Before going to Boston to see Bellamont, Kidd did that which has
somehow so caught the imagination of artists and fictionists; he ran
the sloop over to Gardiner’s Island, at the east end of Long Island
Sound and there buried a considerable portion of his money and finer
articles of plunder. Hence arose the great yarn of the pirate’s
buried treasure. Like all the rest of Kidd’s doings this is wildly
exaggerated. What was there was all practically recovered by the
colonial authorities. Yet the myth persisted for centuries.
A writer who considered himself conservative speaks of Kidd bringing
home twelve thousand pounds. This is a modern computation, but it
does not agree with our figures. With all his scheming the captain’s
subordinates got more than half of the takings, and if Kidd got twelve
thousand pounds it would mean that in all thirty or forty thousand
pounds were gained by those few months’ work in the Indian seas.
It is all way beyond the facts. Admittedly, the _Quedagh Merchant_
was the one considerable haul and according to the valuation of the
government at that time, ship and cargo all told were not worth more
than five thousand pounds. A recent writer even represents the
_Quedagh Merchant_ alone as being of the value of thirty thousand
pounds! In the indictment upon which Kidd was tried, that ship is said
to be worth four hundred pounds, which is more like it. The captain did
very well, as we have said, if he came home with a good five thousand
pounds.
As well as communicating with Bellamont, Kidd put himself in touch with
his other partner, Colonel Livingston, and the colonel became very much
excited over the prospect of cutting a pretty fine little melon. If the
_Quedagh Merchant_, a respectable and capacious cargo vessel, cost four
hundred pounds, the _Adventure_, a “crazy and leaky” craft, really not
fit for the patrol work intended for her, could not have run her owners
more than three hundred pounds. Arms and victuals dug deeply into the
original capital, but with it all, the enterprise had doubtless earned
several hundred per cent.
And if, instead of four or five men sitting in at the division, two or
three, or better one or two shared the pot, why so much the better for
the lucky one or two. That notion occurred to Livingston, to Bellamont
and to Kidd.
So the captain went on to Boston and some of his men with him.
Bellamont, in the meantime, had been obliged to call the council
together to discuss the fact that a lawbreaker was at large and
unaccounted for. It was a formality the earl had to observe to
preserve the pure bloom of his own official reputation. With the power
that was then vested in governors, the council meeting need have been
no great difficulty in the way of an arrangement between friends.
Just what happened in the interview between Kidd and Bellamont is not
recorded, but they began to dicker. All the pirates were quite at
liberty, making themselves thoroughly at home and with all the air of
honest sailors returned to spend their money and take a respite from
the arduous sea.
Suddenly the wind changed. Why it so did we can only conjecture. But a
letter from Bellamont is preserved in which he remarks that at about
this time Livingston and Kidd were acting very “impertinently” about
the money and valuables that Kidd had brought home.
Does “impertinently” mean that Bellamont suspected that his two
partners were conspiring to deprive him of his share? That might well
be. However, it is not fair to insinuate the governor was remiss in
discharging his duties as a magistrate on the skimpy chronicle which
has come down to us. We can say, however, that, so far as we can make
out, he did not act with that decision which the crimes charged against
Kidd would seem to require. This dallying about and questioning,
privately and before the council, permit implications that the governor
may or may not be actually responsible for. The whole affair does not
look regular.
Then, again, Bellamont, who was sharp enough for most general affairs,
could plan something like this: throw Kidd into jail, thus clearing
himself of the talk of complicity which had been gathering since his
connection with the pirate had become known, send him home to England
for trial, and with him out of the way, attend to the matter of the
loot, against which he could make a claim by virtue of the original
commission to Kidd, supported by the political strength which he and
his noble friends at home could exert.
Whatever might be the fact, the governor’s equivocal conduct stopped
with the discovery of Livingston and Kidd’s “impertinence” in the
affair of the spoils, and Kidd, with all of his crew who could be
grabbed, were stowed away in Boston jail. Before that happened a
number of his men had slipped across to the Province of Jersey and
surrendered to Colonel Bass, the governor, in the spirit of the
king’s proclamation, within the time therein provided, but to none of
the persons therein particularly named as empowered to receive such
surrenders.
In December, 1699, the pirates were sent to England in the frigate
_Advice_, and on May 9, 1701, just about five years after leaving
Plymouth, they went to trial for their lives in the historic Old
Bailey.