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 King Charles the Second, and
while it was as yet in an unquiet state,
the province was a great resort of random
adventurers, loose livers, and all
that class of hap-hazard fellows who live
by their wits, and dislike the old-fashioned
restraint of law and Gospel. Among
these, the foremost were the bucaniers.
These were rovers of the deep, who, perhaps,
in time of war, had been educated
in those schools of piracy, the privateers;
but having once tasted the sweets of plunder,
had ever retained a hankering after
it. There is but a slight step from the
privatcersman to the pirate: both fight
for the love of plunder; only that the
latter is the bravest, as he dares both the
enemy and the gallows.

But in whatever school they had been
taught, the bucaniers who kept about
the English colonies were daring fellows,
and made sad work in times of peace
among the Spanish settlements and
Spanish merchantmen. The easy access
to the harbour of the Manhattoes, the
number of hiding-places about its waters,
and the laxity of its scarcely organized
government, made it a great rendezvous
of the pirates: where they might dispose
of their booty, and concert new depredations.
As they brought home with them
wealthy lading of all kinds, the luxuries
of the tropics, and the sumptuous spoils
of the Spanish provinces, and disposed
of them with the proverbial carelessness
of freebooters, they were welcome visiters
to the thrifty traders of the Manhattoes.
Crews of these desperadoes,
therefore, the runagates of every country
and every 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 or quarter
price to the wary merchant; and then
squandering their prize-money in taverns,
drinking, gambling, singing, swearing,
shouting, and astounding the neighbourhood
with midnight brawl and ruffian
revelry.

At length these excesses rose to such
a height as to become a scandal to the
provinces, and to call loudly for the
interposition of government. Measures
were accordingly taken to put a stop to
the widely-extended evil, and to ferret
this vermin brood out of the colonies.

Among the agents employed to execute
this purpose was the notorious
Captain Kidd. He had long been an

equivocal character; one of those nondescript
animals of the ocean that are
neither fish, flesh, nor fowl. He was
somewhat of a trader, something more
of a smuggler, with a considerable dash
of the piccaroon. He had traded for
many years among the pirates, in a little
rakish, musquitto-built vessel, that could
run into all kinds of waters. He knew
all their haunts and lurking-places; was
always hooking about on mysterious
voyages, and as busy as a Mother
Carey's chicken in a storm.

This nondescript personage was pitched
upon by government as the very man to
hunt the pirates by sea, upon the good
old maxim of "setting a rogue to catch
a rogue;" or as otters are sometimes
used to catch their cousins-german, the
fish.

Kidd accordingly sailed for New York,
in 1695, in a gallant vessel called the
Adventure Galley, well armed and duly
commissioned. On arriving at his old
haunts, however, he shipped his crew on
new terms; enlisted a number of his
old comrades; lads of the knife and the
pistol; and then set sail for the East.
Instead of cruising against pirates, he
turned pirate himself; steered to the
Madeiras, to Bonavista, and Madagascar,
and cruised about the entrance of the
Red Sea. Here, among other maritime
robberies, he captured a rich Quedah
merchantman, manned by Moors, though
commanded by an Englishman. Kidd
would fain have passed this off for a
worthy exploit, as being a kind of crusade
against the infidels; but government
had long since lost all relish for such
Christian triumphs.

After roaming the seas, trafficking his
prizes, and changing from ship to ship,
Kidd had the hardihood to return to Boston,
laden with booty, with a crew of
swaggering companions at his heels.

Times, however, were changed. The
bucaniers could no longer show a whisker
in the colonies with impunity. The
new governor, Lord Bellamont, had signalized
himself by his zeal in extirpating
these offenders; and was doubly exasperated
against Kidd, having been instrumental
in appointing him to the trust
which he had betrayed. No sooner,
therefore, did he show himself in Boston,
than the alarm was given of his re-appearance,
and measures were taken to
arrest this cut-purse of the ocean. The
daring character which Kidd had acquired,
however, and the desperate fellows
who followed like bulldogs at his
heels, caused a little delay in his arrest.
He took advantage of this, it is said, to
bury the greater part of his treasures,
and then carried a high head about the
streets of Boston. He even attempted
to defend himself when arrested, but was
secured and thrown into prison, with his
followers. Such was the formidable
character of this pirate and his crew,
that it was thought advisable to despatch
a frigate to bring them to England.
Great exertions were made to screen
him from justice, but in vain; he and
his comrades were tried, condemned,
and hanged at Execution Dock in London.
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 more
effectually; from hence came, doubtless,
the story of Kidd's having a charmed
life, and that he had to be twice hanged.

Such is the main outline of Kidd's history;
but it has given birth to an innumerable
progeny of traditions. The report
of his having buried great treasures of
gold and jewels before his arrest, set
the brains of all the good people along
the coast in a ferment. There were
rumours on rumours of great sums of
money found here and there, sometimes
in one part of the country, sometimes
in another; of coins with Moorish inscriptions,
doubtless the spoils of his
eastern prizes, but which the common
people looked upon with superstitious
awe, regarding the Moorish letters as
diabolical or magical characters.

Some reported the treasure to have
been buried in solitary, unsettled places
about Plymouth and Cape Cod; but by degrees
various other parts, not only on the
eastern coast, but along the shores of the
Sound, and even of Manhatta and Long
Island, were gilded by these rumours.
In fact, the rigorous measures of Lord
Bellamont had spread sudden consternation
among the bucaniers in every part
of the provinces: they had secreted their
money and jewels in lonely out-of-the-way

places, about the wild shores of the rivers
and sea-coast, and dispersed themselves
over the face of the country. The hand
of justice prevented many of them from
ever returning to regain their buried
treasures, which remained, and remain
probably to this day, objects of enterprise
for the money-digger.

This is the cause of those frequent
reports of trees and rocks bearing mysterious
marks, supposed to indicate the
spots where treasures lay hidden; and
many have been the ransackings after
the pirates' booty. In all the stories
which once abounded of these enterprises,
the devil played a conspicuous
part. Either he was conciliated by
ceremonies and invocations, or some
solemn compact was made with him.
Still, he was ever prone to play the
money-diggers some slippery trick.
Some would dig so far as to come to an
iron chest, 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 frighten the party from the place:
sometimes the devil himself would appear,
and bear off the prize when within their
very grasp; and if they revisited the
place the next day, not a trace would
be found of their labours of the preceding
night.

All these rumours, however, were extremely
vague, and for a long time tantalized
without gratifying my curiosity.
There is nothing in this world so hard to
get at as truth, and there is nothing in
this world but truth that I care for. I
sought among all my favourite sources of
authentic information, the oldest inhabitants,
and particularly the old Dutch
wives of the province; but though I flatter
myself that 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 that, one calm
day in the latter part of summer, 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, among whom were
more than one illustrious member of the
corporation, whose names, did I dare to
mention them, would do honour to my
humble page. Our sport was indifferent.
The fish did not bite freely, and we frequently
changed our fishing-ground
without bettering our lack. We were at
length anchored close under a ledge of
rocky coast, on the eastern side of the
island of Manhattan. 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 dulness of our sport, one of our
party, a worthy alderman, was overtaken
by a slumber, and, as he dozzed, 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 it 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 lain 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 no doubt but it is a relic of the
bucaniers of old times—who knows but it
belonged to Kidd himself?"

"Ah! that Kidd was a resolute fellow,"
cried an old iron-faced Cape Cod whaler.

"There's a fine old song about him, all
to the tune of—

And then it tells all about how he gained
the devil's good graces by burying the
Bible:

Odsfish, if I thought this pistol had belonged
to Kidd, I should set great store
by it, for curiosity's sake. By the way,
I recollect a story about a fellow who
once dug up Kidd's buried money, which
was written by a neighbour of mine, and
which I learnt by heart. As the fish
don't bite just now, I'll tell it to you by
way of passing away the time." And so
saying, he gave us the following narration.