Captain William Kidd and Others of the Buccaneers

by John S. C. Abbott

“We enjoin you to keep an exact journal of your proceedings, giving the names of the ships you may capture, the names of their officers and crew, and the value of their cargoes, and stores. And we command you, at your peril, that you do not molest our friends or allies under any pretence of authority hereby granted. Given the 26th of January, 1695.”

Captain Kidd at the same time received another document, which was called a commission of reprisals. This authorized him, as a privateersman, to take any French merchant ships he might chance to meet; for there was then war between France and England.

A ship was purchased, for thirty thousand dollars, called the Adventure. Of this sum, Captain Kidd and Mr. Livingston furnished three thousand each. The remainder was contributed by the Earls Bellomont and Romney, Lord Chancellor Somers, the Lord High Admiral, the Duke of Shrewsbury, and Sir Henry Harrison. The king, rather ingloriously, paid nothing. He purchased his share in the enterprise by the royal patronage.

It seems that Captain Kidd was a man of high reputation at that time. It was a large amount of property to be intrusted to his hands; for the vessel and its outfit must have cost at least fifty thousand dollars. Mr. Livingston became Kidd’s security that he would faithfully discharge his duties and account for all his captures. It is said that Kidd was not pleased with this arrangement, as he was very unwilling that Mr. Livingston should be his bondsman. He probably, even then, felt that it might prove an obstacle in his future course. The operations of the human mind are often inexplicable. He might wish to steal the ship and turn pirate on his own account. And he could not honorably do this while his friend was his bondsman. Such pressure was put upon him that he was constrained to yield.

Armed with the royal commission, and in command of the Adventure, Captain Kidd sailed from Plymouth, England, in May, 1696. The frigate had an armament of thirty guns, and a crew of eighty men. He was ordered to render his accounts to the Earl of Bellomont in New York. He sailed up the Narrows, into New York harbor, in July. His wife and children were in his home there. In crossing the Atlantic, Captain Kidd came across a French merchantman, which he captured. The prize was valued at but seventeen hundred dollars. This was considered a legitimate act of war.

Captain Kidd knew full well that the enemy he was to encounter would fight with the utmost desperation, and that he might meet a fleet of piratic ships, or a single ship, more powerful in men and armament than his own. He therefore sent out recruiting officers through the streets of New York, to enlist volunteers. The terms he offered were that every man should have an equal share of every prize that was taken, after reserving for himself and the owners forty shares. With these offers he soon increased his crew to one hundred and fifty-five men.

Sailing from the harbor of New York, he made first for Madeira, to lay in a stock of wine. Then he directed his course to the Cape de Verd Islands, for a supply of salt and provisions. Having obtained these, he spread his canvas for a long voyage around the Cape of Good Hope, to the Island of Madagascar, on the eastern coast of Africa. This island had become renowned as one of the most important rendezvouses of the pirates.

Madagascar is larger than Great Britain. The pirates, by aid of their firearms, their desperate courage, and their superior intelligence, had gained possession of a considerable portion of the island. The natives were an inefficient race, copper-colored, with long, black hair. The pirates had treated them with such enormous cruelty, that the savages fled before them as if they had been demons.

In this retreat, so far distant from the abodes of civilization, the buccaneers had reared forts, and built mansions which they had converted into harems. From their voyages they returned here enriched with the plundered commerce of the world, to revel in all sensual indulgence. They made slaves of their prisoners; married, in their rude way any number they pleased of the most beautiful of the native females; “so that every one,” writes one of their number, “had as great a seraglio as the Grand Seignior at Constantinople. At length they began to separate from each other, each living with his own wives, slaves, and dependants, like independent princes. As power and plenty naturally beget contention, they sometimes quarrelled, and attacked each other at the head of their several armies. In these civil wars many of them were killed.”

These reckless men used their power like tyrants. They grew wanton in cruelty. Nothing was more common than, upon the slightest displeasure, to cause one of their dependants to be tied to a tree and shot through the heart. The natives combined for their extermination. The plan would have succeeded but for betrayal by a woman. They trembled in view of their narrow escape, and combined for mutual defence.