Neptune's Needle

Pirate. He does not appear in the records until 1689, when he was the captain of a ship commissioned as a privateer by Governor Christopher Codrington of Nevis. During King William's War many ships, some of them buccaneers, were enrolled to fight the French. Kidd's men did not savor serving in Codrington's little navy and one night abandoned Kidd when he was ashore, leaving with the ship and Kidd's fortune. Kidd was fortunate in his friends, for Governor Codrington gave him a ship with which to pursue his men and retrieve his fortune.

Kidd's men left the Caribbean, where the war was making the life of pirates too difficult. In the spring of 1690 they sailed to New York City with Kidd in pursuit. When he arrived, his old crew had already moved on, but Kidd found opportunity in New York in the final stages of Leisler's rebellion. Kidd sided with the forces sent from England to reassert royal authority by putting his ship and men at their service. He would be rewarded with honors and money, and for these reasons he gave up his life at sea and settled in New York City.

The only trade that Kidd knew was that of a mariner, and so he dabbled in privateering and advertised his willingness to capture pirates who were raiding local commerce. In conjunction with his fellow Scot Robert Livingston, an ambitious politician, he devised the scheme of seeking a royal commission as a privateer/pirate hunter. The two of them journeyed in 1695 to England, where Livingston made contact with Richard Coote, the earl of Bellomont, the newly appointed governor of New England and New York. Kidd's commission allowed him to seek out and destroy the pirates who were ravaging trade, especially in the Indian Ocean.

Kidd acquired a new ship, the Adventure Galley, and returned to New York in 1696 to sort out his affairs and complete his crew. He then sailed to the Indian Ocean. In 1697, after brief stops to revictual his ship, he appeared at the mouth of the Babs-al-Mandab straits and attacked the famously wealthy Moslem pilgrim fleet on its way home to India. He was driven off by the fleet escort, the English East India Company ship Sceptre. He later hovered near the west coast of India and he tried further unsuccessful attacks. These failures caused his men to question his leadership, and in 1697, during an argument with one of the chief malcontents, his gunner William Moore, Kidd killed him with a wooden bucket. This kept his crew quiet for a while and allowed Kidd the time to finally start capturing ships. These were local trading vessels, none of which carried the great wealth necessary to justify the later claims of a vast fortune.

With a depleted crew Kidd started home in 1698 to what would be a harsh welcome, for while he rested in Madagascar the East India company used him as the scapegoat for all the pirates bedeviling their trade in the East.

Kidd sailed into Boston, where he was arrested by Bellomont, who probably sought to pacify his political enemies in England and keep alive the possibility of getting part of Kidd's fortunes as a reward for his actions. Kidd was sent to prison in England. Kidd and a few of his men were tried for piracy and was convicted and condemned to death. The rope broke on the first attempt; he was hanged on the second attempt in Wapping, London, England.

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Peter Richards