The Book of Buried Treasure Part 12

_Kidd_. "It was not designedly done, but in my pa.s.sion, for which I am heartily sorry."

Kidd was permitted to introduce no evidence as to his previous good reputation, and the Court concluded that it had heard enough. Lord Chief Baron Ward thereupon delivered himself of an exceedingly adverse charge to the jury, virtually instructing them to find the prisoner guilty of murder, which was promptly done. Having made sure of sending him to Execution Dock, the Court then proceeded to try him for piracy, which seems to have been a superfluous and unnecessary pother. Kidd declared, when this second trial began:

"It is vain to ask any questions. It is hard that the life of one of the King's subjects should be taken away upon the perjured oaths of such villains as these (Bradingham and Palmer). Because I would not yield to their wishes and turn pirate, they now endeavor to prove I was one. Bradingham is saving his life to take away mine."

The Crown proved the capture of the two ships belonging to the Great Mogul, and an East Indian merchant, representing the merchants, testified as to the value of the lading and the regularity of the ship's papers. Kidd challenged this evidence, and once more pleaded with the Court that he be allowed to bring forward the French pa.s.ses.

He a.s.serted that the _Quedah Merchant_ had a French Commission, and that her master was a tavern keeper of Surat. That he told the truth, the accompanying photograph of the said doc.u.ment bears belated witness.

The Lord Chief Baron put his finger on the weak point of the case by asking to know why Kidd had not taken the ship to port to be lawfully condemned as a prize, as demanded by the terms of his commission from the King. To this Kidd replied that his crew were mutinous, and the _Adventure Galley_ unseaworthy, for which reasons he made for the nearest harbor of Madagascar. There his men, to the number of ninety odd, mutinied and went over to the pirate Culliford in the _Mocha Frigate_. He was left short-handed, his own ship was unfit to take to sea, so he burned her, and transferred to the _Quedah Merchant_, after which he steered straight for Boston to deliver her prize to Lord Bellomont, which he would have done had he not learned in the West Indies that he had been proclaimed a pirate.

Edward Davis, mariner, confirmed the statement regarding the French pa.s.ses, in these words:

"I came home a pa.s.senger from Madagascar and from thence to Amboyna, and there he (Kidd) sent his boat ash.o.r.e, and there was one that said Captain Kidd was published a pirate in England, and Captain Kidd gave those pa.s.ses to him to read. The Captain said they were French pa.s.ses."

_Kidd_. "You heard that one, Captain Elms, say they were French pa.s.ses?"

_Davis_. "Yes, I heard Captain Elms say they were French pa.s.ses."

_Mr. Baron Hatsell_. "Have you any more to say, Captain Kidd?"

_Kidd_. "I have some papers, but my Lord Bellomont keeps them from me, so that I cannot bring them before the Court!"

Bradingham and other members of the crew admitted that they understood from Kidd that the captured ships were sailing under French pa.s.ses.

Kidd, having been convicted of murder, was now allowed to fetch in witnesses as to his character as a man and a sailor previous to the fatal voyage. One Captain Humphrey swore that he had known Capt. Kidd in the West Indies twelve years before. "You had a general applause,"

said he, "for what you had done from time to time."

_The Lord Chief Baron_. "That was before he was turned pirate."

Captain Bond then declared:

"I know you were very useful at the beginning of the war in the West Indies."

Colonel Hewson put the matter more forcibly and made no bones of telling the Court:

"My Lord, he was a mighty man there. He served under my command there.

He was sent to me by the order of Colonel Codrington."

_The Solicitor General_. "How long was this ago?"

_Colonel Hewson_. "About nine years ago. He was with me in two engagements against the French, and fought as well as any man I ever saw, according to the proportion of his men. We had six Frenchmen (ships) to deal with, and we had only mine and his ship."

_Kidd_. "Do you think I was a pirate?"

_Colonel Hewson_. "I knew his men would have gone a-pirating, and he refused it, and his men seized upon his ship; and when he went this last voyage, he consulted with me, and told me they had engaged him in such an expedition. And I told him that he had enough already and might be content with what he had. And he said that was his own inclination, but Lord Bellomont told him if he did not go the voyage there were great men who would stop his brigantine in the river if he did not go."

_Thomas Cooper_. "I was aboard the _Lyon_ in the West Indies and this Captain Kidd brought his ship from a place that belonged to the Dutch and brought her into the King's service at the beginning of the war, about ten years ago. And he took service under the Colonel (Hewson), and we fought Monsieur Du Ca.s.s a whole day, and I thank G.o.d we got the better of him. And Captain Kidd behaved very well in the face of his enemies."

It may be said also for Captain William Kidd that he behaved very well in the face of the formidable battery of legal adversaries.

As a kind of afterthought, the jury found him guilty of piracy along with several of his crew, Nichols Churchill, James How, Gabriel Loiff, Hugh Parrott, Abel Owens, and Darby Mullins. Three of those indicted were set free, Richard Barlicorn, Robert Lumley, and William Jenkins, because they were able to prove themselves to have been bound seamen apprentices, duly indentured to officers of the ship who were responsible for their deeds. Before sentence was pa.s.sed on him, Kidd said to the Court:

"My Lords, it is a very hard judgment. For my part I am the most innocent person of them all."

Execution Dock long since vanished from old London, but tradition has survived along the waterfront of Wapping to fix the spot, and the worn stone staircase known as the "Pirates' Stairs," still leads down to the river, and down these same steps walked Captain William Kidd. The _Gentleman's Magazine_ (London) for 1796 describes the ancient procedure, just as it had befallen Captain Kidd and his men:

"Feb. 4th. This morning, a little after ten o'clock, Colley, Cole, and Blanche, the three sailors convicted of the murder of Captain Little, were brought out of Newgate, and conveyed in solemn procession to Execution Dock, there to receive the punishment awarded by law. On the cart on which they rode was an elevated stage; on this were seated Colley, the princ.i.p.al instigator in the murder, in the middle, and his two wretched instruments, the Spaniard Blanche, and the Mulatto Cole, on each side of him; and behind, on another seat, two executioners.

"Colley seemed in a state resembling that of a man stupidly intoxicated, and scarcely awake, and the two discovered little sensibility on this occasion, nor to the last moment of their existence, did they, as we hear, make any confession. They were turned off about a quarter before twelve in the midst of an immense crowd of spectators. On the way to the place of execution, they were preceded by the Marshall of the Admiralty in his carriage, the Deputy Marshall, bearing the silver oar, and the two City Marshals on horseback, Sheriff's officers, etc. The whole cavalcade was conducted with great solemnity."

John Taylor, "the water poet," who lived in the time of Captain Kidd, wrote these doleful lines, which may serve as a kind of obituary:

"There are inferior Gallowses which bear, (According to the season) twice a year; And there's a kind of waterish tree at Wapping Where sea-thieves or pirates are catched napping."

Kidd's body, covered with tar and hung in chains, was gibbeted on the sh.o.r.e of the reach of the Thames hard by Tilbury Fort, as was the customary manner of displaying dead pirates by way of warning to pa.s.sing seamen. His treasure was confiscated by the Crown, and what was left of it, after the array of legal gentlemen had been paid their fees, was turned over to Greenwich Hospital by act of Parliament.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Kidd hanging in chains. (_From The Pirates' Own Book_.)]

"The Pirates' Stairs" leading to the site of Execution Dock at Wapping where Kidd was hanged. The old stone steps are visible beneath the modern iron bridge.

Thus lived and died a man, who, whatever may have been his faults, was unfairly dealt with by his patrons, misused by his rascally crew, and slandered by credulous posterity.

[1] History of England.

[2] Published in 1701.

[3] Macauley.

[4] "From hence putting off to the West Indies, wee were not many dayes at sea, but there beganne among our people such mortalitie as in fewe days there were dead above two or three hundred men. And until some seven or eight dayes after our coming from S. Iago, there had not died any one man of sickness in all the fleete; the sickness shewed not his infection wherewith so many were stroken until we were departed thence, and then seazed our people with extreme hot burning and continuall agues, whereof very fewe escaped with life, and yet those for the most part not without great alteration and decay of their wittes and strength for a long time after."--Hakluyt's Voyages.--(A Summarie and True Discourse of Sir Francis Drake's West Indian voyage begun in the Year 1585.)

[5] The _Quedah Merchant_.

[6] The _Quedah Merchant_.

CHAPTER V

THE WONDROUS FORTUNE OF WILLIAM PHIPS

The flaw in the business of treasure hunting, outside of fiction, is that the persons equipped with the shovels and picks and the ancient charts so seldom find the hidden gold. The energy, credulity, and persistence of these explorers are truly admirable but the results have been singularly shy of dividends the world over. There is genuine satisfaction, therefore, in sounding the name and fame of the man who not only went roving in search of lost treasure but also found and fetched home more of it than any other adventurer known to this kind of quest.