It is a wonder that he did not exterminate the town. Mere ruthlessness, however, would not seem a part of his disposition. In this matter of the cooper there cannot be much question that the final responsibility must fall upon the captain, whose failure to keep order among his men made their acts of provocation possible.
With these two incidents of the gunner and the cooper to lend action to his sojourn, Kidd lay about Malabar until November, 1697, was advanced. He then pulled up his anchor and breezed out to the Arabian Sea seeking what or whom he might devour. The lot fell on a Moorish ship, out from Surat, under the command of a Dutch skipper.
On sighting her, Kidd went to the flag locker where he had a bundle of symbolic aliases and picked out the flag of France, and flung it brightly from his topmast. The Moor was wallowing along without any insignia of nationality, but before very long, the Adventure’s men saw her shake out the French flag. Whereupon everybody laughed in deep chests and kept smoothly to the pursuit.
After some hours of comfortable sailing the Adventure pulled alongside the Moor, and confronting her with a row of gleaming cannon bade her stop. No doubt the agitated Dutchman in command supposed that he had been intercepted by a French ship of war, and so, stowing certain ship’s papers, doubtless prepared for just such earnest moments, in his pocket he obeyed Kidd’s hoarse bellow to come aboard. While his boat was coming over to the Adventure, Kidd was arranging a reception for him of an artful kind.
He called one of the crew, a Frenchman, aft and bade him represent himself to be the captain of the Adventure in the pending interview with the Dutchman. Just why would soon be shown.
Over the side came the Dutch skipper with a puffed, perturbed face. The Frenchman met him and demanded his papers. With something of relief the skipper must have pulled out the French passes, or clearance papers, he had taken the precaution to bring on the voyage with him. He was relieved because he found himself on an undoubted French ship and happily with French shipping papers; he felt among friends.
No sooner was the French pass spread out than Kidd, standing close by, toying with the handle of his cutlass, roared out in frightening English:
“Ah ha, I have catched you, have I. You are a free prize to England.”
This action shows that Kidd was not ready to avow himself a pirate. As such, there would have been no need for the subterfuge of French colors and a French captain; he had force enough to accomplish his intent as it was. The truth of the thing most likely was that Kidd coolly calculated that he could take ships under color of being Frenchmen, or some other excuse, and that even the despoiled vessels would not necessarily know his real status. He seems always to have had an eye to an early return to his accustomed social position. This, if anything, distinguishes Kidd from the typical pirate and so far denies the traditional picture of fiction.
Out of this small Moorish ship the haul was meager. Two horses, some quilts and odds and ends of cargo. He kept the ship with him until his next trip to Madagascar; probably, according to his custom, putting the officers ashore at Malabar, and recruiting his forces with any of the captives who wished to go along with him.