For Captain William Kidd, there was no one. By the law of England at that time, a prisoner tried on a criminal charge could employ no counsel and was permitted to have no legal advice, except only when a point of law was directly involved. Kidd had been denied all chance to muster witnesses or assemble documents, and, at that, the court was so fearful of failing to prove the charges of piracy that it was decided to try him first for killing his gunner, William Moore, and convicting him of murder. He would be as conveniently dead if hanged for the one crime as for the other.
Now, it is not impossible that Kidd had clean forgotten that trifling episode of William Moore. For a commander to knock down a seaman guilty of disrespect or disobedience was as commonplace as eating. The offender was lucky if he got off no worse. Discipline in the naval and merchant services was barbarously severe. Sailors died of flogging or keelhauling, or of being triced up by the thumbs for the most trifling misdemeanors. As for Moore, he was a mutineer, and an insolent rogue besides, who had stirred up trouble in the crew, and nothing would have been said to any other skipper than Kidd for shooting him or running him through. However, let the testimony tell its own story.
After the Grand Jury had returned the bill of indictment for murder, the Clerk of Arraignment said:
"William Kidd, hold up thy hand."
With a pluck and persistence which must have had a certain pathetic dignity, Kidd began to object.
"May it please your Lordship, I desire you to permit me to have counsel."
The Recorder. "What would you have counsel for?"
Kidd. "My Lord, I have some matters of law relating to the indictment, and I desire I may have counsel to speak to it."
Dr. Oxenden. "What matter of law can you have?"
Clerk of Arraignment. "How does he know what he is charged with? I have not told him."