Robert C.

Ritchie, Captain Kidd and the War against the Pirates Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass, London, England 1986 V Heike The question Richie asks his reader is Richie was wrought with conflict wanting to depict Captain Kidd as the profiteer turned pirate nearly hero and victim at the same time. Were the times changing for all the privateers or was life unaccommodating more for William Kidd then other pirates of his era? The politics of the day were starting to get a grip on the annoyances wanting to bring settlers in the way of families and transposed the rough and tumble harshness of the years during and after the French / English conflict. Captain Kidd thrived during the conflict so much that the crown commissioned him. It could be said that if Captain William Kidds luck were all - bad so that old expressions even bad luck is better then none would truly be wrong.

Background Information and Purpose for the Study

Robert C. Ritchie 's book reads like a history lovers trusty companion telling as the sea tossed the mighty vessels to and fro; we learn on how the politics of the time we closing in one those that had reveled in the notion of a pirating life. With change civilization seems to be like a dog nipping at the hills of an unsavory past. The war between England and France saw Captain William Kidd the opportunism to put it simple made off like a pirate. I fear that the British that after the war thought they

had a true pirate due to Captain Kidds presumed expertise offered him employment and a commission with a grand ship. It is evident to me that the king viewed captain Kidd's pirate wiles through rose-colored glasses because in reality he really wasn't a very good pirate. I think it took a sense of determination to in his age try to be a pirate good or not. I found it interesting to know more of Madagascar was a likely spot for partaking of the African slave trade. Madagascar was near the southern cape of Africa and allowed for hiding in wait for ships heavy with treasure. After William awarded the then king Captain Kidd the idea of his worth would be in the using of him to capture pirates.1

The Quedah Merchant Truly one of Captain William Kidds finest hours it had been his assignment to guard her from pirates and cut purses. I think that is like opening the chicken coop and yelling here Wolfe, oh Wolfe come hither! January 1698, the Quedah Merchant was seen coming around the tip of India. Kidd and his crew attacked and took the ship: the cargo was silk, muslins, calico, sugar, opium, iron and saltpeter and worth a rumored 70,000 pounds. The Quedah Merchant, renamed the Adventure Prize, was kept by Kidd, as he was forced to abandon and sink his now leaking ship. The people who are demanding a change and an end to the loose

That makes me envision baiting traps to slaughter unsuspecting small animals. Sure pirates were not innocent of anything mostly but still to take supposed those the Capt. knew you might have worked with to there certain demise is cruel beyond words.
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and savageness of the days of old were holding Two years before the mass was the Adventure Prize politicians to stakes and the consensus was that Pirates must go! Results Since we know that walking the plank was more or less a movie notion Pirates and their laws and equality that far out demonstrated what was considered the laws that governed the landlubbers so different those men of swash and buckle who took the see some to care for the needs of their families. Times were hard that drove many man to the sea in the first place now as the ship road the waves in search of pirates to capture the political uneasiness stretched poor feeling aboard Capt. Kidds ship. The turmoil stewed the juices of the pirates and mutiny ensued taking the ship from William Kidd. The New England governor, Lord Richard Bellomont, placed Captain William Kidd's under arrested on 7 July 1699 in Boston. He was sent to England aboard the frigate Advice in February 1700. The trial was fast like the government had wished to sweep the whole deal with Captain Kidd under the rug and be done with it. The trial lasted one day the mock pirate trials lasted longer I dare say. The verdict was that Kidd was guilty of the murder of one of his crew by having smacked a shipmate in the head smashing his head and killing him. Captain Kidd is the fellow Walt Disney used for his Captain in Treasure Isle2, I shall always think of him that way instead of the horrid way he perished. Captain William Kidd was hanged on 23 May 1701: the first rope broke, so he had to be hung for a second time.
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Robert Louis Stevenson with his book "Treasure Island'' and Edgar Allan Poe ("The Gold Bug'')

It was the custom to hang the bodies at the neck of the harbors to warn off others with the idea of piracy his body hung longer then any others for twenty years. After he had been hung correctly his body was tarred to increases the length of it I guess holding together so his decay would take longer. I found this interesting: Once dead, the bodies were held in place until three tides had washed over them. The more notorious pirates were then tarred and hung in cages along the Thames estuary to dissuade any other wannabe-trouble makers!3 Perhaps the most famous pirate to be tarred and hung in a cage was Captain Kidd (see image on the right), the inspiration for Treasure Island. In 1701 he was convicted of piracy and murder and was taken from Newgate Prison and executed in the same year. Rather gruesomely, on the first hanging attempt the rope broke and he only died on the second attempt. Even more gruesomely, his body was left tarred and gibbeted in an iron cage on the Thames riverbanks for more than twenty years!4 Kidd's name is still associated with a supposed buried treasure on Oak Island, Nova Scotia, but it is doubtful that he is responsible for whatever is located there.

Inclusion I find myself wondering what ever happened to those papers the Captain had wanted so fiercely might they have cleared him to some degree so at least maybe his wife

http://latinamericanhistory.about.com/od/Pirates/p/Captain-William-Kidd.htm Also from the above site, what ever happened to the papers that Kidd had demanded, might they have cleared him?
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would not to have been detained. I had fun reading this book and it and the first pirate book will both go on a book shelf one day when I am no longer homeless.

Captain Kidd (left) was perhaps one of the unluckiest pirates in history. He was done in not by a cutlass or pistol shot, but indecision, bad judgment and politics. Ironically, many historians believe he wasn't even really a pirate.

Kidd was born in Scotland around 1655. By 1689 he was in command of a vessel named the Blessed William which was operating as a privateer in the West Indies (A privateer ship is a warship that is privately owned, but has government permission to attack enemy ships. The privateer must split any spoils with the government). He was successful, but in 1691 his crew mutinied and left him stranded on the island of Antigua.

Kidd went to New York where he married well and became a merchant. Kidd might have spent the rest of his life on Wall Street, but apparently the sea was still in his blood. In 1695 he traveled to London to ask to be put in command of a privateer again. He got the Adventure Galley, a 237-ton vessel with 34 cannon. His primary backer on this venture was Richard Coote, the Earl of Bellamont, but other nobles (including the King) also had a stake in the voyage.

Kidd sailed out of the Chatham dockyard and immediately was boarded by the Royal Navy, who took many of his best sailors for their own ships. Kidd was forced to replace them with disreputable sailors with pirate leanings. In New York he added more crew, then set off for the Indian Ocean. Kidd's public mission was to clear the sea there of pirates, but it was probably understood by his backers that he would also take every opportunity to capture any enemy ships that had valuable cargo.

Months went by and no acceptable victims were found. The crew pressured Kidd to turn pirate and attack anything. Kidd got into a fight and killed a gunner after refusing to plunder an English ship they'd sighted.

Finally, in February 1698, a Indian-owned ship, The Quedah Merchant, was spotted and Kidd captured her easily. She carried a cargo worth some 710,000 pounds. Best of all she had French papers which made her a legal target for Kidd under his privateer commission.

Meanwhile, back in London, politics were turning against Kidd. Exaggerated reports of his adventures were coming in from the Indian Ocean and the enemies of his backers were using them to denounce the Whig party to which many of Kidd's powerful friends belonged. Kidd's friends finally distanced themselves from him labeling him an "obnoxious pirate" and a price was set on his head.

Kidd got wind of this and abandoned the damaged Adventure Galley, transferred the Quedah Merchant treasure to a small sloop, and ran for New York where he thought his patron Governor Bellamont could help him.

Outside New York, Kidd buried the bulk of the treasure on Gardiner's Island (one of the few verified instances of a pirate actually burying a treasure) and attempted to use it as a bargaining chip for a pardon. It didn't work. Kidd was arrested and imprisoned and the treasure recovered.

Despite his protests that he was only a privateer, Kidd was tried in London and executed in 1701. The papers that might have proved his innocence disappeared in Bellamont's hands and his logbook was burned. His corpse was displayed in an iron cage on the dock at Thames Estuary for several years as a warning to other would-be pirates.

Kidd's name is still associated with a supposed buried treasure on Oak Island, Nova Scotia, but it is doubtful that he is responsible for whatever is located there.