Indian Antiquary Vol 49

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 12

THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ JANUARY, 1920
intentions were is unknown, but before he reached the Cape he fell in with a squadron under Commodore Thomas Warren, his behaviour to whom was sufficiently truculent to exoite suspicion, though his commission prevented that officer from interfering with him. In April 1697 he arrived at the Island of Johanna, one of the Comoro group, which was & well-known halting place for the Company's ships. There he fell in with some of the latter and behaved in such a way that they expected him to attack them and took all necessary precautions. Apparently he was afraid to do this and they went on their way unmolested. From Madagascar he went to the Red Sea with the intention of attacking the pilgrim ships, and in August came up with the fleet, but was frightened off by the convoy. Next, sailing down the Indian Coast, he took various native vessels, some of which were commanded by Englishmen, one of whom-Captain Parker-be kept on board for some time as a kind of pilot. Being attaoked by two Portuguese ships-of-war, he crippled the smaller and better sailer and showed his heels to the other. This does not look like courage on his part, but it does not prove cowardice, for, even if he had fought and beaten the bigger ship, he must have suffered some logs without any prospect of booty, which was contrary to pirate custom.
After eluding the Company's oruisers which were now on the look out for him, and refitting his ship, he renewed his watch on the coast for a rich native veggel, and, early in 1698, took the Quedah Merchant, commanded by Captain John Wright, with a cargo worth $20,000. He gave back to Captain Wright all his personal property as, it was thought, a reward for making no resistance. With this capture Kidd appears to have been satisfied. He sailed to Madagascar, where he arrived in May. There he met the pirate Oalliford, to whom somo ninety of his men deserted. At last, thinking his own ship, the Adventure Galley, unfit for the homeward journey he transferred to the Quedah Merchant and sailed for America..
Arriving in Boston in 1699 he assumed all the airs of innocence, but the outory against him was too strong. He was arrested and sent to England, tried for piracy and murder, and being convicted was, on the 24th May 1701, hanged at Execution Dook,
So far as is known he had never actually attacked English or European ships and never flown any kind of piratical flag, though of course his commission entitled him to fly the broad red pendant. He justified his attacks on native vessels on the ground that thoy carried French passes. Sir Cornelius Neale Dalton maintains that he had been set ay ba possible task in which he naturally failed, that the alleged murder of his quartermaster was probably an act necessitated by the requirements of discipline and that no conclusive evidence of piracy was produced at his trial. It is certain that his defence was badly conducted, that evidence in his favour was wilfully suppressed, and that the witnesses against him were absolutely untrustworthy, but I doubt whether there was any actual miscarriage of justice. He appears to have been an excellent seaman and a rigid disciplinarian. His biggest capture, the Quedah Merchant, was not one. that would have satisfied a pirate like Every, and the fact that it was his biggest suggests that the stories of his buried treasures have absolutely no foundation.
The concluding portion of the letter describing Kidd's fight with the Portuguese deals with a fight between the Portuguese and the Arabe. It shows that whilst individual Portuguese may have maintained the national reputation, the Portuguese seamen had, as a body, fallen beneath contempt.