In the wake of the buccaneers

by A. Hyatt Verrill

To recount the lengthy proceedings which ensued would avail nothing and would add no interest to Kidd’s story. Suffice it to say that eventually he gave himself up to the authorities in Boston, relying upon promises of a fair trial. From there he was taken as a prisoner to England, and, after innumerable delays, rank perversions of justice, and the breaking of many promises, the unfortunate [[100]]captain was placed on trial at Old Bailey in May, 1701.

The trial was from first to last a travesty of justice. Instead of confining themselves to the case in hand, Kidd’s accusers charged him with the murder of one of his own men (a gunner named Moore), and the charge of piracy was made secondary. Kidd freely admitted that he had killed Moore, but asserted that the man was mutinous—in fact, the ringleader of those who favored piracy—and that as a master of the ship he had a perfect right to kill a mutineer. As for the charges that he had piratically captured the Queda, Kidd explained as aforementioned that the prize had been taken despite him and not because of him, and that he was on the way to report the unfortunate affair when he touched at Santo Domingo. Throughout the trial, proofs and evidence requested by Kidd and promised him were withheld and only theories were admitted, and such damning evidence as the words of his own men. As a result of this farcical trial, Kidd and six of his men who had remained faithful to their captain were condemned to be hanged at Execution Dock, on May 23d. Protesting his innocence to the very last,—even when the rope gave way and, half-strangled, he was lifted up to be rehanged,—Kidd met his death. [[101]]Later his body and those of his men were hung in chains down the river, and for many years the rattling skeletons, with clinging shreds of garments and skin, swung in the wind on the dreary mud flats of the Thames, the most disgraceful witnesses to perverted justice that ever passing mariners gazed upon.

But though he died an ignominious death for crimes which he probably never committed, Kidd’s martyrdom resulted in his becoming the most famous character of piratical lore, who left a name which will never die. And this is all the more remarkable because, even if we assumed that all the charges against him were true, he would have been a mediocre pirate, having but one rich prize to his score—a small matter indeed to have been the foundation for such fame and a reputation as the master of them all.

Far more romantic and picturesque than “Bold Captain Kidd” was that other sea-rover whose name is associated with the Virgin Islands, but never heard outside the chronicles of the buccaneers and by those who have delved into the story of the corsairs of the Caribbean.

Perhaps no one who has ever lived is more worthy of the title of Don Quixote of the Deep than this [[102]]man—the wild, romantic, restless, tireless, and ambitious Prince Rupert of the Rhine, who in his ship Swallow experienced more adventures and met with more romances than any score of other corsairs. Impetuous, high-strung, nervous, the royal pirate could never be idle for a moment; and it was his terror of doing nothing that drove him from privateering to pirating.

Originally sailing forth to aid his king’s cause against Spain, Prince Rupert departed from Ireland in 1648, with a fleet of seven ships and accompanied by his brother, Prince Maurice, who captained the Defiance. To paraphrase Longfellow, wild was the life they led, many the souls that sped, for the next five years, and the handsome, brilliant prince, whose “sparkish” dress was ever the envy and admiration of all beholders, mingled piracy and knight errantry in an inextricable manner. Indeed, this wilful scion of royalty was ever a champion of the ladies and an irresistible lover, and even when—long before he took to the sea—he was a prisoner at Linz, he managed to win the heart of the governor’s daughter.

But even this musketeer of the sea was fated for the buccaneer’s usual short life and merry one. Being caught in a storm among the Virgin Islands one September night, his fleet was driven ashore [[103]]on low-lying, reef-guarded Anegada, and of all that company few remained to tell the tale. While the Swallow escaped and Prince Rupert survived, Prince Maurice was lost, and, heartbroken, the pirate prince set sail for home, in his crippled ship, and landed in France in 1653. But the blow had saddened him, the sea no longer called, and quietly and obscurely he lived in his home at Spring Gardens, England, until in 1682 he succumbed to a fever and passed away, almost unknown and unnoticed.

What a contrast was his life to that of Captain Kidd! The one a romantic, reckless, chivalrous, venturesome pirate, never content save in the thick of battle, and yet dying in his bed, his deeds forgotten, his name dying with him. The other a meek, timid, vacillating seaman, lacking the courage to keep his crew in check and dying a felon’s death on the gibbet, and yet living on through the centuries, his name woven into countless tales and verses, and by a single deed—which it is doubtful that he ever performed—making himself immortal as the greatest pirate of them all! And as desolate Anegada rose like some sinister sea-monster upon the horizon, I thought of how unjust is fame and how little men’s real deeds count in the reputation they gain. [[104]]

Ringed round with jagged coral reefs marked by the angry surf, the island is guarded more efficiently than with a battery of guns. So low it is that often it is called the “Drowned” or “Overflowed” Island, for in heavy weather the waves actually sweep across it in places. Nearly twelve miles it stretches in length, with a breadth of barely two miles, and its only inhabitants are blacks; while on its great landlocked lagoons or ponds the grotesque rose-and-scarlet flamingos still find sanctuary.

As we approached this bit of sodden land which meant so much to the buccaneers of old, there seemed to be no entrance through the churning, seething cauldron of foam that stretched away in a stupendous semicircle. But Sam never faltered. Shading his reddened eyes with a huge black hand, he peered intently shoreward, and then, with a twirl of the wheel and a bellowed order to the crew, headed the plunging Vigilant straight for the white water. Breathlessly I waited, and great was my trust in Sam or I most certainly should have hastily donned a life-preserver and said my prayers, for to all appearances the Bahaman had decided that this was a fitting spot on which to pile the ancient Vigilant’s bones.