University of Virginia Library

KIDD THE PIRATE.

In old times, just after the territory of the
New Netherlands had been wrested from the
hands of their High Mightinesses the Lords
States General of Holland, by Charles the Second,
and while it was as yet in an unquiet state,
the province was a favourite resort of adventurers
of all kinds, and particularly of buccaneers.
These were piratical rovers of the deep, who made
sad work in times of peace among the Spanish
settlements and Spanish merchant ships. They
took advantage of the easy access to the harbour
of the Manhattoes, and of the laxity of its scarcely
organized government, to make it a kind of rendezvous,
where they might dispose of their ill-gotten
spoils, and concert new depredations.

Crews of these desperadoes, the runagates of every
country and clime, might be seen swaggering,
in open day, about the streets of the little burgh;
elbowing its quiet Mynheers; trafficking away
their rich outlandish plunder, at half price, to the
wary merchant, and then squandering their gains
in taverns; drinking, gambling, singing, swearing,
shouting, and astounding the neighbourhood
with sudden brawl and ruffian revelry.

At length the indignation of government was
aroused, and it was determined to ferret out this
vermin brood from the colonies. Great consternation
took place among the pirates on finding
justice in pursuit of them, and their old haunts
turned to places of peril. They secreted their
money and jewels in lonely out of the way
places; buried them about the wild shores of the
rivers and sea coast, and dispersed themselves
over the face of the country.

Among the agents employed to hunt them by
sea was the renowned Captain Kidd. He had
long been a hardy adventurer, a kind of equivocal
borderer, half trader, half smuggler, with a

tolerable dash of the pickaroon. He had traded
for some time among the pirates, lurking about
the seas in a little rakish, musquito built vessel,
prying into all kinds of odd places, as busy as a
Mother Cary's chicken in a gale of wind.

This non-descript personage was pitched upon
by government as the very man to command a
vessel fitted out to cruise against the pirates, since
he knew all their haunts and lurking places:
acting upon the shrewd old maxim of “setting a
rogue to catch a rogue.” Kidd accordingly sailed
from New-York in the Adventure galley, gallantly
armed and duly commissioned, and steered
his course to the Madeiras, to Bonavista, to Madagascar,
and cruised at the entrance of the Red
Sea. Instead, however, of making war upon the
pirates he turned pirate himself: captured friend
or foe; enriched himself with the spoils of a
wealthy Indiaman, manned by Moors, though
commanded by an Englishman, and having disposed
of his prize, had the hardihood to return
to Boston, laden with wealth, with a crew of his
comrades at his heels.

His fame had preceded him. The alarm was
given of the reappearance of this cut-purse of
the ocean. Measures were taken for his arrest;
but he had time, it is said, to bury the greater
part of his treasures. He even attempted to draw
his sword and defend himself when arrested;
but was secured and thrown into prison, with
several of his followers. They were carried to
England in a frigate, where they were tried,
condemned and hanged at Execution Dock.
Kidd died hard, for the rope with which he was
first tied up broke with his weight, and he tumbled
to the ground; he was tied up a second time,
and effectually; from whence arose the story
of his having been twice hanged.

Such is the main outline of Kidd's history; but
it has given birth to an innumerable progeny of
traditions. The circumstance of his having
buried great treasures of gold and jewels after
returning from his cruising set the brains of
all the good people along the coast in a ferment.
There were rumours on rumours of great sums
found here and there; sometimes in one part of

the country, sometimes in another; of trees and
rocks bearing mysterious marks, doubtless indicating
the spots where treasure lay hidden.
Of coins found with Moorish characters, the
plunder of Kidd's eastern prize, but which the
common people took for diabolical or magic
inscriptions.

Some reported the spoils to have been buried
in solitary unsettled places, about Plymouth and
Cape Cod; many other parts of the eastern coast,
also, and various places in Long-Island Sound,
have been gilded by these rumours, and have
been ransacked by adventurous money diggers.

In all the stories of these enterprizes the devil
played a conspicuous part. Either he was conciliated
by ceremonies and invocations, or some
bargain or compact was made with him. Still he
was sure to play the money diggers some slippery
trick. Some had succeeded so far as to touch
the iron chest which contained the treasure, when
some baffling circumstance was sure to take
place. Either the earth would fall in and fill up
the pit, or some direful noise or apparition would

throw the party into a panic and frighten them
from the place; and sometimes the devil himself
would appear and bear off the prize from
their very grasp; and if they visited the place on
the next day not a trace would be seen of their
labours of the preceding night.

Such were the vague rumours which for a
long time tantalized without gratifying my curiosity
on the interesting subject of these pirate
traditions. There is nothing in this world so
hard to get at as truth. I sought among my
favourite sources of authentic information, the
oldest inhabitants, and particularly the old Dutch
wives of the province; but though I flatter
myself I am better versed than most men in
the curious history of my native province, yet
for a long time my inquiries were unattended
with any substantial result.

At length it happened, one calm day in the
latter part of summer, that I was relaxing myself
from the toils of severe study by a day's amusement
in fishing in those waters which had been
the favourite resort of my boyhood. I was in

company with several worthy burghers of my
native city. Our sport was indifferent; the fish
did not bite freely; and we had frequently
changed our fishing ground, without bettering
our luck. We at length anchored close under a
ledge of rocky coast, on the eastern side of the
island of Mannahata. It was a still, warm day.
The stream whirled and dimpled by us without
a wave or even a ripple, and every thing was so
calm and quiet, that it was almost startling when
the kingfisher would pitch himself from the
branch of some dry tree, and after suspending
himself for a moment in the air to take his aim,
would souse into the smooth water after his
prey. While we were lolling in our boat, half
drowsy with the warm stillness of the day and
the dullness of our sport, one of our party, a
worthy alderman, was overtaken by a slumber,
and as he dozed suffered the sinker of his dropline
to lie upon the bottom of the river. On
waking he found he had caught something of
importance, from the weight; on drawing it to
the surface, we were much surprised to find a
long pistol of very curious and outlandish fashion,
which from its rusted condition, and its stock
being worm eaten, and covered with barnacles,
appeared to have been a long time under water.
The unexpected appearance of this document of
warfare occasioned much speculation among my
pacific companions. One supposed it to have
fallen there during the revolutionary war. Another,
from the peculiarity of its fashion, attributed
it to the voyagers in the earliest days of the settlement;
perchance to the renowned Adrian Block
who explored the Sound and discovered Block
Island, since so noted for its cheese. But a
third, after regarding it for some time, pronounced
it to be of veritable Spanish workmanship.

“I'll warrant,” said he, “if this pistol could
talk it would tell strange stories of hard fights
among the Spanish Dons. I've not a doubt but
it's a relique of the buccaneers of old times.”

“Like enough,” said another of the party.
“There was Bradish the pirate, who at the time
Lord Bellamont made such a stir after the buccaneers,
buried money and jewels some where

in these parts, or on Long-Island; and then
there was Captain Kidd—”

“Ah, that Kidd was a daring dog,” said an
iron-faced Cape Cod whaler. “There's a fine
old song about him, all to the tune of

And it tells how he gained the devil's good graces
by burying the bible;
Egad, if this pistol had belonged to him I should
set some store by it out of sheer curiosity. Ah,
well, there's an odd story I have heard about one
Tom Walker, who they say dug up some of
Kidd's buried money; and as the fish don't seem
to bite at present, I'll tell it to you to pass away
time.”