Pardon or no pardon, proclamation or no proclamation, Captain Kidd was
bound to go home. He had finished with piracy, at least in the East
Indies.
His active operations had barely filled out six months. His bold attack
on the Mocca Fleet befell on the 14th of August, 1697; in January,
1698, he grabbed the _Quedagh Merchant_, loitered down the coast in
her, trading here and there, and about the opening of May of the same
year came to Madagascar, having picked up a wandering Portuguese on
the way. August, then, to January, really saw Kidd’s work, and it was
in that comparatively short time that he acquired an extraordinary and
permanent notoriety.
Yet with the exception of the slaying of Gunner Moore he had
committed no act which to-day would be a capital offense; the matter
of the ship’s cooper and the native is all too modern in tone.
Undoubtedly, the notice which Kidd attracted was because of the
connection of Bellamont and certain other nobles with the inception
of the enterprise, their political enemies now making gain of their
predicament and flooding the town with pamphlets wherein, as part
of the game, Kidd took on the lineaments of a sea-monster. Beyond an
uncommon boldness, there was nothing in the crimes he committed to
foundation such a popular clamor as rose about his name in England.
Those few months of effort, however, had been very profitable.
Contemporaries put the extreme value on the _Quedagh Merchant’s_ cargo
at twelve thousand pounds,--an exaggeration, the probable figure being
about nine thousand. Of this, on the forty-share basis together with
all he could deduct as charges for supplies and ammunition, Kidd must
have obtained some thirty per cent. Not only that, but it appears from
the remarks of one of his crew on the trial that the captain by some
device or other took back this man’s share, and if this man’s probably
others.
There was a fat three thousand pounds out of this venture; in addition
there must be remembered the value of the smaller pick-ups he had
made, so that one way and other, with goods and money the captain must
have concluded his enterprise with a good five thousand pounds,--about
twenty thousand dollars, and in the values of the present day a very
decent fortune indeed. On top of all that he had the ship herself,
which was then valued at four hundred pounds, or two thousand dollars.
To-day one could hardly get a good halibut boat for two thousand
dollars, so you can get an inkling of what the sum of his gains would
have meant in these times. On the other hand, some of the articles are
cheaper now than they were then, as for instance calico, of which he
made a good haul. This money is what makes up the bulk of the so-called
Captain Kidd’s treasure, which fancy has so vividly exaggerated.
Robbing merchant ships as he was, all he obtained was mostly
merchandise, largely perishable and hence to be disposed of quickly.
To imagine these vessels as carrying unique articles of gold and
silverware or pearls and jewels of great price is to be away off the
road of historic fact.
For instance, here is a general list of the property that fell into his
hands: Opium, sugar, raw silk, calico, muslin, rice, beeswax, butter,
iron, horses, quilts, sugar-candy, tobacco, and similar sundries.
Eatables such as butter and sugar and so on were shared among the
ship’s messes; the rest were sold wherever a buyer could be found.
Fighting and taking ships were really incidental labors for these
pirates. There was a great amount of hard, plain stevedore work to be
done, shifting these cargoes from ship to ship and from ship to shore.
From August onward there was little loafing indulged in. What with
working the ship, sometimes two of them, sorting and arranging cargoes,
the sailors were at it constantly, while we must imagine the captain
enmeshed in the ardor of close bookkeeping long after the lantern had
been set up in the stern.
In all of the record of the proceedings in the Old Bailey there is
nothing said of any one being killed in combat, either with the capture
of ships or the engagement with the Portuguese man-of-war, on either
side.
And now the captain was content. Save for the complaint of Darby
Mullins that the captain took his share away from him, the crew also
seem to have been satisfied. After the division Kidd let it become
known that he was leaving the way of the law-breaker, and, according to
his own account, ninety-five men thereupon left him, almost in a body.
Incidental attrition later on took more of them, and when at last he
turned the nose of the _Quedagh Merchant_ homeward barely enough men
remained with him to work the ship.