In old times, just after the territory of the New Netherlands had
been wrested from the hands of their High Mightinesses, the Lords
States General of Holland, by Charles the Second, and while it
was as yet in an unquiet state, the province was a favorite
resort of adventurers of all kinds, and particularly of
buccaneers. These were piratical rovers of the deep, who made sad
work in times of peace among the Spanish settlements and Spanish
merchant ships. They took advantage of the easy access to the
harbor of the Manhattoes, and of the laxity of its
scarcely-organized government, to make it a kind of rendezvous,
where they might dispose of their ill-gotten spoils, and concert
new depredations. Crews of these desperadoes, the runagates of
every country and clime, might be seen swaggering, in open day,
about the streets of the little burgh; elbowing its quiet
Mynheers; trafficking away their rich outlandish plunder, at half
price, to the wary merchant, and then squandering their gains in
taverns; drinking, gambling, singing, swearing, shouting, and
astounding the neighborhood with sudden brawl and ruffian
revelry.
At length the indignation of government was aroused, and it was
determined to ferret out this vermin brood from, the colonies.
Great consternation took place among the pirates on finding
justice in pursuit of them, and their old haunts turned to places
of peril. They secreted their money and jewels in lonely
out-of-the-way places; buried them about the wild shores of the
rivers and sea-coast, and dispersed themselves over the face of
the country.
Among the agents employed to hunt them by sea was the renowned
Captain Kidd. He had long been a hardy adventurer, a kind of
equivocal borderer, half trader, half smuggler, with a tolerable
dash of the pickaroon. He had traded for some time among the
pirates, lurking about the seas in a little rakish,
musquito-built vessel, prying into all kinds of odd places, as
busy as a Mother Carey’s chicken in a gale of wind.
This nondescript personage was pitched upon by government as the
very man to command a vessel fitted out to cruise against the
pirates, since he knew all their haunts and lurking-places:
acting upon the shrewd old maxim of “setting a rogue to catch a
rogue.” Kidd accordingly sailed from New York in the Adventure
galley, gallantly armed and duly commissioned, and steered his
course to the Madeiras, to Bonavista, to Madagascar, and cruised
at the entrance of the Red Sea. Instead, however, of making war
upon the pirates, he turned pirate himself: captured friend or
foe; enriched himself with the spoils of a wealthy Indiaman,
manned by Moors, though commanded by an Englishman, and having
disposed of his prize, had the hardihood to return to Boston,
laden with wealth, with a crew of his comrades at his heels.
His fame had preceded him. The alarm was given of the
reappearance of this cut-purse of the ocean. Measures were taken
for his arrest; but he had time, it is said, to bury the greater
part of his treasures. He even attempted to draw his sword and
defend himself when arrested; but was secured and thrown into
prison, with several of his followers. They were carried to
England in a frigate, where they were tried, condemned, and
hanged at Execution Dock. Kidd died hard, for the rope with which
he was first tied up broke with his weight, and he tumbled to the
ground; he was tied up a second time, and effectually; from
whence arose the story of his having been twice hanged.
Such is the main outline of Kidd’s history; but it has given
birth to an innumerable progeny of traditions. The circumstance
of his having buried great treasures of gold and jewels after
returning from his cruising set the brains of all the good people
along the coast in a ferment. There were rumors on rumors of
great sums found here and there; sometimes in one part of the
country, sometimes in another; of trees and rocks bearing
mysterious marks; doubtless indicating the spots where treasure
lay hidden; of coins found with Moorish characters, the plunder
of Kidd’s eastern prize, but which the common people took for
diabolical or magic inscriptions.
Some reported the spoils to have been buried in solitary
unsettled places about Plymouth and Cape Cod; many other parts of
the Eastern coast, also, and various places in Long Island Sound,
have been gilded by these rumors, and have been ransacked by
adventurous money-diggers.
In all the stories of these enterprises the devil played a
conspicuous part. Either he was conciliated by ceremonies and
invocations, or some bargain or compact was made with him. Still
he was sure to play the money-diggers some slippery trick. Some
had succeeded so far as to touch the iron chest which contained
the treasure, when some baffling circumstance was sure to take
place. Either the earth would fall in and fill up the pit or some
direful noise or apparition would throw the party into a panic
and frighten them from the place; and sometimes the devil himself
would appear and bear off the prize from their very grasp; and if
they visited the place on the next day, not a trace would be seen
of their labors of the preceding night.
Such were the vague rumors which for a long time tantalized
without gratifying my curiosity on the interesting subject of
these pirate traditions. There is nothing in this world so hard
to get at as truth. I sought among my favorite sources of
authentic information, the oldest inhabitants, and particularly
the old Dutch wives of the province; but though I flatter myself
I am better versed than most men in the curious history of my
native province, yet for a long time my inquiries were unattended
with any substantial result.
At length it happened, one calm day in the latter part of summer,
that I was relaxing myself from the toils of severe study by a
day’s amusement in fishing in those waters which had been the
favorite resort of my boyhood. I was in company with several
worthy burghers of my native city. Our sport was indifferent; the
fish did not bite freely; and we had frequently changed our
fishing ground without bettering our luck. We at length anchored
close under a ledge of rocky coast, on the eastern side of the
island of Manhata. It was a still, warm day. The stream whirled
and dimpled by us without a wave or even a ripple, and every
thing was so calm and quiet that it was almost startling when the
kingfisher would pitch himself from the branch of some dry tree,
and after suspending himself for a moment in the air to take his
aim, would souse into the smooth water after his prey. While we
were lolling in our boat, half drowsy with the warm stillness of
the day and the dullness of our sport, one of our party, a worthy
alderman, was overtaken by a slumber, and, as he dozed, suffered
the sinker of his drop-line to lie upon the bottom of the river.
On waking, he found he had caught something of importance, from
the weight; on drawing it to the surface, we were much surprised
to find a long pistol of very curious and outlandish fashion,
which, from its rusted condition, and its stock being worm-eaten
and covered with barnacles, appeared to have been a long time
under water. The unexpected appearance of this document of
warfare occasioned much speculation among my pacific companions.
One supposed it to have fallen there during the revolutionary
war. Another, from the peculiarity of its fashion, attributed it
to the voyagers in the earliest days of the settlement; perchance
to the renowned Adrian Block, who explored the Sound and
discovered Block Island, since so noted for its cheese. But a
third, after regarding it for some time, pronounced it to be of
veritable Spanish workmanship.
“I’ll warrant,” said he, “if this pistol could talk it would tell
strange stories of hard fights among the Spanish Dons. I’ve not a
doubt but it’s a relique of the buccaneers of old times.”
“Like enough,” said another of the party. “There was Bradish the
pirate, who at the time Lord Bellamont made such a stir after the
buccaneers, buried money and jewels somewhere in these parts or
on Long-Island; and then there was Captain Kidd—”
“Ah, that Kidd was a daring dog,” said an iron-faced Cape Cod
whaler. “There’s a fine old song about him, all to the tune of:
‘My name is Robert Kidd,
As I sailed, as I sailed.’
And it tells how he gained the devil’s good graces by burying the
Bible:
‘I had the Bible in my hand,
As I sailed, as I sailed,
And I buried it in the sand,
As I sailed.’
Egad, if this pistol had belonged to him I should set some store
by it out of sheer curiosity. Ah, well, there’s an odd story I
have heard about one Tom Walker, who, they say, dug up some of
Kidd’s buried money; and as the fish don’t seem to bite at
present, I’ll tell it to you to pass away time.”