becoming mutinous. When they encountered a small trading ship off the Malabar coast, Kidd fired a shot across her bows and came alongside her. What happened next was the turning point in Kidd’s voyage. The trader was flying English flags, and while Kidd was interviewing Captain Parker, her commander, some of Kidd’s crew tortured Parker’s men to find out where they had hidden their valuables. Several seamen were hoisted up on ropes and beaten with cutlasses. Kidd then seized provisions from Parker’s vessel and forced him to stay on board and act as a pilot.

  News of Kidd’s attack on the pilgrim fleet and on the trading vessel began to circulate among the harbors of the region, and two Portuguese warships were sent out by the Viceroy of Goa to look for the Adventure Galley. For once things went Kidd’s way. He was able to cripple the smaller of the two ships with his guns and to escape unscathed. But the lack of discipline and the piratical state of his crew were clearly demonstrated when they called in at the Laccadive Islands. The local boat
s were seized and chopped up for firewood, the native women were raped, and when their men retaliated by killing the ship’s cooper, the pirates attacked the village and beat up the inhabitants. News of these atrocities reached the mainland and further added to the catalog of Kidd’s misdemeanors.

  Two further events sealed Kidd’s fate. On October 30 an argument developed between Kidd and his gunner, William Moore. The men had been grumbling about the lack of prizes, and Kidd rounded on Moore, who was on deck sharpening a chisel, and called him a lousy dog. Moore replied, “If I am a lousy dog, you have made me so; you have brought me to ruin and many more.”7 Kidd was enraged by this remark. He picked up an iron-hooped bucket and thumped it down on the head of the gunner. Moore collapsed on the deck and was heard to say, “Farewell, farewell, Captain Kidd has given me my last.”8 The ship’s surgeon took Moore below but could do nothing for him. His skull was fractured by the blow, and he died the next day. Kidd was unrepentant. He said he had good friends in England who would save him from the consequences.

  On January 30, 1698, the Adventure Galley finally came across a prize worth taking. Off the port of Cochin on the Malabar coast of India she intercepted the 400-ton merchant ship Quedah Merchant. She had taken on a cargo of silk, calico, sugar, opium, and iron at Bengal and was heading north under the command of an English captain, John Wright. Kidd came alongside flying French flags. Most merchant ships on long voyages carried passes of several nationalities to avoid being claimed as a prize by privateers, and when Captain Wright saw Kidd’s French flags he naturally produced a French pass. This played straight into Kidd’s hand, because of course one of his letters of marque authorized him to attack and seize French ships. In fact the Quedah Merchant belonged to Armenian owners, and a considerable part of the ship’s cargo was the property of a senior official at the court of the Mogul of India.

  Kidd informed Captain Wright that he was claiming his ship as a prize, and without more ado he escorted her to the nearest port in order to sell some of her cargo and raise much-needed cash. The value of the Quedah Merchant’s cargo was estimated at somewhere between 200,000 and 400,000 rupees. Kidd sold the bulk of the goods at the port of Caliquilon for around £7,000, and then headed out to sea to look for more prizes. He captured a small Portuguese ship, looted her, and kept her as an escort. He chased the East India Company ship Sedgewick for several hours, but she escaped. He then headed back to Madagascar and, in April 1698, the Adventure Galley dropped anchor in the pirate harbor of Sainte Marie. Already at anchor was the pirate ship Resolution under the command of Robert Culliford, who had spent the last year plundering ships in the Indian Ocean. Culliford was one of a group of mutineers who had killed the captain of the East Indiaman Mocha, and taken her over. If Kidd had not already turned pirate, he should have arrested Culliford and seized his ship, because that was exactly what his commission authorized him to do. Instead Kidd assured him he meant him no harm and joined him for a drink.

  Kidd remained at Madagascar for several months, recuperating from the weeks at sea and waiting for favorable winds. The men insisted on a final share-out of the plunder, and some deserted and joined Culliford. Kidd decided to abandon the leaking and rotten Adventure Galley and took command of the Quedah Merchant, which he renamed the Adventure Prize. In the early months of 1699 (there is no record of the exact date) he set sail with a very much reduced crew of twenty and a few slaves. He headed for the West Indies and reached the little island of Anguilla in early April. There he learned that the British government, at the request of the East India Company, had declared him a pirate. No pardon was to be extended to him, and he was to be hunted down and brought to justice. He hastily stocked up with food and water and, after a stay of no more than four hours, set sail for a safer haven.

  He selected the Danish island of St. Thomas, which was commonly used by pirates as a place to sell their plundered goods, and sailed into the harbor there on April 6. He went to see the Governor of the island and tried to persuade him to offer him protection from the ships of the Royal Navy. Governor Laurents was not prepared to risk a naval blockade of his harbor and refused his request. This encounter was later reported in London with some additions to the story: “Letters from Curassau say that the famous pyrate Captain Kidd in a ship of 30 guns and 250 men offered the Governor of St. Thomas 45,000 pieces of eight in gold and a great present of goods, if he would protect him for a month, which he refused.”9

  Kidd returned to his ship, weighed anchor, and sailed onward. At the eastern end of the island of Hispaniola he sought refuge in the mouth of the Higüey River, where he moored his leaking ship to trees on the riverbank. Here he was joined by Henry Bolton, an unscrupulous trader with a shady past who had no qualms about dealing with the now-notorious pirate. Bolton and an associate agreed to buy the bales of cloth remaining in the hold of the former Quedah Merchant, and then bought the ship as well. Kidd purchased Bolton’s sloop, the Saint Antonio, and moved on board with the remnants of his crew and the profits from his various transactions.

  At this stage it became clear to Kidd that his situation was desperate. The British authorities throughout the Caribbean were on the lookout for him. Back in November Admiral Benbow had sent a letter to the governor of every American colony requesting them to “take particular care for apprehending the said Kidd and his accomplices wherever he shall arrive.”10 When the Governor of Nevis learned that Kidd was in the area, he sent HMS Queenborough to Puerto Rico to intercept him. Kidd decided that his only hope was to return to America and negotiate with his business partner Lord Bellomont, who was now Governor of New York, Massachusetts Bay, and New Hampshire. He set sail and headed north.

  The Saint Antonio reached Long Island in June, and Kidd was reunited with his wife and two daughters after an absence of three years. Negotiations began with Bellomont in Boston, but the Governor was playing a tricky political game, having one eye on his own position and one eye on Kidd’s treasure. Interviewed by Bellomont and subsequently by the Massachusetts Council, Kidd gave a detailed account of the goods and cash he had acquired from his captures. He listed the bales of silks, muslins, and calicoes; the tons of sugar and iron; fifty cannon; eighty pounds of silver and a forty-pound bag of gold. Bellomont was aware that if he handled the situation badly, Kidd was a serious danger to his career. The most satisfactory course of action was to arrest him for piracy, which would clear him of involvement in Kidd’s exploits and enable him to take a portion of Kidd’s treasure in his role as Vice Admiral of the colony. When Kidd arrived for another meeting with the Council at Boston, he found the constable waiting at the door. The constable stepped forward to arrest him and Kidd ran inside the building, yelling for Lord Bellomont. The constable ran after him, seized him, and marched him off to the town jail, with Kidd shouting and protesting as they went. Although he had earlier promised Kidd that he would obtain the King’s Pardon for him, Bellomont was able to justify his change of heart because he had received specific instructions from England to arrest Kidd. Abandoned by the only man who could have saved him, Kidd faced a sealed fate. If he had hidden on one of the Caribbean islands or gone to earth on the mainland of America, he might have survived, as many other pirates managed to do, but he was now the scapegoat for all the acts of piracy committed by a generation of pirates in the Indian Ocean.

  The news of Kidd’s exploits had been followed closely in London, which was not surprising as a number of influential people, including the King, the Lord Chancellor, and several Whig politicians, had originally taken a stake in his venture. When it was learned that Kidd had turned pirate, there were many Tory politicians who saw an opportunity to create a major scandal and bring down key members of the government. Interest was heightened by rumors that Kidd’s plunder was valued at more than £400,000. The East India Company demanded a share of the treasure to compensate for its losses in India and to repay some of the victims of Kidd’s raids. In December the whole matter was debated in the House of Commons, and there was a vote o
f censure for the Whigs’ handling of the affair. The Tories lost the vote, but the Secretary of State, Sir James Vernon, noted ominously, “Parliaments are grown into the habit of finding fault, and some Jonah or other must be thrown overboard if the storm cannot otherwise be laid.”11 Needless to say, it was Kidd who was to be the Jonah.

  In September the news that Lord Bellomont had arrested Kidd reached London, and the Admiralty ordered a warship to be sent to Boston to bring him back to England. HMS Advice arrived at Boston in February 1700 during a spell of bitterly cold weather. Kidd was escorted on board, and together with thirty-one other prisoners, he began the voyage back to England. By the time the Advice anchored in the Thames he was very ill. However, he managed to write a letter to Lord Orford, one of the sponsors of the voyage, and gave a selective and flagrantly biased account of his actions in the Indian Ocean. He maintained that he had only taken two ships, both of which had flown French flags. He claimed that his crew had forced him to commit piracy and had robbed him and destroyed his logbook and all his records. He concluded: “I am in hopes that your lordship and the rest of the Honourable gentlemen my owners will so far vindicate me I may have no injustice.”12

  While the politicians, the lords of the Admiralty, the lawyers, and the merchants assembled their evidence and interviewed witnesses, Kidd was transferred from HMS Advice to the royal yacht Katharine at Greenwich. Worn down by months of solitary confinement and illness, and allowed no legal representation or even access to any relevant papers, he gave way to despair and contemplated suicide. Dreading the thought of death by hanging, he asked for a knife so that he could end his life. He was not to be allowed such a quick end to his troubles. On April 14 the Admiralty sent its barge down to Greenwich and Kidd was rowed upstream to Whitehall. That afternoon he was led into the Admiralty building in Whitehall and cross-examined by Sir Charles Hedges, the Chief Judge of the Admiralty, in the presence of Admiral Sir George Rooke, the Earl of Bridgewater, and other dignitaries. He repeated the arguments he had presented in his letter to Lord Orford. After seven hours of questioning, Kidd was led away to Newgate Prison, where he was to remain a prisoner for the next eleven months.