by Frank Sherry
Although some observers, like Fletcher, suspected that there were outright pirates among Kidd’s New York enlistees—and that many of these had signed aboard with the secret aim of seizing the ship for piracy—there is no clear evidence that this was the case. It is hard to believe that Kidd, an experienced privateer and a New Yorker himself, would be taken in by a conspiracy of ordinary pirates. He was too old a hand for that. It is equally hard to believe that any cabal of semiliterate pirates, no matter how desperate, would choose to sign on with the king’s own privateer for purposes of fomenting a mutiny. There were far less risky ways to steal a ship.
Very probably Kidd knew full well that his New York crewmen were a bad lot. But he also must have known that there were no out-and-out brigands among them—and he must have felt confident of his ability to control them. In any case, he had no choice. He had to make do with the men available.
Throughout this period, while Kidd was provisioning Adventure Galley and signing up his new hands, he seemed to feel no urgency to get away from his home port and on to the task ahead. Instead he took advantage of this time to enjoy the company of his wife and children, spending many long summer days at the family’s farm overlooking the East River. It was as if Kidd, dreading the voyage ahead, wished to put off his departure as long as possible.
But July turned into August and August into September—and finally the day arrived when Kidd could no longer delay. On September 6, fully provisioned and with a full crew of 150 aboard, Adventure Galley slipped her cable and drifted on the tide out of New York harbor, under way at last for the East.
It was a nine thousand mile run to the Indian Ocean. Kidd’s course took Adventure Galley first due east across the Atlantic to Madeira off the northwestern coast of Africa. From there, by easy stages, Kidd sailed south along the west coast of the continent, slowly—almost reluctantly—making for the Cape of Good Hope. Now that the reality of the voyage was upon him, there must have been many times when Kidd confronted the chill secret knowledge that he carried deep within himself: His mission, so lightly agreed to in London, could not possibly succeed. But he must have just as often submerged that awful realization again, persuading himself that, somehow, he would find a way to bring it off. If his commission was a burden, it was also an opportunity. By accomplishing his task, even if only partially, would he not be proving to men of quality and power that he was indeed worthy of a Royal Navy command?
As the weeks passed, Kidd—with such thoughts no doubt boiling in his mind—brought Adventure Galley farther and farther south of the equator, closer and closer to the Cape. Then Kidd once again affronted the Royal Navy.
The incident began on December 12, 1696, when Adventure Galley encountered a squadron of four Royal Navy warships, under the command of Commodore Thomas Warren, off the western coast of Africa only one hundred miles north of Capetown. Kidd went on board Warren’s flagship, where he showed the commodore his royal commission and demanded that Warren provide him with new sails to replace sails that Adventure Galley had lost in a storm. When Warren refused, Kidd again brandished his commission, claiming that he had a right to the navy’s help. If Warren refused such help, Kidd would be forced to seize the sails he needed from the first merchant vessel he came across, but his actions would be Warren’s responsibility. Kidd’s high-handedness infuriated the commodore. Angrily, Warren informed Kidd that far from supplying him with sails, he intended to impress thirty of Kidd’s men the following morning to fill out shorthanded crews in his own squadron.
Chastened, Kidd pretended to agree to Warren’s demand for his men—and he returned to Adventure Galley. During the night, however, with the seas calm, Kidd used Adventure Galley’s oars to sneak away from Warren’s squadron. By morning he had an insurmountable lead over Warren’s ships and easily got away. But he had deeply offended the Royal Navy again and his arrogance had earned him a negative reputation even before Adventure Galley rounded the Cape into the Indian Ocean.
In February 1697, Adventure Galley, after sailing past the Cape and beating her way north through the Mozambique Channel, arrived at the island of Johanna to take on fresh water.
While she was anchored in the harbor of Johanna, a well-armed East Indiaman also arrived to take on water. The East Indiaman was flying a naval pennant—a circumstance that seemed to vex Kidd greatly. He demanded that the East Indiaman’s captain lower the pennant since he alone, as the king’s privateer, was entitled to fly a navy ensign. The captain of the East Indiaman did not know what to make of Kidd, but he was deeply suspicious of this oddly arrogant pirate catcher with his crew of New York wharf rats—and he kept his guns trained on Adventure Galley, letting it be known that if Kidd was not soon gone from Johanna, he would be attacked.
Chastened again, Kidd filled his water casks and then made for the nearby island of Mohéli in the Comoros, northwest of Madagascar in the Mozambique Channel. But the captain of the East Indiaman soon carried the word far out into the Indian Ocean about the insolent privateer, William Kidd, and his evil-looking crew. Thus, before she had even well begun her mission, Adventure Galley was regarded with suspicion among East India Company merchant captains as well.
It was now March 1697, and Kidd careened Adventure Galley on the beach at Mohéli in preparation for the long voyage still ahead. Kidd was now in the general area where he intended to operate, but it was more than a year since Adventure Galley had departed Deptford, and although Kidd could claim his tardiness had been due to events outside his direct control—such as the difficulty in recruiting crewmen in New York—the fact was that his supplies were beginning to run low and his men (not to mention his backers) were growing impatient for the plunder they expected to earn.
At this point some of the hardcases Kidd had recruited in New York began to mutter against their captain, grumbling that Adventure Galley ought to forgo her original objective and turn to open piracy, earning equal shares for those who actually sailed in her. Why, they asked, should they further enrich wealthy men in London with their labor? Why not go on the account, and be done with it?
Kidd heard the grumbling. But it seemed, so far at least, only the grousing of a disgruntled few—and he dismissed it.
While they were careened at Mohéli, plague struck the crew. Within a week Kidd lost fifty of his men.
Apparently regarding this loss as just one of the unavoidable hazards of life at sea, Kidd and his surviving crew returned to Johanna where Kidd recruited thirty men “off the beach” to replace those who had died. These new crewmen were genuine pirates, a far tougher and more brazen lot than Kidd’s New Yorkers.
Finally, with his crew replenished and his ship refitted, Kidd sailed northward in late April 1697 to seek the prey his commission entitled him to take: pirates or French shipping.
In July Kidd took up his station at the mouth of the Red Sea. Here, he knew, he would be well placed to intercept the pirates who preyed on the Moorish and East India Company ships that plied between the Arab port cities and India. Here he would also be in good position to attack any French merchants that might be in the area.
Day after day the Adventure Galley plowed back and forth at the narrow mouth of the Red Sea, fruitlessly seeking a prize. Every day now, with the new men aboard, the grumbling among the crew increased.
Kidd began to fret. Here, under the burning sun, looking out over an empty sea, the reality of his situation struck him with renewed force. How would he fulfill his financial obligations to his sponsors if—as seemed certain—he failed to find French or pirate shipping to attack? And how could he keep his increasingly mutinous crew in hand if he failed to find a ship? Was he justified, under the circumstances, in undertaking some illegal act, some act not permitted by his commission? But how could he reconcile such an act with his own vision of himself as Sailor of the King?
Then word reached Adventure Galley that a big convoy of some fourteen or fifteen ships, both Moorish and European, was forming up in the port of Mocha preparatory for the run t
o India.
Perhaps, the torn Kidd now thought, this convoy would provide the solution to his dilemma. Suppose he attacked one of the Moorish vessels of this convoy? Would such action, under the circumstances, really constitute a violation of his commission?
Now Kidd’s propensity to fool himself must have come into play again. Surely his sponsors on the other side of the world would understand if—to satisfy his mutinous crew and preserve his command—he took a Moorish prize. After all, no one in England really gave a damn about Muslim losses, did they? Surely his powerful backers would protect him from censure if he overstepped his commission out of necessity. Surely his partners in the enterprise would look past his deeds toward his motives. They had promised him as much, had they not? And was the taking of a Moorish ship true piracy, in any case? Did the Great Mogul of India really qualify as a “friend or ally” of the king of England—whom Kidd was forbidden by his commission to attack?
Such questions must have plagued Kidd continually as Adventure Galley patrolled the mouth of the Red Sea, waiting for the Mogul convoy to appear. Kidd must have prayed fervently that a suitable prize would materialize before the Mocha ships got under way so that he could avoid making the terrible decision their appearance would force on him.
But the convoy came into view first.
On August 14, 1697, lookouts spotted the fleet of fifteen ships moving slowly and ponderously down the narrows right toward Adventure Galley. The convoy appeared to consist mainly of merchant ships belonging to the Great Mogul. Three armed escorts were accompanying it. Two of the escorts, both flying Dutch colors, were sailing close to the merchant vessels, while the third, an East Indiaman, was running out ahead of the clustered cargo ships.
Now Kidd made the decision he must have dreaded.
He moved to intercept.
He ordered Adventure Galley’s topsails set and the crew to man the oars. Then, in an act that was certainly a gratuitous violation of his commission, he ran up a red ensign. Kidd certainly knew that among Eastern pirates, the red flag signified a demand for surrender—or no quarter given. Then Kidd flung himself in among the Mocha merchants like a wolf seeking a likely victim. Soon he picked out a slow Moorish merchantman as target and began maneuvering to come alongside her.
As other ships of the convoy became aware of Kidd’s presence in their ranks, scattered shots began to ring out. Kidd, ignoring the desultory firing, loosed a broadside at the Moorish vessel he had targeted as his victim. His cannon damaged the rigging of the merchant but did not halt her.
Now the big East Indiaman that had been running ahead of the convoy came about and began making for Adventure Galley. This was the Sceptre, under the command of Captain Edward Barlo, a tough old sea dog. Sceptre now hoisted English colors. She fired at Adventure Galley with her bow guns.
Kidd, realizing that it was an English ship bearing down upon him, now decided to break off the action. It was one thing to attack and rob a Moorish vessel, but it would not only be an open breach of his commission to engage an English ship, it would be treason as well.
Adventure Galley thrashed away from the scene in full retreat.
But aboard Sceptre, Captain Barlo wrote a report of the incident in his log. There was no doubt in his mind that Kidd had intended piracy against the convoy—and from now on Indian Ocean mariners would consider him no better than any other pirate.
For Kidd the aborted attack on the Mocha convoy only worsened his situation. It made it impossible for him now, or in the future, to call upon the East India Company for aid or provisions as he had planned. Despite his commission, the company would now regard him as an enemy. The incident also demonstrated to Kidd that capturing sufficient prey to pay off his backers would be even more difficult than he had thought. Even Mogul shipping, it seemed, could only be taken at the risk of a fight with English or Dutch escorts. And Kidd was not yet desperate enough to risk such an open violation of his commission.
But he had to get results somehow. It was now eighteen months since he had left England, and he had absolutely nothing to show for it. He was already six months overdue on his contract with Bellomont. Furthermore, after the ignominious failure against the Mocha convoy, his prestige among his crew was lower than ever. Talk of mutiny was spreading. Added to all these troubles, the ship was beginning to leak.
Kidd now decided that, whether it constituted a technical transgression of the king’s charge or not, he had no alternative but to widen his choice of prey to include Moorish and neutral ships as well as pirates and Frenchmen. He would just have to rely on his backers to put everything to rights later—after the successful completion of his mission.
Now Kidd headed Adventure Galley westward into the Indian Ocean.
Early in September he captured a small Moorish barkentine, captained by an Englishman. Kidd and his men got only a handful of coins, a bale of pepper, and a bale of coffee for their trouble.
Kidd now made for the Malabar Coast of India. But his luck continued bad.
He ran into two Portuguese warships near Goa. Although one of the Portuguese never got close enough to fire, the other fought Adventure Galley for most of a whole day. When the Portuguese warship finally drew off, Kidd had sustained eleven casualties—and his ship was splintered, her sails cut to ribbons.
Adventure Galley limped on. Tensions between Kidd and his crew seethed. Kidd seemed to be acting now without any clear purpose in mind. Nor did he seem to understand that by now all the traders on the Malabar Coast saw him as a pirate. At one point Kidd put in at the trading station of Calicut and—despite all that had happened—demanded that the local East India manager provide him with food and water. When the company representative refused the demand, Kidd imperiously informed the man that “he was sent out by the King of England.” The company man still refused to help.
Kidd also called at the East India Company post at Karwar. Here, too, he demanded—but did not receive—supplies. The company representative at Karwar later reported that at this time Kidd’s men still went in awe of him because of his special commission from the king, but that the crew “are a very distracted company, continually quarrelling and fighting amongst themselves, so it is likely they will in a short time destroy one another, or starve, having only sufficient provisions to keep the sea for a month or more.”
The situation aboard Adventure Galley had in fact become so tumultuous that Kidd was able to maintain such discipline as still existed aboard her only by going armed and threatening crew members into performing their duties. Screaming orders, using physical force, and—like a deranged man—forever flaunting his king’s commission, Kidd seemed to be nearing a mental breakdown.
It was now November 1697—almost twenty-one months since Adventure Galley had set out on her voyage—and the rich prizes so desperately needed still eluded Kidd.
Then one sultry day, as Adventure Galley cruised off India, a rich prize at last hove into sight. She was a large merchant ship traveling alone and evidently fully loaded, judging by how low she rode in the water.
Adventure Galley pursued. But when she overhauled the merchant, the ship proved to be English: the Loyal Captain. Kidd, desperate as he was, still could not bring himself to attack an English ship.
But all at once the tensions aboard Adventure Galley boiled into the open.
Some of Kidd’s men drew their pistols and leveled them at their captain. If Kidd would not take the English merchant, they would take her themselves.
Kidd, never lacking in courage, faced them down.
“I have no commission to take any but the King’s enemies and pirates,” he growled at the mutinous men who confronted him. “If you attempt to do any such thing, you will never come on board the Galley again. I will attack you and drive you into Bombay, and will carry you before the Council there.”
Kidd then disarmed the would-be mutineers. The English merchant ship sailed on. The brief uprising was ended, but not the rancor that seethed aboard Adventure Galley.
Only two weeks later, the hostility between Kidd and his crew again flared into the open.
A gunner named William Moore, one of the most disaffected of Kidd’s men and one of those who had wanted to take the Loyal Captain in spite of her English nationality, was sitting on deck grinding a chisel when the captain appeared.
Moore, who was surrounded by some of his sullen shipmates, suddenly called out to Kidd that they could have taken the Loyal Captain and “never been the worse for it.”
Kidd glowered at the gunner and his mates, fury building within him.
But Moore went on berating Kidd for his failure to take the Loyal Captain.
“You have brought us to ruin, and we are desolate,” cried Moore.
Now Kidd, furious, screamed back at Moore, calling him, according to one later account, “a lousy dog.”
Now it was Moore who became infuriated.
“If I am a lousy dog,” he shouted to the captain, “you have made me so. You have brought me to ruin, and many more!”
Now all the tension and anguish of the previous weeks and months seemed to erupt in Kidd. He trembled with rage at the insolent gunner who dared to upbraid him aboard his own ship. At that moment Moore must have appeared to Kidd the very embodiment of all his troubles.
“Have I ruined you, you dog?” Kidd howled at Moore.
Then he suddenly caught up an ironbound wooden bucket and smashed it against the side of Moore’s head. The gunner pitched over into the scuppers. His mates carried him below to the surgeon.