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When this news reached England, it confirmed Kidd’s reputation as a pirate, and various naval commanders were ordered to “pursue and seize the said Kidd and his accomplices” for the “notorious piracies” they had committed. In an attempt to maintain his tenuous control over his crew, Kidd relented and kept the prize. After realising the captain of the taken vessel was an Englishman, Kidd tried to persuade his crew to return the ship to its owners,  but they refused, claiming that their prey was perfectly legal, as Kidd was commissioned to take French ships, and that an Armenian ship counted as French if it had French passes. The captain of Quedagh Merchant was an Englishman named Wright, who had purchased passes from the French East India Company promising him the protection of the French Crown. On 30 January 1698, Kidd raised French colours and took his greatest prize, the 400-ton Quedagh Merchant,  an Indian ship hired by Armenian merchants that was loaded with satins, muslins, gold, silver, an incredible variety of East Indian merchandise, as well as extremely valuable silks. Kidd sailed away during the night to preserve his crew, rather than subject them to Royal Navy impressment. Kidd was declared a pirate very early in his voyage by a Royal Navy officer, to whom he had promised “thirty men or so”. When Kidd found out what had happened, he was outraged and forced his men to return most of the stolen property.

On one occasion, crew members ransacked the trading ship Mary and tortured several of its crew members while Kidd and the other captain, Thomas Parker, conversed privately in Kidd’s cabin. ACCUSATIONS OF PIRACYĪcts of savagery on Kidd’s part were reported by escaped prisoners, who told stories of being hoisted up by the arms and “drubbed” (thrashed) with a drawn cutlass. Yet Kidd seemed unconcerned, later explaining to his surgeon that he had “good friends in England, that will bring me off for that”. Seventeenth-century English admiralty law allowed captains great leeway in using violence against their crew, but outright murder was not permitted. Moore fell to the deck with a fractured skull and died the following day. Moore retorted, “If I am a lousy dog, you have made me so you have brought me to ruin and many more.” Kidd snatched up and heaved an ironbound bucket at Moore. Moore urged Kidd to attack the Dutchman, an act not only piratical but also certain to anger Dutch-born King William. Kidd’s gunner William Moore was on deck sharpening a chisel when a Dutch ship appeared. Kidd killed one of his own crewmen on 30 October 1697. Some of the crew deserted Kidd the next time that Adventure Galley anchored offshore, and those who decided to stay on made constant open threats of mutiny. But, once again, he failed to attack several ships when given a chance, including a Dutchman and a New York privateer. A third of his crew died on the Comoros due to an outbreak of cholera, the brand-new ship developed many leaks, and he failed to find the pirates whom he expected to encounter off Madagascar.Īs it became obvious that his ambitious enterprise was failing, Kidd became desperate to cover its costs. In September 1696, Kidd weighed anchor and set course for the Cape of Good Hope. The myth that his “father was thought to have been a Church of Scotland minister” has been discounted, insofar as there is no mention of the name in comprehensive Church of Scotland records for the period.

A local society supported the family financially after the death of the father. While claims have been made of alternate birthplaces including Greenock and even Belfast, Kidd himself claimed to be 41 years of age, and originally from “Dundee, in the Kingdom of Scotland” while testifying under oath at the High Court of the Admiralty about the former government of New York in October 1695. Kidd was born in Dundee, Scotland prior to October 15, 1654. Some modern historians, for example Sir Cornelius Neale Dalton, deem his piratical reputation unjust. William Kidd, also known as Captain William Kidd or simply Captain Kidd ( c. 1655 – ),  was a Scottish sailor who was tried and executed for piracy after returning from a voyage to the Indian Ocean.