William Kidd, also known as Captain Kidd, was originally a privateer but later turned to piracy. Although he captured many ships and gained a fair amount of treasure, Kidd is maybe better remembered for his trial and execution for piracy.
William Kidd was born in 1654 in Dundee, Scotland; he was a son of a seaman John Kidd but there are no historical details about his early life. When he became a sea captain in the 1680’s he set off to New York and started to sail as a privateer. After proving himself to be a successful captain while defending American and English trade routs with the West Indies, he was called back to serve England. His task was to find pirates in the Indian ocean and was given a mighty new ship called the ‘‘Adventure Galley’’ which weighed over 284 tons, had 34 cannon guns and a crew of 150 men. Their journey began on September the 6th, 1696 and as they sailed down the Thames Kidd’s crew refused to salute a Navy yacht. This resulted in majority of the men being forced to join the navy and William Kidd, although short with crew, continued to sail for New York. Here he recruited new crewmembers but almost all of them were criminals or former pirates.
Captain William Kidd wasn’t successful in finding pirate ships or missed the opportunities to attack them and he wasn’t able to cover his costs. On Madagascar some of the crew members left him and joined the pirates while ones who stayed threatened with mutiny. All of this finally turned Kidd into a pirate. For some time he attacked and plundered all kinds of vessels along India’s coast, but the biggest prize was yet to come. In January 1698 he came across an Armenian ship, the ‘‘Quedah Merchant’’ and this was undoubtedly his largest loot for it was loaded with silk, muslins, gold, silver and other valuable merchandise. William Kidd was forced to leave his ship which started to leak, renamed this new found vessel the ‘‘Adventure Prize’’ and continued the journey to Madagascar. Here he found the first pirate since he left England, Robert Culliford and after anchoring near his ship, most of Kidd’s men left him for Culliford and only 13 remained loyal. It was now when he decided to head back to New York.
After William Kidd found out he was wanted for piracy, he tried to make a deal with one of his investors, Bellomont but scared of being involved in piracy stories himself, Bellomont did everything in order to save his own neck. He tricked Kidd to coming to Boston by promising him pardon but as soon Kidd arrived he was arrested and locked away in solitary cell. It was after one year he was transferred to England where he was on trial for murder and piracy. He was sentenced to death by hanging and after rope broke the first time, Kidd was hanged on the second attempt. His body was placed in an iron cage and left to hang over the Thames as a warning for everyone who thought of turning to piracy. Many of the legends about Kidd are based on stories about buried treasure and this is maybe why he is often mentioned in modern pirate novels.
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