Kidd’s defense may be pieced together from his own words as they
appeared, not as an orderly presentation of his position, but as
comments upon the answers of the witnesses and interjected explanations
during the proceedings. It was not without ingenuity.
“I had a commission,” he said in effect, “to take the French and
pirates; and in order to do that I came up with two ships that had
French passes both of them. I called all the men a-deck to consult, and
a great many went aboard the _Quedagh Merchant_. I would have given
that ship to Cogi Baba again, but the men would not; they all voted
against it. They said, we will make a prize of her; we will carry her
to Madagascar. Palmer and Bradinham have heard me speak of the French
passes taken from the ships. The _Quedagh Merchant_ was under a French
commission. Her master was a tavern-keeper at Surat. I was not at the
sharing of the goods taken from her; I know nothing of it.
“I did not take Culliford because a great many of my men went ashore;
the statement that I gave him guns and presents is only what these
witnesses say. I was not aboard Culliford’s ship. I have some papers,
but my lord Bellamont keeps them from me; that I can not bring them
before the court. I never designed to keep more company with Captain
Culliford than with Captain Warren. I have many papers for my defense
if I could have had them; my French passes which my lord Bellamont has.
I could not condemn the ships according to law because of the mutiny in
my ship. Bradinham is a rogue; he shared in the goods and robbed the
surgeon’s chest. He knows nothing of these things; he used to sleep
five or six months together in the hold.
“The men took the goods of all the ships taken, and did what they
pleased with them. I was never near them. They lay in wait for me to
kill me. They took away what they pleased and went to the island;
and I, with about forty men, was left in the ship and we might go
whither we pleased. I will not ask the witness any more questions; so
long as he swears it our words or oaths can not be taken. Palmer is
a loggerhead. Ninety-five men deserted my ship, and went a-roguing
afterwards.
“I was threatened to be shot in the cabin if I would not go along
with the villains. This was the reason I could not come home. They
tried to burn my ship. When they deserted, I was forced to stay by
myself and pick up here a man and there a man to carry her home. Mr.
Bradinham is promised his life to take away mine. It is hard that a
couple of rascals should take away the king’s subjects’ lives; they
are a couple of rogues and rascals. It signifies nothing for me to ask
them anything. They have perjured themselves in many things; about the
guns given to Culliford, that is one thing; he swore I gave them four
guns yesterday, now he says but two. Then he says the ship went from
Plymouth the beginning of May and before he said it was in April. I
have been sworn against by perjured and wicked people.”
By way of defense to the murder charge, he alleged that there was a
mutiny on board, of which Moore was a leader, and the trouble ensued
from that fact. He is borne out in this to some extent by Hugh Parrot,
not a friendly witness, who averred that the seamen had taken up arms
against their captain in the _Loyal Captain_ crisis.
He called a couple of old salts as character witnesses who had fought
by his side against the French and who testified that he had been a
doughty man.
As for the nine common seamen, their geese were more quickly cooked.
They only defended by pleading that they had surrendered under the
king’s proclamation, to which the judges replied that inasmuch as
they had not given themselves up to Captain Warren, or any of the
three special commissioners, they were not within the terms of the
instrument, and could only hope their surrender might at this time
provoke the king’s clemency. Which was but dubious cheer. Three of
them showed they were on board as servants of particular persons and
not as sailors working the ship, and these were cleared.
After very short absences the juries at each trial returned verdicts of
guilty as charged against all except the three servants.
Thus the Captain Kidd of fiction disappears, but not so completely as
those who would have us believe that he was not guilty of piracy at
all. His defense suggests a state of things on board his ships which
is probably true, but the advantage he might have gained from such a
showing is weakened by several circumstances.
The state could have conceded his claim that the ships he took were
under French commissions, and they had French passes which were then
in the possession of Earl Bellamont in New York. It might even have
granted that under the compulsion of his crew he was prevented from
bringing them in for condemnation, as required by his commission.
Still, the significant thing would remain that he made no attempt to
account for his share of the cargoes, which he did not unequivocally
deny receiving.
His commission to take pirates required a careful and exact account of
every ship captured, her cargo, its value and all other details, to say
nothing of French ships, whose condemnation was lifted entirely out
of his hands. He did not attempt to explain all these irregularities.
We are considering strictly the matter adduced on his trial. When
we go beyond the record of that, and see, as we have, his conduct on
his return home, it is clear as daylight that he was exercising over
the property taken from the alleged French ships a private ownership
entirely incompatible with this defense.
If the _Quedagh Merchant_ was under a French pass, as he asserted,
then that portion of her cargo which he brought to Oyster Bay in the
_St. Antonio_ was neither his nor Bellamont’s, nor Livingston’s, but
the Government’s. No, the thing doesn’t seem to hold water; nobody
concerned in the whole affair seems to have been straightforward.
And so, within a week of his conviction, Captain William Kidd was
hanged at Execution Dock, on the margin of the Thames, where sailors
setting out for the far places of the earth thus received England’s
farewell admonition that honesty is the best policy.