The Dutchman had no consciousness of the peril to which he had been exposed. The two ships kept company for several days, and then separated. Is it possible that all this time Kidd was hesitating whether to raise the black flag and seize the prize? It looks like it; for a few days after the Dutch ship had disappeared, quite a fleet of Malabar boats were met with, laden with provisions and other articles which Kidd needed. Unscrupulously he plundered them all. Probably he had no fears that tidings of the outrage would ever reach England. And even if a rumor of the deed were ever to reach those distant shores, he had no apprehension that England would trouble herself to punish him for a little harsh treatment of semi-savages on the coast of Malabar.
A few days after this robbery a Portuguese ship hove in sight. Kidd’s moral nature was every hour growing weaker. He could no longer resist the temptation to seize the prize. He robbed the vessel of articles to the estimated value of two thousand dollars, and let her go, inflicting no injury upon the ship’s company.
For three weeks they continued to cruise over a sailless sea, when one morning, about the middle of December, an immense mass of canvas was seen rising over the distant horizon. It proved to be a native ship of four hundred tons burden. The ship was called the Quedagh Merchant, was very richly laden, and was commanded by an Englishman, Captain Wright. The wealthy merchants of the East were fully aware of the superior nautical skill of the English seaman, and were eager to intrust their important ventures to European commanders.
Kidd unfurled the French flag, chased the ship, and soon overtook it. A cannon-ball whistling over the heads of the crew was the very significant hint with which the ship was commanded to heave to. Kidd ordered the captain to lower his boat and come on board the Adventure. The captain obeyed and informed the pirate that all the crew were East Indians, excepting two Dutchmen and one Frenchman, and that the ship belonged exclusively to East-Indian merchants.
Kidd took piratic possession of the ship. He had not the shadow of a claim to it on the ground of his commission as a privateersman. He landed the officers and the crew, in boatload after boatload, upon the shore, and left them to shift for themselves. One or two of the merchants who owned the ship and cargo were on board. They offered the pirate twenty thousand rupees, which was equivalent to about fifteen thousand dollars, to ransom the property. Kidd declined the offer.
His own ship, after such long voyaging, was leaky and much in want of repairs. The Quedagh Merchant was far superior to the Adventure. He therefore transferred all his stores to his prize. The torch was applied to the Adventure, and the ill-fated ship soon disappeared in a cloud of smoke and flame. Kidd, now a confirmed pirate, directed his course toward the great rendezvous of the pirates at Madagascar. Here the prize was valued at sixty-four thousand pounds, or about three hundred and twenty thousand dollars.
Still this strange man assumed that he was acting under the royal commission, in behalf of the London company; and these treasures were the legitimate plunder of a piratic ship. He therefore reserved forty shares for himself and the company. There were about one hundred and fifty men composing this piratic crew. Each man received about two thousand dollars. Kidd’s portion amounted to nearly eighty thousand dollars.
In the pirates’ harbor at Madagascar, Kidd found a large ship, the Resolution, belonging to the East India Company, which the captain, a man by the name of Culliford, with the crew, had seized and turned into a pirate. It was clearly Kidd’s duty, under his commission, at once to attack and capture this piratic ship. When Captain Culliford saw him entering the harbor with his powerful and well-armed ship, he was terrified. The pirates had heard of Captain Kidd’s commission, and had not yet learned that he had turned pirate himself. Captain Culliford, with the gallows in vision before him, and trembling in every nerve, for there was no possibility of escape, sent some officers, in a boat, on board the Quedagh Merchant, to ascertain Captain Kidd’s intention.
It was testified at the subsequent trial of Kidd, that he stood upon his deck and received with open arms the piratic officers as they came up over the ship’s side, that he invited them to his cabin, where they had a great carouse in drinking and smoking; and that in the frenzy of drink he offered for a toast:
“May damnation seize my soul if I harm a hair of the head of any one on board the Culliford.”