CHAPTER II
William Kidd becomes a Pirate
Ravages of the Pirates. – The King’s Interview with Earl Bellomont. – William Kidd, the New-York Merchant. – His Commission. – Sailing of the Adventure. – Recruiting in New York. – Circuitous Trip to Madagascar. – Perils and Sufferings. – Madagascar the Pirates’ Home. – Murmurings of the Crew. – Kidd reluctantly turns Pirate. – His Repulses, and his Captures.
In the year 1695, the King of England, William III., summoned before him the Earl of Bellomont, who had been governor of Barbadoes, and whom he had recently appointed governor of New York, and said to him:
“The buccaneers have so increased in the East and West Indies, and all along the American coast, that they defiantly sail under their own flag. They penetrate the rivers; land in numbers sufficient to capture cities, robbing palaces and cathedrals, and extorting enormous ransom. Their suppression is vital to commerce. They have possessed themselves of magnificent retreats, in Madagascar and other islands of the Indian Ocean. They have established their seraglios, and are living in fabulous splendor and luxury. Piratic expeditions are fitted out from the colonies of New England and Virginia; and even the Quakers of Pennsylvania afford a market for their robberies. These successful freebooters are making their homes in the Carolinas, in Rhode Island, and along the south shore of Long Island, where they and their children take positions among the most respectable in the community.
“The buccaneers are so audacious that they seek no concealment. Their ships are laden with the spoil of all nations. The richest prizes which can now be taken on the high seas are the heavily laden ships of the buccaneers. I have resolved, with the aid of others, to fit out a private expedition against them. We have formed a company for that purpose. By attacking the pirates we shall accomplish a double object. We shall in the first place check their devastating operations, and we shall also fill our purses with the proceeds of the abundant spoil with which their ships are laden.”
This second consideration was doubtless the leading one in the movement. The king was in great need of money. His nobles were impoverished by extravagance. They were ready to resort to any measures to replenish their exhausted treasuries. This royal company was therefore organized, not as a national movement, sustained by national law, but as a piratic expedition against the pirates. The reclaimed treasure was not to be restored to its owners, nor to be placed in the treasury of the kingdom, but to be divided among the captors as their legitimate spoil. And still the king was to give the commission in his kingly name.
The king informed the Earl of Bellomont that he was about to invest him with the government of New York, and wished him to suggest the name of some suitable person, who was familiar with the North American coast and the West Indian seas, to whom he could intrust the command of the frigate they were then fitting out. It so chanced that an illustrious Englishman, Mr. Robert Livingston, the first of that name who had emigrated to the New World, was then in London. The earl consulted with him. He was informed that just the man he needed had accompanied him from New York to London, leaving his family behind. He was a merchant, by the name of William Kidd, a man of tried courage and integrity.
In the last war with the French, Captain Kidd had commanded a privateersman, and had gained signal honor in many engagements. He had sailed over all the seas frequented by the buccaneers, and was familiar with their haunts. The commission which the king gave to Captain Kidd is a curious document. It is here given abridged of its excessive verbiage:
“William the Third, by the grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, to our true and well-beloved Captain William Kidd, commander of the ship Adventure. Whereas divers wicked persons commit many and great piracies, robberies, and depredations on the seas, upon the coasts of America and other parts, to the hindrance of trade and the danger of our subjects, we have thought fit to give to the said William Kidd full authority to seize all such pirates as you may find on the seas, whether our subjects or the subjects of other nations, with their ships, and all merchandise or money which shall be found on board, if they willingly yield themselves. But if they will not yield without fighting, then you are, by force, to compel them to yield. We do also require you to bring, or cause to be brought, such pirates, freebooters, or sea rovers, as you shall seize, to a legal trial, to the end they may be proceeded against according to the law in such cases.
“We enjoin you to keep an exact journal of your proceedings, giving the names of the ships you may capture, the names of their officers and crew, and the value of their cargoes, and stores. And we command you, at your peril, that you do not molest our friends or allies under any pretence of authority hereby granted. Given the 26th of January, 1695.”
Captain Kidd at the same time received another document, which was called a commission of reprisals. This authorized him, as a privateersman, to take any French merchant ships he might chance to meet; for there was then war between France and England.
A ship was purchased, for thirty thousand dollars, called the Adventure. Of this sum, Captain Kidd and Mr. Livingston furnished three thousand each. The remainder was contributed by the Earls Bellomont and Romney, Lord Chancellor Somers, the Lord High Admiral, the Duke of Shrewsbury, and Sir Henry Harrison. The king, rather ingloriously, paid nothing. He purchased his share in the enterprise by the royal patronage.
It seems that Captain Kidd was a man of high reputation at that time. It was a large amount of property to be intrusted to his hands; for the vessel and its outfit must have cost at least fifty thousand dollars. Mr. Livingston became Kidd’s security that he would faithfully discharge his duties and account for all his captures. It is said that Kidd was not pleased with this arrangement, as he was very unwilling that Mr. Livingston should be his bondsman. He probably, even then, felt that it might prove an obstacle in his future course. The operations of the human mind are often inexplicable. He might wish to steal the ship and turn pirate on his own account. And he could not honorably do this while his friend was his bondsman. Such pressure was put upon him that he was constrained to yield.
Armed with the royal commission, and in command of the Adventure, Captain Kidd sailed from Plymouth, England, in May, 1696. The frigate had an armament of thirty guns, and a crew of eighty men. He was ordered to render his accounts to the Earl of Bellomont in New York. He sailed up the Narrows, into New York harbor, in July. His wife and children were in his home there. In crossing the Atlantic, Captain Kidd came across a French merchantman, which he captured. The prize was valued at but seventeen hundred dollars. This was considered a legitimate act of war.
Captain Kidd knew full well that the enemy he was to encounter would fight with the utmost desperation, and that he might meet a fleet of piratic ships, or a single ship, more powerful in men and armament than his own. He therefore sent out recruiting officers through the streets of New York, to enlist volunteers. The terms he offered were that every man should have an equal share of every prize that was taken, after reserving for himself and the owners forty shares. With these offers he soon increased his crew to one hundred and fifty-five men.
Sailing from the harbor of New York, he made first for Madeira, to lay in a stock of wine. Then he directed his course to the Cape de Verd Islands, for a supply of salt and provisions. Having obtained these, he spread his canvas for a long voyage around the Cape of Good Hope, to the Island of Madagascar, on the eastern coast of Africa. This island had become renowned as one of the most important rendezvouses of the pirates.
Madagascar is larger than Great Britain. The pirates, by aid of their firearms, their desperate courage, and their superior intelligence, had gained possession of a considerable portion of the island. The natives were an inefficient race, copper-colored, with long, black hair. The pirates had treated them with such enormous cruelty, that the savages fled before them as if they had been demons.
In this retreat, so far distant from the abodes of civilization, the buccaneers had reared forts, and built mansions which they had converted into harems. From their voyages they returned here enriched with the plundered commerce of the world, to revel in all sensual indulgence. They made slaves of their prisoners; married, in their rude way any number they pleased of the most beautiful of the native females; “so that every one,” writes one of their number, “had as great a seraglio as the Grand Seignior at Constantinople. At length they began to separate from each other, each living with his own wives, slaves, and dependants, like independent princes. As power and plenty naturally beget contention, they sometimes quarrelled, and attacked each other at the head of their several armies. In these civil wars many of them were killed.”
These reckless men used their power like tyrants. They grew wanton in cruelty. Nothing was more common than, upon the slightest displeasure, to cause one of their dependants to be tied to a tree and shot through the heart. The natives combined for their extermination. The plan would have succeeded but for betrayal by a woman. They trembled in view of their narrow escape, and combined for mutual defence.
These ruffians assumed all the airs of the ancient baronial nobility. Their dwellings were citadels. They generally chose for their residence some dense forest, near running water. The house was surrounded by a rampart and a ditch. The rampart was so high that it could not be climbed without scaling-ladders. The dwelling was so concealed, in the dense tropical forest, that it could not be seen until you were very near it. The only approach was so narrow that two could not pass it abreast. It was contrived in so intricate a manner that, to all not perfectly familiar with it, it was a perfect labyrinth, with cross paths where one might wander for hours, lost in the maze.
All along these narrow paths, large and very sharp thorns, which grew in that country, were planted in the ground, so as to pierce the feet of the unshod natives. If any should attempt to approach the house by night, they would certainly be pierced and torn by those cruel thorns.
It was a long voyage to Madagascar. Before he reached the island nine months had elapsed since leaving Plymouth. Captain Kidd had expended all his money, and his provisions were nearly exhausted. Not a single prize had they captured by the way. This ill luck caused a general feeling of murmuring and contention on board. The most amiable are in danger of losing their amiability in hours of disaster. Rude seamen, but one remove from pirates, in such seasons of disappointment and chagrin become almost demons in moroseness.
One morning the whole ship’s crew were thrown into a state of the most joyous excitement by the sight of three ships in the distant horizon. They had no doubt that it was some buccaneer, with two prizes, heavily laden with the treasures of the Orient. Suddenly all became very good-natured. Eagerly they prepared for action. They had no fear that the pirate, with his prizes, could escape their swift-sailing frigate. The supposed pirate was apparently conscious that escape was impossible; for he bore down boldly upon them.
Terrible was the disappointment. Captain Kidd, gazing upon the approaching vessels through his glass, exclaimed, with an oath, “They are three English war-ships.”
Captain Warren was in command of the men-of-war. Meeting thus in mid-ocean, the two captains interchanged civilities, visited each other, and kept company for two or three days. It was in the month of February, 1696, that Captain Kidd, coasting along the shores of Madagascar, approached the harbor upon the island frequented by the pirates. Here he expected to find treasure in abundance. He had very decidedly exceeded his orders in leaving the waters of America for the distant shores of Africa and Asia. Triumphant success, which he was sanguine of achieving, might cause the disobedience of instructions not only to be forgiven but applauded. Failure would be to him disgrace and irretrievable ruin.
Again Captain Kidd and his crew were doomed to disappointment. It so happened that they arrived at the island at a time when every vessel was out on a piratic cruise. There was not a single vessel there. All were growing desperate. Captain Kidd had but very little money left, and nearly all his provisions were consumed. As hastily as possible he replenished his water-casks, and taking in a few more stores, weighed anchor, and voyaged thirteen hundred miles farther east to Malabar, as the whole western coast of Hindostan was then called, from Cape Comorin to Bombay.
He came within sight of these shores in June, four months after his arrival at Madagascar. For some time he cruised up and down this coast unavailingly. Not a single sail was to be seen on the boundless expanse of ocean. There was universal discontent and murmurings on board the Adventure. The situation of the ship’s company was indeed deplorable. One-half of the globe was between them and their homes. Their provisions were nearly all gone, and they had no means with which to purchase more. It was clear that unless Providence should interpose in their favor, they must either steal or starve.
And Providence did, for a time, singularly interpose. As they were one day sailing by a small island, called Joanna, they saw the wreck of a ship on shore. Captain Kidd took a boat and was rowed to the land, where he found that it was a French vessel. The crew had escaped, having saved quite a quantity of gold. The ship and cargo were a total loss. The Frenchman, so the narrative goes, loaned this gold to Captain Kidd. Perhaps he did. It is more probable that it was a forced loan. Captain Kidd had, as we have mentioned, a double commission, one against the pirates, and the other a regular commission as a privateersman against the French. Had he captured the ship before the wreck it would have been his lawful prize. It is hardly probable that he had any scruples of conscience in seizing the doubloons when transferred to the shore.
With this gold he sailed to one of the ports on the Malabar coast, where he purchased food sufficient for a few weeks only. There was, at that time, in Asia, one of the most powerful nations on the globe, called the Mongols. The emperor, who was almost divinely worshipped, was titled the Great Mogul. His gorgeous palaces were reared in the city of Samarcand, in the province of Bokhara. This magnificent city, thirty miles in circumference, glittered with palaces and mosques of gorgeous architecture, constructed of white marble. The empire was founded by the world-renowned Gengis Khan, and extended by the equally celebrated Tamerlane. The sails of Mongol commerce whitened all the East-Indian seas. Piracy then so abounded that this commerce was generally carried on in fleets under convoy. Upon this cruise of disappointment and anxiety, Captain Kidd passed several of the ships of the Great Mogul. He looked upon them with a wistful eye. They were merchantmen. With his force he could easily capture them. There could be no doubt that they contained treasure of great value.
There was loud murmuring among the crew. They could not understand those scruples of conscience which would allow them to plunder a few shipwrecked Frenchmen, and yet would turn aside from the rich argosies of the East.
But Captain Kidd, a respectable New-York merchant, held in high esteem by the community, and who had been sent on this expedition expressly to capture and punish the pirates, was not then prepared to raise himself the black flag, and thus join the robbers of the seas.
The struggle, in his mind, was probably very severe. He was daily growing more desperate. Starvation stared him in the face. His crew was growing mutinous. He had reason to fear that they would rise, throw him overboard or land him upon some island, and then, raising the black flag of the pirate, scour the seas on their own account, and join the riotous band defiantly established at Madagascar.
He had no doubt that the powerful company, who had sent him on this cruise, would overlook any irregularities in plundering wrong vessels, and would make no troublesome inquiries into his mode of operations, if he would only bring them home an abundance of gold. On the other hand, should he fail, he would be dismissed from their service in disgrace, an utterly ruined man.
He had learned that the Great Mogul was about to send from the Red Sea, through the Straits of Babelmandel, a richly freighted fleet of merchantmen, under convoy, bound to China. The Straits are but about fifteen miles wide. Consequently there could be no difficulty in intercepting the fleet.
Captain Kidd had probably, in his silent thoughts, decided to turn freebooter. Though as yet he had divulged his secret to no one, and had committed no overt act, he had passed the Rubicon, and was in heart a pirate. The change was at once perceptible. He ran his ship in toward the shore, and coasted along until he came in sight of a village of the natives, where herds were seen in the fields, and harvests were waving, and the boughs of the groves were laden with the golden fruit of the tropics. Doubtless he would have been glad to purchase these stores. But he had no money. He had reached that point in his career at which he must either steal or starve.
He sent several armed boats to the land, and robbed the unresisting natives without stint. He was not a man to pursue half measures. Having well revictualled his ship, he turned her bows toward the entrance to the Red Sea. Summoning his crew before him, he informed them of the change in his plans.
“We have been unsuccessful hitherto, my boys,” he said; “but take courage. Fortune is now about to smile upon us. The fleet of the Great Mogul, freighted with the richest treasures, is soon to come out of the Red Sea. From the capture of those heavily laden ships we will all grow rich.”
This speech was greeted with shouts of applause by the desperate men whom he had picked up in the streets of London and New York. He sent out a swift-sailing boat well manned to enter the Red Sea, and run along its eastern coast on a voyage of discovery. The boat returned after an absence of a few days, with the rather alarming intelligence that they had counted a squadron of fifteen large ships just ready to sail. While some of them bore the flag of the Great Mogul, at the mast-head of others floated the banners of England and of Holland.
England was in alliance with Holland, and on the most friendly terms with the Great Mogul. In the commission given to Captain Kidd by the king it was written:
“We command you at your peril, that you do not molest our friends or allies, under any pretence of authority hereby granted.”
Captain Kidd must have pondered the question deeply and anxiously before he could have made up his mind to become an utter outlaw, by attacking a fleet composed of ships belonging not only to England’s friend, and to England’s ally, but also containing England’s ships. Neither did he yet know how strong the convoy by which the fleet was guarded.
He, however, while weighing these thoughts in his anxious mind, sailed to and fro before the mouth of the Strait, keeping a vigilant watch at the mast-head. After the lapse of four days the squadron hove in sight, far away on the northern horizon. As the vessels approached, Captain Kidd carefully scrutinized them through his glass. His experienced eye soon perceived that the fleet was convoyed by two men-of-war, the one English, the other Dutch. This added to his embarrassment, and greatly increased his peril in case he should attempt an assault.
The fleet was much scattered; for, strong in its guard, no danger was apprehended. Kidd’s vessel was concealed from the general view behind a headland. His ship was a swift sailer, and he had an immense amount of canvas, which he could almost instantaneously spread to the breeze. There was a large, bulky Mongol ship, laden to the gunwales, slowly ploughing its way through the waves, approaching the point where the pirate lay concealed. The guard ships were at the distance of several miles.
Captain Kidd darted out upon the galleon like an eagle upon its prey. He probably hoped to capture it, plunder it, and make his escape before the war-vessels could come to its rescue. He opened fire upon the ship. But the convoy, instantly taking the alarm, pressed all sail, and bore rapidly down upon him, opening a vigorous fire from their heavy guns. Kidd could not think of contending with them. His chance was gone. He sheered off, and soon his cloud of swelling canvas disappeared beyond the southern horizon. The armed frigates could not pursue him. They were compelled to remain behind to protect the slowly sailing fleet.
Captain Kidd, imbittered by constant failure, was now a disappointed, chagrined, exasperated, desperate man. He was ready for any enterprise, however atrocious, which would bring him money. He ran back to the coast of Malabar. Cruising along, he soon came in sight of a native vessel. Kidd captured it without a struggle. It was called the Maiden, belonged to some merchants of Aden, but was commanded by an Englishman by the name of Parker. The mate, Antonio, was a Portuguese, familiar with the language of the country.
There was nothing of value on board. Kidd, having resolutely embarked on a piratic cruise, impressed the captain, Parker, as pilot in those unknown waters. The mate he retained as an interpreter. Vexed in finding no gold, and believing that the crew had concealed it, he treated them with the utmost cruelty to extort a confession of where they had hid the coin. They were hoisted up by the arms and beaten with terrible severity. But all was in vain. No amount of torture could bring to light gold which did not exist.
The pirate, having robbed the poor men of a bale of pepper and a bale of coffee, with a few pieces of Arabian gold, contemptuously turned them adrift, bleeding and almost helpless in their exhaustion. After continuing his cruise for some time without any success, Kidd ran into a small port, on the Malabar coast, called Carawar. There were several English merchants residing in that place. The tidings had already reached them of the capture of the Aden vessel, the impressment of the English captain and the Portuguese mate, and the cruel treatment of the crew.
As soon as Captain Kidd entered the port, it was suspected that he was the pirate. Two English gentlemen, Mr. Harvey and Mr. Mason, came on board, and charged him with the crime, asking him what he had done with his two captives, Captain Parker and the Portuguese mate. Kidd assumed an air of injured innocence, denied that he had any knowledge of the event, showed them his commission from the King of England as the head of a company of the most illustrious nobles to pursue and punish the pirates. Triumphantly he submitted the question if it were reasonable to suppose that a man who enjoyed the confidence of the king and his nobles, and was intrusted by them to lead an enterprise so essential to the national honor, should himself turn pirate.
The gentlemen were silenced, but not convinced. All this time Parker and Antonio the Portuguese were concealed in a private place in the hold. There he kept them carefully guarded eight days, until he again set sail. Just after he had left the port, a Portuguese man-of-war entered. The English merchants communicated to the commander their suspicions. He immediately put to sea in search of the Adventure, resolved, should he overtake her, carefully to examine the hold, hoping to find the captives on board, or at least some evidence of their having been there.
The two ships met. Kidd was by no means disposed to have his vessel searched. A fierce battle ensued which lasted for six hours. Neither vessel was disposed to come to close quarters until the other was disabled. Kidd at length, finding the Portuguese ship too strong for him, spread all his sails and escaped. With his vast amount of canvas he could run away from almost any foe. Ten of his men were wounded in this conflict, but none killed.
Again these desperate men found it necessary to run into the land for provisions. They entered a small port called Porco. Here they filled their water-casks, and “bought,” Kidd says, a sufficient number of hogs of the natives to victual the company. As it is known that Kidd had no money, it is probable that the swine were obtained by that kind of moral suasion which is found in the muzzle of a pistol and the edge of a sabre.
This suspicion is confirmed by the fact that the natives, in their exasperation, killed one of his men. The retaliation was characteristic of the crew and the times. Captain Kidd brought his guns to bear upon the village. With broadside after broadside he laid their huts in ruins. The torch was applied, and in an hour the peaceful village was converted into mouldering ashes.
One of the natives was caught. They bound him to a tree, and then a whole boat’s company, one after another, discharged each a bullet into his heart. Having achieved this exploit, which they probably thought chivalric, but which others may deem fiendish, Captain Kidd again spread his sails for a piratic cruise.
The first vessel he came across was a large Mongol ship richly freighted. Kidd gave chase, unfurling the French flag. The captain was a Dutchman, by the name of Mitchel. Seeing that he was pursued under French colors, he immediately ran up the banner of France. Captain Kidd at once spread to the breeze the flag of England. He was very exultant. He could lay aside the odious character of a pirate, and seize the ship in the less disgraceful capacity of a privateersman. He exclaimed with an oath, “I have caught you. You are a free prize to England.”
A cannon-ball was thrown across the bows of the ship, and she was ordered to heave to. The ship was hailed in the French language, and some one replied in the same tongue. They were then ordered to send their boat on board. The boat came bearing the captain of the ship, who was a Dutchman, by the name of Mitchel, and a French gentleman by the name of Le Roy.
Kidd received them in his cabin, and upon inquiry ascertained that the ship and cargo belonged to Mongol merchants; that they had intrusted the command to a Dutch captain, as was not unfrequently the case in those days, and that the French gentleman was merely a passenger accidently on board, passing from one port to another.
These tidings, to use a sailor’s phrase, “struck him all aback.” Holland, as we have mentioned, was England’s ally. The Great Mogul was England’s friend. Kidd must release the ship, or confess himself a pirate and an outlaw, and run the imminent risk of being hanged should he ever return to England. For a moment he seemed lost in thought, bewildered. Then his wicked mind, now rapidly descending into the abyss of sin and shame, rested in a decisive resolve.