For over a week these two wretched men were kept in their hiding-place, and once more Kidd put to sea. A Portuguese man-of-war having been sent to cruise after him, he engaged her for six hours, but as he could not take her, and as he was the swifter sailer, he cleared off. Soon afterwards he became possessor of a Moorish ship by a very subtle quibble, which indicated the man’s astuteness. The vessel was under the command of a Dutch skipper, and as soon as Kidd gave her chase, the pirate hoisted French colours. When the merchantship saw this, she also showed the French ensign. The Adventure soon overtook her and hailed her in French. The merchantship, having a Frenchman on board, answered in that language. Kidd ordered her to send her boat aboard, and then asked the Frenchman—a passenger—if he had a pass for himself. The latter replied in the affirmative. Kidd then told the Frenchman he must pass as captain, “and,” he added, “you are captain.” His intention was simply this. Remembering the terms of his commission, he was untruthfully insisting that the merchantman was French and therefore legally his prize. It was a bare-faced quibble, and one wonders why so unprincipled a man should deem it necessary to go out of his way to make such a pretence.
So he relieved the ship of her cargo and sold it later on. Presently, as he began to suffer from qualms of conscience and declined to attack a Dutch ship with which they came up, his crew mutinied, and one day, whilst a man named Moore, his gunner, was on deck discussing the Dutch ship, Moore so far lost control of his tongue as to accuse Kidd of having ruined them all. The pirate answered this complaint by calling him a dog, taking up a bucket and breaking the man’s skull therewith, so that he died the next day. Kidd now cruised about the Malabar coast, plundering craft, taking in water and supplies from the shore, and pillaging when he liked.
And now he came up with a fine 400-ton Moorish merchantman named the Queda, whose master was an Englishman named Wright, for it was by no means rare for these Eastern owners to employ English or Dutch skippers, as the latter were such good seamen and navigators. Kidd as before chased her under French colours, and having got abreast of her compelled her to hoist out her boat and send it aboard. He then informed Wright he was to consider himself a prisoner, and he learnt that there were only three Europeans on board—two Dutch and one Frenchman—the rest being either Indians or Armenians. The last mentioned were also part-owners of the cargo. Kidd set the crew of this vessel ashore at different places along the coast, and soon sold about £10,000 worth of the captured cargo, so that each man had about £200, whilst Kidd got £8000.
Putting part of his own crew into the Queda, Kidd took the Adventure and the prize southwards to Madagascar, and when he had come to anchor a ludicrous incident occurred. For there came off to him a canoe containing several Englishmen who had previously known Kidd well. They now saluted him and said they understood that he had come to take them and hang them, “which would be a little unkind in such an old acquaintance.” But Kidd at once put them at their ease, swearing he had no such intention, and that he was now in every respect their brother, and just as bad as they; and calling for alcohol he drank their captain’s health. The men then returned on board their ship Resolution. But by now, after all her travels backwards and forwards over the ocean, the Adventure had become very leaky and her two pumps had to be kept going continuously. So Kidd transferred all the tackle and guns from her to the Queda, and in future made her his home. He then divided up the spoil on the sharing principle as before. About a hundred of his men now deserted him, and, with his forty men and about £20,000 in his ship, he put to sea, bound at last for America again, for he was under orders to report to Bellomont at the end of the cruise.
He arrived at the West Indies, called at one of the Leeward islands and learnt that the news of his piracies had spread over the civilised world, and he was wanted as a pirate. The date was now April 1699. He handed over the Queda to a man named Bolton who was a merchant at Antigua, and bought from him a sloop named the San Antonio, into which he put all his treasure. He must now press on and swear to Bellomont that he was innocent of piracy. Being anxious to communicate with his wife, Kidd steered for Long Island Sound, proceeded as far as Oyster Bay, landed, and sent her a message, and after going on his northward voyaging, transferred some of his treasure into three sloops. Towards the end of June he headed for Boston, arriving there on the 1st July, where he had various interviews with Bellomont. The sloop and her contents, as well as the other three sloops’ goods were arrested, and Kidd was afterwards taken across to England. He and six others were tried at a sessions of Admirality at the Old Bailey in May 1701 for piracy and robbery on the high seas, and found guilty. Kidd was further charged with the murder of the man Moore in the bucket incident, and also found guilty.
Kidd’s defence was that the man mutinied against him, that his accusers had committed perjury and that he was “the most innocent person of them all.” But the Court thought otherwise, and a week or so later he and the other six men were executed at the Execution Dock, and afterwards their bodies were hung up in chains, at intervals along the river, where they remained for a long time.
Of the treasure which was brought by Kidd to America, and has frequently been sought for by treasure-hunters unavailingly, the exact total of gold dust, gold coins, gold bars; silver rings, silver buttons, broken silver, silver bars; precious stones—diamonds, rubies, green stones, and so on—reached the following enormous amount—
| Gold | 1111 | oz. |
| Silver | 2353 | ” |
| Jewels | 17 | ” |
A certain amount of plate and money was successfully retained by Kidd’s wife, and of what was left of the booty after payment of the legal fees involved in his trial, the sum of £6472 was, by special Act of Parliament, handed over to Greenwich Hospital.[2]