Captain Kidd and nine of his men arrived in Newgate gaol from the
colony in February of 1700, and lay there for over a year until their
trial. These nine men were those who surrendered to Colonel Bass,
governor of what is now New Jersey. What disposition was made of the
rest of those who came in on the _St. Antonio_ does not appear.
Kidd’s arrival brought to a focus a sharp and unsparing struggle
between the two great political factions of the day, and the Government
was rocked in its seat by the exposures which were made of Bellamont
and other friends of the administration’s connection with the pirate
who was talked of from Land’s End to John O’Groat’s. During 1700 Kidd
appeared several times before the House of Commons, and a contest was
waged in that forum over his reputed treasure. A measure was introduced
by the opposition providing that the commission to Kidd to take pirates
and keep their effects and plunder should be illegal as void, and was
lost by only a thin majority.
From this it may be supposed that Bellamont and the partners got hold
of the swag. Not that it did the noble earl much good, for he died at
about this time. However, the commissioning of the _Adventure_ did not
prove such a gain to the opposition as it hoped, and the matter was
allowed to slide when the House recommended Kidd for common criminal
trial.
Under modern circumstances, this trial would have been a very close,
keen struggle. The accused would have been able to engage the most
expert counsel, who might be expected to make the prosecution exert
itself in the matter of proving its charges; not an easy thing to do
from some angles.
There were five trials upon six indictments,--one for the murder of
Gunner Moore and five for acts of piracy. Kidd was alone, of course, in
the trial for murder; on the charges of piracy, he was in the dock with
his nine seamen.
The murder trial should be carefully noticed, in view of the modern
vogue for exonerating Kidd of all guilty acts in the Indies. Those who
attempt to show that Kidd was “judicially murdered,” as the result of
a political plot carried on by factions opposed to the noble gentlemen
who backed the Kidd enterprise, must prove this murder trial to have
been unfair, for if it were not, then Kidd was liable to the death
penalty regardless of the crimes of piracy.
To clear himself, Kidd called three of his own men in an effort to
show that he slew Moore as Moore was in the act of leading a mutiny;
in other words, what we would call justifiable homicide. But his
own witnesses proved that the mutiny concerning the _Loyal Captain_
occurred from two to four weeks before the death of the gunner--a fact
which in modern law would have sufficed to convict Kidd--there being no
“immediate” emergency, as our statutes would say. No modern court would
upset the verdict of the jury who tried Kidd for murder, on the ground
that it was not supported by the evidence.
With the bewhiskered seafarers in the dock before him, the clerk of
arraignments of the Old Bailey arose and hurled eighty clauses at the
accused, eighty or more clauses, with no longer pause between them than
a semicolon. It may be submitted that this is no fair way to come at
a man whose method of combat is entirely different; who thrusts, for
instance, with a cutlass instead of a verb; hurls round-shot in place
of mere nouns, with a wooden bucket, say, for purposes of punctuation.
A fine fellow this clerk of arraignments with his wig and gown and fat,
subservient bailiffs about him! But put him on the tipsy decks of the
_Adventure_, and, mark’ee, that would be another story. So, perhaps,
the captain thought, as he stood up before this broadside of words.
If English justice is swift in these days, it must have been greased
lightning in the days of William III. Half an hour after the grand jury
met and returned the indictments, Kidd went to trial before the petit
jury, and three days sufficed for all five indictments.
A battery of prosecutors shelled the accused. The crown was represented
by Mr. Knapp, Dr. Newton, Advocate of the Admiralty; Sir John Hawles,
Sir Salathiel Lovell, Recorder; the Solicitor General and the Attorney
General. On the bench, sometimes ably assisting the prosecution, were
Baron Gould, Baron Hatsell; Justice Turton, Justice Powel and Chief
Baron Ward, who divided the job of presiding in groups of judges.
Now, in those days one accused of crime was not allowed the assistance
of counsel on matters of fact. On a pure question of law he was
permitted to consult a lawyer. This was just the opposite of what,
according to a more enlightened jurisprudence, it should have been.
Perhaps the extraordinary importance of the real science of evidence
had not occurred to our forefathers. Great injustice was the result
of thus handicapping a defendant. Kidd and his nine colleagues had to
carry the big job of defense unadvised.
The state used just two witnesses, Palmer and Bradinham, both old Kidd
men who were turned king’s evidence. Palmer had been a common seaman on
the _Adventure_ and was called by Kidd a “loggerhead”; Bradinham had
been surgeon aboard, and was accused by Kidd of being a lazy, thieving,
perjured rascal. Every man was running for his own neck then, and no
one could afford to be too particular as to how he saved it.
All of the piracies we have set down, as well as the murder of Moore,
came from the evidence of Palmer and Bradinham, somewhat corroborated
by the expressions of the nine sailors who were not delicate to save
their commander in this pinch.
No time was lost in getting a jury. When Kidd objected to being tried
by those who had convicted him of the murder of William Moore, on his
other trials for piracy, they were cleared out of the box and another
jury promptly put in. It all went at a gallop. The jury in the murder
case brought in their verdict while the first trial for piracy was
in process; it took half an hour each for the jury to render their
verdict on the piracy indictments. The lengthy speeches of the learned
gentlemen for the Crown took up as much time as anything, with the
summing-up by the judges a good second.
It must have been a great day for Cogi Baba, the Armenian, and one of
the owners of the _Quedagh Merchant_, who appeared in London at this
time to push the punishment of his despoiler. Yet he was not used at
the trials,--a noteworthy omission.
Palmer and Bradinham were subjected to no cross-examination save that
of Kidd. They were somewhat mixed up on their dates and the captain
made the most of this, but on the whole his questioning must be
regarded as quibbling.
Things looked dark for Kidd and his defense did not cast very much
light upon the situation.