“I gained some credit for bravery, though, being discovered on a pillaging expedition, I narrowly escaped a severe punishment. I went by the name of ‘the sailor’ in the regiment to which I belonged; and having, while in liquor, described some of my adventures, my character was pretty well-known, not only to my comrades, but to some of my officers, as it appeared. It was not long before my conduct brought me into trouble. I escaped narrowly with my life, and was turned out of my regiment without a farthing in my pocket. I was wandering about the streets of Calcutta, considering what I should next do, when one evening, as it was growing dark, I observed a person watching me. He followed me to a secluded place, and when no one was in sight, he came up, and, addressing me by name, told me if I wanted a job which would put money in my pocket, to come to a certain house in two hours’ time, binding me by an oath not to mention the circumstance to any one. I went at the time agreed on, and was shown by a servant into a room, where, soon afterwards, I was joined by a young officer, whom I knew to be a gambler and a man of ruined fortune. I therefore guessed that he wanted me to perform some desperate piece of work or other for him. ‘Well, what is it you want of me?’ I asked, in rather a sulky mood, for somehow or other I did not like the gentleman; and, bad as I was, I felt rather degraded in being employed by him; but yet my fortunes were too low to allow me to be nice in what I undertook. He looked rather astonished at my manner; but recovering himself, he said, ‘I want you to manage a very delicate affair for me, Kidd; and if you do so, I intend to pay you well.’ ‘What do you call well?’ I asked calmly. ‘Why, I propose giving you two hundred pounds down, and fifty pounds a year for your life, if you remain faithful,’ he answered. ‘You must swear to me that you will not betray me, and that no threats or bribes shall move you.’ I took the oath he prescribed. He then said, ‘You must know that there are two children, now in the East, who are about to be sent home to their friends in England. Both their parents are dead, and they stand between my father and a large property. If they come of age, it will be theirs, and while they live he cannot enjoy it. Now, understand, I do not want you to murder the children; we must have nothing of that sort on our consciences; but you must manage to get hold of them, and bear them away where they shall be no more heard of. I leave you to form the plan, and to carry it out, only let me know the result. Will you undertake the work?’ I told him that I would. ‘Well, then,’ he continued, ‘the children are now in the Mauritius; their names are Marmaduke and Ellen Seaton. You will have time to reach them before they sail; and you must contrive to get a berth on board the ship they go by. It is whispered that you have contrived to cast away a ship or so, when you were well paid for it. Perhaps the same turn may serve you now.’
“The plan was soon arranged. The directions for finding out the children were given me, and, putting fifty pounds into my hands for my expenses, he told me to start off at once, and to come back to him when the matter was settled. I reached the Mauritius without difficulty, and found that the children, under charge of an Indian nurse, were to proceed by the Penguin, a small free-trader, touching there on her homeward voyage. In aid of my plan, the second mate had died, so I applied for and obtained the berth; besides which I fell in with two seamen who had been with me before, when a ship I sailed in was lost by my means. I opened my project to them, and they promised to assist me. The nurse was devotedly attached to the children and by nursing them, and being attentive to her, I soon won her confidence. I found, however, much more difficulty than I expected in my attempt to wreck the vessel. The captain was a good navigator, and very attentive to his duty, as was the first mate; so that when, during my watch on deck at night, I got the ship steered a wrong course, in the hopes of edging her in on the African coast, I was very soon detected. I laid the blame on the helmsman, one of my accomplices, who stoutly asserted that he had been steering a proper course. I again tried to effect my object; but the captain had, it appeared, a compass above his head, in his own cabin, and being awake, discovered the attempt.
“I made every plausible excuse I could think of, but I felt that I was suspected, and dared not venture to play the same trick again. I had, however, another resource, which, dangerous as it was, I determined to risk. You may well start with horror. It was nothing less than to set the ship on fire. I then intended with my comrades to carry off the nurse and children to the coast of Africa, and to dispose of them to some of the African chiefs a little way in the interior, where no white man was ever likely to fall in with them. One night, the wind being from the westward, I managed to set fire to a quantity of combustible matter among the cargo. I waited till the alarm was given, and then, hurrying to the Indian nurse and the children, told her that, if she would trust to me, I would save her. My men had been prepared, and instantly lowered a boat, in which she and her charges were placed with two of my accomplices. I had a chart, with a few nautical instruments, my money, and some provisions, all ready; having thrown a keg of water and a few biscuits into the boat, I hurried forward to my cabin to get them. The flames had burned much faster than I expected, and while I was in my cabin, just about to return aft to the boat, they had reached, it appeared, the magazine. Suddenly a dreadful noise was heard; I felt myself lifted off my feet, and then I lost all consciousness of what was occurring. At length I found myself clinging to a mass of floating wreck, and in almost total darkness. I could discover no boat near me. I hailed; but no one answered. Oh, the horrors of that night! It is impossible to picture them. A laughing fiend kept whispering in my ear that I had caused all this havoc, that I had destroyed the lives of so many of my fellow-creatures, and that I should not miss my reward. Daylight came, and I was alone on the wild waters. A shattered portion of the mainmast and main-top buoyed me up, and a bag of biscuits I had had on my arm still hung there. I ate mechanically. The sun came out with fiery heat and scorched my unprotected head, and I had no water to quench my burning thirst. Thus for three days I lay drifting, I knew not where, expecting every moment to be my last, and a prey to my own bitter recollections. Then conscience for a time usurped its sway; and I believe, had I fallen into good hands I might have repented; but it was not to be so. A vessel at length hove in sight. I had just strength left to wave my hand to show that I was alive. I was taken on board; not that feelings of compassion dwelt in the bosoms of her crew, but they saw my white skin, and thought that I might be useful in navigating their evil-employed craft, for fever had thinned their numbers. She was a slaver, and had some four hundred human beings groaning in chains beneath her confined decks.
“I speedily recovered, and assuming a bold, independent manner, I soon gained considerable influence over the crew, who were composed of Spaniards, Portuguese, Mulattoes, and desperadoes from every country in Europe. My companions found me so useful that they would not part with me, so I sailed in the vessel for the next voyage. She was a large brig, well armed. Slaving alone was too tame for us. If we fell in with a merchantman, we plundered her; and instead of going on the coast for slaves, we lay in wait for the smaller vessels returning home, when we used to take the slaves out of them, sometimes paying them in goods, and sometimes, if we were not afraid of detection, refusing them any recompense, and threatening to sink them if they dared to complain. For two years I remained in the slave brig without being able to leave her. I had no dislike to the work, and our gains were very large; but I was anxious to get back to India to secure the reward which had been promised me. It may seem strange that I should be eager after a sum which was paltry, compared to what I was now making; but I did not like to lose what I considered my right, gained, too, with so much risk and crime.
“Fortune did not always favour us. We were captured by an English ship of war; and clear evidence of our guilt being brought forward, I, with several of the officers and crew, was sentenced to be hung at Sierra Leone. The sum of my iniquities was not yet full. Two of my companions, confined with me, formed a plan for escaping; and, as my knowledge of English would be useful, they invited me to join them.
“We succeeded; and after going through incredible hardships and dangers, in travelling down the coast, under which one of our number sunk, the survivor and I got on board a slaver, and reached the Brazils. I was here very nearly recognised by the master of a Brazilian craft we had plundered; so, with my Spanish comrade, I worked my way to India. When I arrived, I made inquiries for the officer who had employed me, and was to pay me my reward. He was dead; and I found that I had lost the fruits of my crime.
“The children, I felt convinced, had been lost in the burning ship; and with the proof of her destruction, I contemplated going to England, and claiming the price agreed on for this work from the officer’s father, who, I doubted not, was enjoying the fortune which should have been theirs. Each time, however, that I attempted to go, I was prevented; once I had actually got part of the way, when I was wrecked at the Cape of Good Hope; and all the time I had my misgivings about going. First, that I might be recognised by those who knew me as a pirate; and then, after all, that the old gentleman would refuse to acknowledge my claims. A poor rogue, I knew, would have but little chance with a rich one. He had not tempted me to commit the crime, and might probably defy scrutiny. I speak of myself as poor; for, not withstanding all the sums I had possessed, not a dollar remained. Ill-gotten wealth speedily disappears, and leaves only a curse behind. Years passed away, when, at the port of Macao, in China, I took a berth as first mate on board the American brig Emu, trading in the Indian Seas.
“A lady, who was reputed to have great wealth with her, and a little girl, whom I supposed to be her child, came on board as passengers to Singapore. Two of the crew were my former comrades. I sounded the rest, and found that they had no scruples about joining me in any project I might propose. The prospect of possessing the lady’s dollars was too tempting to be resisted. The master, we feared, would not join us. To make sure, he was shot, and thrown overboard; and I took the command. I have perpetrated so many crimes, that I can speak of murder as of a common occurrence.”
“But what became of my sister and Mrs Clayton?” I exclaimed as the pirate had got thus far in his narrative.
“I took them from the first under my charge,” he answered. “I treated the lady with care; because I hoped that if I were captured, she might intercede for me, and assist in preserving my life. It was not for some time that I discovered who the little girl was. I had won her confidence; for in her presence I always felt myself a better man, and more than once I had resolved to repent, and obeying my mother’s earnest prayers, to return home to lead a virtuous life; but my evil passions had got too strong a hold of me, and my good resolutions were speedily broken.