A wreck, believed to be of the Quedagh Merchant, was found in 2007 off the Dominican Republic, but sadly no treasure. Many have certainly sought it over the years. ![]() Surely at least some of the gold and silver remains somewhere to be discovered one day? Some of that left on the first-named was later recovered, but none was ever found on Block Island.Īnd what of the riches of the Quedagh Merchant? Its cargo was worth an estimated £70,000 – the equivalent of many millions today. They weren’t unfounded either – before his fateful journey to Boston, he stopped off to bury treasure on nearby Gardiner’s Island and Block Island. This was given to the Royal Naval Hospital at Greenwich and used to build the Queen’s House, which still stands today.Īfter Kidd’s death, his legend grew – and so did the stories of his buried treasure. The year after his death, Queen Anne ordered what remained of his booty and possessions to be sold. To serve as a warning to others, his body was placed in a gibbet on the bank of the Thames at Tilbury and left to rot. Within a day he had been convicted and sentenced to death. These backers were prominent Whigs – an early forerunner of the modern-day Liberals, and in their politicking against the Tories (modern-day conservatives), Kidd was a helpless pawn. He had become an embarrassment to his original backers and, far from helping him, they helped to convict him. ![]() In the years since he had left England, piracy had become a criminal act and the government wanted to stamp it out. In May 1701, Captain Kidd went on trial for piracy. He eventually ended up in Boston, Massachusetts, where he was arrested (ironically, by one of the original investors in his voyage) and sent back to England. Kidd was now a wanted man.īy the time he captured the Quedagh Merchant, the Adventure Galley was in poor shape, so he abandoned it and set off on his prize for the Caribbean. He complained to the East India Company, then the most powerful trading firm in the world. Unfortunately for Kidd, the cargo aboard was part owned by a minster at the Court of the Grand Moghul. This was the 500-ton Quedagh Merchant, full of gold, silver, silk, spices, sugar and other goodies, and Kidd quickly took control of it. After a few successes against small ships and a stopover in the Comoros Islands, in January 1698 he spotted a much larger ship rounding the tip of India. In early 1697, he steered a course for Madagascar. His tired and frustrated crew wanted pressured him to take more extreme measures – essentially, to turn pirate himself. He found few ships to attack, and some of his men were dying from illness. Kidd left New York in the Adventure Galley in September 1696, travelling first to Madeira and then Cape Verde, before heading south. His crew responded by turning their backs and slapping their backsides in disdain.Ī minor incident but, perhaps, a bad omen for the next and last time he would return to London, a few years later… The yacht then fired a shot at him to make him show some respect. Crucially, it also had two banks of oars – a rare addition, but one which made it much more manoeuvrable.Īs it set off down the Thames, Kidd for some reason failed to salute a Royal Naval yacht at Greenwich. It weighed over 280 tons, had 34 guns and was manned by 150 men. Kidd sold his old ship and commissioned a brand new one – the Adventure Galley. The cost of the venture was met by noble British lords, and Kidd was also given a letter of marque, essentially a licence to be a privateer, signed by King William III. In 1695, Kidd was asked by the Governor of New York to attack known pirates, along with enemy French ships. His role was as a privateer, someone engaged in maritime warfare, but a private person rather than a member of the Royal Navy. Over the next few years, Kidd fought for the British against the French and Spanish, capturing several ships. ![]() ![]() He and other crew members mutinied, took over the ship, and Kidd was made captain. In 1689, he joined a French-English pirate crew in the Caribbean. We don’t know much about his early life, but by the 1680s he was living in New York City, which the British had just taken over from the Dutch. Kidd was born in Dundee, Scotland, in 1654. But in the space of a few short years, he sailed all over the world, first chasing pirates, before crossing the line into piracy himself – or so it was claimed. Certainly, he went to the gallows protesting his innocence. He was one of the most famous figures of the Golden Age of Piracy, yet some maintain that William Kidd was never a pirate at all.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |