From there, we would set off on an adventure that would take in three oceans and. Captain Kidd's final tragedy may be his still unrecovered treasure, which he is rumored to have hidden sometime before his return to England. We would set sail from London, heading first across the Atlantic to New York. Little is known about him until about 1689, when he was a crew member aboard. Captain Kidd's body was then hung in a gibbet and displayed at Tilbury Point at the mouth of the Thames River, where it was left to rot as a warning against piracy. William Kidd was a Scottish sailor who was executed in London 1701 for piracy. Unfortunately, he had to be hung twice because the first rope snapped, making his execution even more tragic. ![]() Before his execution, Kidd offered a warning to captains not to follow in his footsteps. Kidd was found guilty of murdering a crew member and committing multiple acts of piracy.Īs History Today notes, Captain William Kidd spent his final days in Newgate Gaol and was publicly hanged on Execution Dock at Wapping on May 23, 1701. Kidd was sent to England aboard the frigate Advice in February 1700, where he stood a hopelessly skewed trial that began May 8 and concluded the following day. He was executed in Wapping on May 23 that year, and his body was left to hang in a cage over the River Thames for three years as a warning to anyone thinking of pursuing a career in piracy.However, Captain Kidd was arrested in Boston on July 7, 1699, on orders from the British governor, Lord Richard Bellomont, who Historic UK says was an investor in Kidd's sanctioned mission. But the Governor of New York handed him over to the British authorities, and he was tried for piracy and murder in 1701. Some considered him a vicious pirate, one of many who crowded Bostons jails. The Captain Kidd, London: See 397 unbiased reviews of The Captain Kidd, rated 3.5 of 5 on Tripadvisor and ranked 13,908 of 21,871 restaurants in London. He sailed back to America confident that his friends in high places would protect him. The treasure was never found nor were the uncontested facts about his career. The British announced an amnesty for all pirates in the Indian Ocean, with one notable exception. When Kidd sold some of his recently-acquired loot and split the resulting £10,000 between his men, it was the final straw. Public opinion of privateering had also shifted. Unbeknownst to him, his financial backers were already looking for ways to distance themselves from this farcical voyage. Kidd was born in Scotland about 1645 and by the 1680s, he had established himself in New York, operating a packet line between London and the colonies. He plundered the cargo and made off for Madagascar. ![]() Then a third of them died of cholera, before Kidd killed one of his own men during a fight.ĭesperate to score a substantial booty to placate his crew, he spotted a massive Armenian ship filled with gold, spices and silk. What could possibly go wrong?įirstly, the crew became increasingly annoyed that Kidd wasn’t attacking every ship in sight and making them all instantly rich. He replaced them with chaps he found drinking in the dockside taverns of New York. Later, he settled in New York and became a pillar of society. In 2015 the team found a 100 lb (50kg) solid bar of silver at the site, confirming that the shipwreck was Captain Kidd’s. For a short while, when HMS Duchess sailed by soon after their voyage began, her captain stole most of Kidd’s best men for himself. He was born in aseaport town called Dundee, Scotland in 1654. An underwater explorer team led by Barry Clifford claimed to have found the remains of the Adventure Galley and Captain Kidd’s treasure near Madagascar’s coast. Setting sail aboard the Adventure Galley, Kidd had the luxury of a hand-picked crew of the finest sailors. Piracy was rife along the trade routes used by his new pals, and the Governor of New York and Massachusetts rounded up a consortium of financial backers, including King William III, to fund a pirate-busting mission led by the Scottish captain. He became a sea captain, his first ship being the Antigua. He ended up in New York, where he married a rich widow and hobnobbed with colonial bigwigs. William Kidd was born in Dundee, Scotland, in 1654, the son of John Kidd a seaman, and his wife Bessie Butchart. An accomplished sailor, at first he ruled the waves as a privateer, or legal pirate, employed by the British authorities to attack French ships. HE looked every inch the swashbuckler, and even inspired Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island.Ĭaptain William Kidd’s stormy voyage through life began in Dundee, where he was born in 1654. Next Post » William Kidd was the flamboyant, risk-taking privateer immortalised in Treasure Island
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |