On reaching the Red Sea, he waited for three weeks at Bab’s Key, a small island at its entrance, a convenient station for observing all ships going into or out of that sea. It was alleged at his trial by Palmer, one of the two men who became King’s evidence, that he said on one occasion to his men, whilst waiting here, “Come, boys, I will make money enough out of that fleet.” Little credence is to be attached to Palmer’s evidence, as will be seen hereafter. But assuming that Kidd made use of these words, they are susceptible of a perfectly innocent interpretation. Kidd was on the lookout not only for pirates but also for French ships. It was not improbable that some of the vessels in the Mecca fleet would be ships belonging to Frenchmen, or sailing under French colours to the French factories in India, in which case he would have had a perfect right to seize them under his letters of marque. It was also by no means improbable that he might catch some of the Madagascar pirates in pursuit of, or possibly in possession of, the fleet or some part of it, in which case it would clearly have been his bounden duty under his commission to seize the pirates and the ships which they had captured. In either of these events he would, to use the words attributed to him by Palmer, have made money enough out of the fleet.
There is some conflict of evidence as to what actually happened on the fourteenth of August, when the fleet came by. One thing is certain, that either before or after Kidd came among them, they flew English and Dutch colours, and that a fire was opened on Kidd from one or both of their convoys. It also appears that “sundry shots were fired from Kidd’s ship,” possibly with the object of bringing the ships to, in order that explanations might be forthcoming from both sides. On this point an attempt made on the part of the prosecution by both their witnesses to mislead the jury was frustrated by Kidd. Palmer had led them to believe that Kidd was the aggressor. “I ask this one thing,” said Kidd. “Did the Mecca fleet fire first at me or I at them?”
Palmer. “No; they fired first.”
Kidd. “And just now, the other” (that is, Bradenham) “said I fired first. Is he not perjured?”
Mr. Justice Turton. “Mr. Bradenham, did he fire first or no?”
Bradenham. “He fired at them. I only said, you fired at them. I did not say first or last.”
No harm was done by the shots on either side; and the fleet went by without any interchange of explanations. It was no fault of Kidd’s that its convoys mistook him for a pirate, of which there were undoubtedly plenty in those parts. But the failure of his plan to make money out of it cannot have added to his prestige with his crew.
Leaving Bab’s Key, the Adventure Galley stood back across the Arabian Sea and cruised again along the coast of Malabar, the only coast on which there is the slightest suggestion that Kidd ever committed any act of piracy. In considering his doings and those of his men here, and the construction placed on them first by the East India Company, and afterwards by the prosecution at his trial, several things must be borne in mind. At that time there were in India not only English, but Portuguese and French factories. Little love was lost between them, and there was open war between England and France. English and American pirates had been for some time past preying on the coast trade, and the Adventure Galley might very reasonably be mistaken for a pirate by any ship which she chased. The coast trade was carried on mainly in vessels manned by Asiatics with, in some cases, two or three Europeans on board. The wily Indian had by this time learned the advantage of carrying Europeans of more than one nationality in each ship, so that if caught by a ship carrying French colours, he might produce a Frenchman as the owner, and if caught by an English ship an Englishman. It was Kidd’s plain duty to take as prizes any French vessels he came across, and with that end in view to examine carefully every ship which he had reason to suspect was French. He knew very little of the coast or of the Eastern languages, and stood greatly in need of a pilot and an interpreter, or, as he was then termed by seamen, a “linguister.” His crew were becoming unruly, and whenever he left his ship to examine personally any suspected prize, he ran the risk of their putting to sea and leaving him in the lurch. The first vessel he was accused at his trial of having plundered was a small one, of little value, manned by Armenians, with two Europeans on board, an Englishman and a Portuguese. He engaged the Englishman as a pilot and the Portuguese as a “linguister.” There is no reason to doubt that both these men were thankful to get on board a European ship again and to join his ship’s company, as others in similar circumstances admittedly did afterwards.
The ship itself with its Armenian crew he allowed to proceed on its course after a few days’ detention. Before it left him, some misunderstanding seems unfortunately to have arisen between the English seamen on board of her and the Armenians; and it is alleged that on this occasion the former hung up four of the latter and spanked them with the flats of their cutlasses. Kidd’s defence, and there is no reason to doubt that it was a perfectly genuine defence so far as he was concerned, was that he had nothing whatever to do with this fracas and that he did not go on board the ship at all. It was further alleged by the King’s evidence that his men took out of her a bale of coffee and a bale of pepper and some beeswax. Whether they neglected to give adequate money or goods in exchange is not stated, but as it is admitted that Kidd trafficked with many of the ships which he met on this coast, it is not unreasonable to suppose that he did so with this one. At any rate, there is no good reason to believe that he was a party to the theft of these paltry articles.
The next vessel he met was a Portuguese man-of-war which attacked him without the slightest provocation, taking him possibly for one of the pirates of whom he was in quest, or possibly for some less reputable reason. Here again, Palmer, the King’s evidence, tried to give the jury the false impression that Kidd was the aggressor.