Moneths time to bring Necessaryes for refitting his said ship the Adventure Prize and also a Condemnation for the said ship and Goods and to indempnifye all persons that should purchase any of the said Goods, alledging that the said ship was a lawfull prize being taken with a French passe which Captain Kidd shewed me, and actually in the time of War with France.10

That after the Departure of Capt. Kidd the Seamen shiped by him in the said ship did plunder and convert to their owne uses the best and most choicest of the goods of the said ships Cargoe, which did not come to my Knowledge till they had been near Five Weeks on board the said ship, and indeed it was out of my power to prevent them had I discovered it sooner being only myselfe and Negro Boy, And they were Eighteen in numbers.

That the said Seamen belonging to the said ship as afores'd when they found I was not ignorant of their villanies openly declared they would not stay longer on board the said ship, but being terrified with the thoughts of Capt Kidds returning, they Joyned all (saving the Boatswaine) and came on the Quarter Deck and said I might remain in the ship and be damned for they would stay no longer. The Man that thus affronted me I shoved on the main Deck 11 and ordered the rest to go on the Main Deck likewise and told them they had engaged themselves to Capt. Kidd to stay on board the ship as long as I should be there, And that I was resolved to stay till the two Months in which Capt. Kidd promised to return were expired unless some Extraordinary Accident intervened: I also charged them with stealing out of the Ships Hould severall Bales of Goods And that if they went from the Ship before Capt. Kidd's Arrivall I was oblidged as his Friend and in my owne Justification to write to all Governm'ts in those parts to have them secured; this calmed them for two or three dayes.

That the said Seamen did again Joyne and draw up a Paper directed to me setting forth their Resolution of leaving the Ship and signed with their names within a Circle

10 See doc. no. 76, note 9.

"I.e., shoved down from the quarter-deck onto the main deck.

commonly called a Round Robin, so gott on board A Sloope and went for the Island Curacao leaving the Ship to me and three more.

That after the departure of the said Seamen I stayd about a Week in the ship and would have stayed longer had not a Friend of myne sent a Sloope Express from Curacao to informe me the Spaniards of the Citty of St. Domingo 12 were arming out a Brigandine to come and take us, which induced me to leave the said ship Adventure Prize in the said River Higuey and went to the Island Curacao in order to protest ag't the Seamen as aforesaid and to get what satisfaction the Law would allow, For at that time they had most of them three or Four hundred pounds a Man. But the said Seamen had gained their Ends so farr in the Governm't that the Governor would not admitt me to stay in Curacao tho' at the same time John Ware Master of Capt. Kidd's ship and the said seamen were there openly protected; I do not charge this on the Govern'r 13 (who is since dead) For I should be very sorry to disturbe the Ashes of so good a Gentleman as I believe he was, but on some of his Councill that did not desire I should face them.

That I have not received of the produce of the Goods Capt. Kidd left upwards of three hundred and Eighty peices of Eight, all the rest is in Debts outstanding which is much less than my Charges.14

This is the full that presents to my Memory in Answer to their Lord'ps Demands February 4th, 1700.

HEN. BOLTON.

Not a hundred miles away.

13 Bastiaen (Sebastian) Bernage.

14

But John Ruggles, master's mate of the Primrose of Boston, testified that, drinking in a public house at Charles Town, Nevis, with William Cheesers and William Daniel, he heard the former say that Bolton had got £16,000 by Captain Kidd. Cal. St. P. Col., 1699, p. 416.

87. William Kidd to the Speaker of the House of Commons (Robert Harley). April (?), 1701.1

May it please Y'r Hon'r

The long Imprisonment I have undergone, or the tryall I am to undergoe, are not soe great an affliction to me, as my not being able to give your Hon'ble House of Commons such satisfaction as was Expected from me. I hope I have not offended against the Law, but if I have, It was the fault of others who knew better, and made me the Tool of their Ambition and Avarice, and who now perhaps think it their Interest that I should be removed out of the world.

I did not seek the Commission I undertook, but was partly Cajold, and partly menac'd into it by the Lord Bellomont, and one Robert Livingston of New York, who was the projector, promoter, and Chief Manager of that designe, and who only can give your House a satisfactory account of all the Transactions of my Owners. He was the man admitted into their Closets, and received their private Instructions, which he kept in his own hands, and who encouraged me in their names to doe more than I ever did, and to act without regard to my Commission. I would not Exceed my Authority, and took noe other ships than such

From the manuscripts of the Duke of Portland at Welbeck Abbey. The Historical Manuscripts Commission's calendar of those archives, IV. 16, wrongly gives this petition the same date as the next document, May 12, 1701. This petition was written before the trials, which occurred on May 8 and 9, but after Kidd's appearances before the House of Commons, which occurred on Mar. 27 and 31; Commons Journal, XIII. 441, 463. Kidd, Gillam, Bradish, Witherley, and 28 other pirates, mostly members of Kidd's crew, were shipped from Boston soon after March 6, 1700 (eight months after his arrest), on the Advice frigate, and arrived in the Downs Apr. 11, the day on which King William brought to an end, by prorogation, the session of Parliament. In that session, chiefly as a means of attacking Somers, the lord chancellor, a party in the House of Commons had assailed the grant of letters patent under which Kidd's enterprise had been undertaken (Dec. 6, 1699). They were outvoted, but on Mar. 16, 1700, a vote was passed for addressing the king that Kidd should not be tried, discharged, or pardoned till the next session of Parliament. The Admiralty concurred, May 2. The new Parliament came together Feb. 6, 1701; Harley was chosen speaker Feb. 11; the impeachment of Somers and Orford, in which the contract with Kidd was made the basis of one article, was voted Apr. 14.

as had French passes, which I brought with me to New England, and relyed upon for my Justification. But my Lord Bellomont seized upon them together with my Cargoe, and tho he promised to send them into England, yet has he detained part of the effects, kept these passes wholly from me, and has stript me of all the Defence I have to make, which is such Barbarous, as well as dishonorable usage, as I hope Your Hon'ble House will not let an Englishman suffer, how unfortunate soever his Circumstances are; but will intercede with his Maj'ty to defer my tryall till I can have those passes, and that Livingston may be brought under Your Examination, and Confronted by me.2

I cannot be so unjust to my selfe, as to plead to an Indictment till the French passes are restored to me, unlesse I would be accessary to my own destruction, for though I can make proof that the ships I took had such passes, I am advised by Council, that It will little avail me without producing the passes themselves. I was in great Consternation when I was before that great Assembly, Your Hon'ble House, which with the disadvantages of a mean Capacity, want of Education, and a Spirit Cramped by Long Confinem't, made me Uncapable of representing my Case; and I have therefore presumed to send your Honor a short and

"Whether the presence of the French passes at the trial for piracy would have brought about Kidd's acquittal may be doubted, courts of justice being what they were; at all events Kidd, though he clamored for them from the day of his arrival in the Downs (Portland MSS., VIII. 78) till the day he was sentenced, was never able to recover them. The admiralty court refused to consider them. "Where are they?" said the Lord Chief Baron Ward. Kidd's counsel could only reply, "We cannot yet tell whether they are in the Admiralty-Office, or whether Mr. Jodrell [clerk of the House of Commons] hath them". State Trials, V. 290. In point of fact the House of Commons, which had had all the papers before it for examination, had on Apr. 16, on information that Kidd desired the use of his papers at his trial, ordered the clerk to deliver them to the secretary of the Admiralty. Commons Journal, XIII. 379, 380, 496.—A photographic facsimile of the pass of the Cara (Quedah) Merchant is in Paine, Book of Buried Treasure, at p. 104.

So when first arraigned, he tried to avoid pleading (ibid., 287), but he was tried first for the murder of William Moore, on which the passes had no bearing. William Moore was an insubordinate gunner; after an altercation, Kidd hit him on the head with a bucket, and he died. It was probably manslaughter, but the jury sustained the indictment for murder. After being condemned for murder, Kidd was tried (unfairly in several particulars) and condemned for piracy.

true state of It, which I humbly beg Your Honors perusall, and Communication of to the House, if you think it worthy their Notice.1

5

I humbly crave leave to acquaint Your Honor that I was not privy to my being sent for up to Your House the second time, nor to the paper lately printed in my name (both which may justly give Offence to the House) but I owe the first to a Coffeeman in the Court of Wards who designed to make a shew of me, for his profit; and the latter was done by one Newy a prisoner in Newgate to get money for his support, at the hazard of my safety.

I humbly beg the Compassion and protection of the Hon'ble House of Commons, and Your Honors intercession with them on behalfe of

Your Honors

Most Dutifull and Distressed Serv't

WM. KIDD.

88. William Kidd to Robert Harley [?]. May 12, 1701.1

S'r

The Sence of my present Condition (being under Condemnation) and the thoughts of haveing bene imposed on by such as seek't my destruction therby to fulfill their ambitious desieres makes me uncapable of Expressing my selfe in those terms as I ought, therefore doe most humbly pray that you will be pleased to represent to the Hon'bl. house

'Not doc. no. 88, I judge, but more probably the "Protest" printed in Portland MSS., VIII. 78-80, a statement of Kidd's case which he had drawn up at Boston and on arrival in the Downs had sent to Orford.

"I cannot identify this paper (probably a broadside), but the ingenious Newy was doubtless the author of Captain Charles Newy's Case, impartially laid open: or a . . . Narrative of the Clandestine Proceedings aginst (sic) him, as it was hatched . . . and . . . carried on by Mrs. M. Newey, widdow (London, 1700), a pamphlet which I have not seen, but of which there is a copy in the British Museum.

From the manuscripts of the Duke of Portland at Welbeck Abbey. See doc. no. 87, and notes. The trials had taken place on May 8 and 9, and Kidd was now under sentence. He was hanged at Wapping on the shore of the Thames, May 23, 1701. The precept, or order for his execution, at Wapping "infra fluxum et refluxum maris" (i.e., between high-water and low-water mark, according to admiralty custom), is quoted in Marsden, Law and Custom of the Sea (Navy Records Society), II. 263.