Pirate tales from the law

by Arthur M. Harris

Of course, if he got a Frenchman, he was not entitled to the captive’s goods, wares and merchandise. Enemy ships were to be brought into the nearest British port and by the proper authorities condemned. He had a blank check signed only on the sea-robbers’ banks.

These things arranged, the trusty and well-beloved William Kidd, twice commissioned, competed with the active press-gangs for eighty good and faithful seamen among the taverns of Wapping and the wet alleys of Blackwall.

II

Spring’s early smile was broadening to a merry laugh amid the bushes and hedgerows of old England when the Adventure drew out of Plymouth for the East Indies, by way of New York. Past the fishing boats, the west coasters and an anchored man-of-war she slipped, on one of the most unusual errands that had ever engaged a ship clearing from that ancient port. It was probably a great morning on which to begin a voyage, with a sparkle on the waters and an edge to the sea air that must have sent the chanty rolling up from hardy throats and put a snappiness in strong muscles that labored zestfully at rope and windlass.

Putting out to sea on a fine morning is one of the peculiar delights of healthy folk. At such a time one does not reckon on never returning—that might be the fate of the other man, not ours—yet of the eighty men obeying Kidd as captain that morning many had set their last foot on the soil of home.

Like the new broom of adage, the Adventure bowled across the Atlantic to the western colony in seaman fashion in the quite creditable time of a month. She was not, in fact, a sound ship. Long before the Indian seas had been harvested her crew were calling her names, such as “Leaky and crazy” and what not. It turned out that she had the qualities of a good sponge, being absorbent at almost every seam and requiring constantly to be squeezed dry with the pumps.

So it was something to reach New York without misadventure. Off the Banks they took in a small French fisherman unlucky enough to get in their way. She was sent into New York for condemnation. This appears to have been the first and last time that Kidd lawfully employed himself under his two commissions. A trifling take it was, to be sure, but it gave Kidd’s arrival in New York quite the air of officialism.

Kidd purposed to recruit eighty more men at New York; evidently he esteemed the colonial sailorman as much as him of the mother country. To do this he caused to be printed and set up in various gossip spots about town enticing handbills inviting adventurers. The meat of the call was that there was plunder a-plenty to be taken from the East Indian pirates, and lots of fun for a stalwart man in the taking.

Men accepted would be placed upon a fair share basis, after deducting twenty-five per cent of the profits for the ship. He had no trouble attracting a crew. In fact so hearty was the response that there were fears in the colony that its man power would be depleted. Strong arms were needed against the Frenchman, Indians and whatever other perils might befall an isolated community far from the protection of the mother country in times such as those were.

Contemporaries do not speak squeamishly about an element of Kidd’s crew. Well, the captain asked no disingenuous questions and for more than one fellow in a tight pinch it was a lucky way of escape. Many others were no doubt decent, respectable men intrigued by the prospect of vividly imagined gains. The less definite the harvest of a speculation the more it seems will men greedily pursue it. So Kidd finally herded some one hundred and sixty men all told on the deck for watch divisions when the Adventure was geared for sea.