12/3/2023 0 Comments Captain kidd deathAfter a few successes against small ships and a stopover in the Comoros Islands, in January 1698 he spotted a much larger ship rounding the tip of India. In early 1697, he steered a course for Madagascar. His tired and frustrated crew wanted pressured him to take more extreme measures – essentially, to turn pirate himself. He found few ships to attack, and some of his men were dying from illness. Kidd left New York in the Adventure Galley in September 1696, travelling first to Madeira and then Cape Verde, before heading south. His crew responded by turning their backs and slapping their backsides in disdain.Ī minor incident but, perhaps, a bad omen for the next and last time he would return to London, a few years later… The yacht then fired a shot at him to make him show some respect. Crucially, it also had two banks of oars – a rare addition, but one which made it much more manoeuvrable.Īs it set off down the Thames, Kidd for some reason failed to salute a Royal Naval yacht at Greenwich. It weighed over 280 tons, had 34 guns and was manned by 150 men. Kidd sold his old ship and commissioned a brand new one – the Adventure Galley. The cost of the venture was met by noble British lords, and Kidd was also given a letter of marque, essentially a licence to be a privateer, signed by King William III. In 1695, Kidd was asked by the Governor of New York to attack known pirates, along with enemy French ships. His role was as a privateer, someone engaged in maritime warfare, but a private person rather than a member of the Royal Navy. Over the next few years, Kidd fought for the British against the French and Spanish, capturing several ships. He and other crew members mutinied, took over the ship, and Kidd was made captain. In 1689, he joined a French-English pirate crew in the Caribbean. We don’t know much about his early life, but by the 1680s he was living in New York City, which the British had just taken over from the Dutch. Kidd was born in Dundee, Scotland, in 1654. But in the space of a few short years, he sailed all over the world, first chasing pirates, before crossing the line into piracy himself – or so it was claimed. Certainly, he went to the gallows protesting his innocence. Kidd attempted to barter for his life by offering in a letter - also in the exhibition - to reveal the location of a stash of treasure he had hidden away.He was one of the most famous figures of the Golden Age of Piracy, yet some maintain that William Kidd was never a pirate at all. The exhibition displays papers which Kidd claimed were vital for his defense against piracy charges but which mysteriously vanished before his trial and did not reappear until they surfaced in the National Archives in 1911. Museum of London curator Hillary Davidson says it was Kidd’s ultimate undoing. Her taking enraged the ruling Mogul who threatened to close down trade routes for good and thus jeopardized the position of the East India Company. The ship, which Kidd said was a legitimate prize because it was under French control, had an English captain and a cargo owned by Indians. In 1698, he took his greatest prize, the Quedah Merchant, a Moorish trading vessel from Armenia laden with gold, jewels, silver, silks, spices and guns. The Crown was supposed to get 10 percent of privateers’ pickings, but Kidd was accused of keeping most of the loot. Late in 1696, he attacked a British East India Company convoy and was branded a pirate. He left London in 1695 in the Adventure Galley, a 284-tonner with a crew of 150 and 34 cannon. His problems started when he took a government-backed private commission to clear the Indian Ocean of piracy. “The skull and crossbones may not have fluttered over ships in the Thames, but many of the pirates themselves were here at one time or another,” said Wareham, alluding to the fact that many seamen and women went crooked and turned pirate.Īn able and brave sea captain by all accounts, Kidd started his career in the Caribbean where he fought successful actions against the French. It ultimately asks whether Kidd was framed to save the reputation of the mighty East India Company and the Crown. Tom Wareham, curator of maritime history at the Museum of London in Docklands where the exhibition is being held, says the show explores how the line between privateering and piracy was often blurred. A privateer was a mercenary licensed by the King and the government to hunt merchant ships flying the colors of England’s enemies - then France and Spain.
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