Kidd, William, 1645?–1701, British privateer and pirate, known as Captain Kidd. He went to sea in his youth and later settled in New York, where he married and owned property. In 1691 he was rewarded for his services against French privateers. While in London in 1695 he was commissioned by the earl of Bellomont, recently appointed governor of New York, as a privateer to defend English ships from pirates in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. In 1696, Kidd set sail for New York and from there to Madagascar. Disease, mutiny, and failure to take prizes apparently caused him to turn pirate. Returning (1699) to the West Indies with his richest prize, the Armenian Quedagh Merchant, he learned of piracy charges against him. He sailed to New York to clear himself by claiming that the vessels he had attacked were lawful prizes. He was arrested and taken to London, where in 1701 he was tried on five charges of piracy and one of murder. The trial was complicated by the fact that four Whig peers who had backed him were politically embarrassed by his career. He was convicted and hanged. The barbaric cruelty and buried treasure of Captain Kidd are unsubstantiated bits of the legends about him. The Kidd legend has often been referred to in literature, for instance in Edgar Allen Poe's Gold Bug and Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island.

Bibliography

See D. C. Seitz, ed., The Tryal of Captain William Kidd (1935); biographies by W. H. Bonner (1947), D. M. Hinrichs (1955), and R. Zacks (2005).

Kidd, William

known as Captain Kidd

(born c. 1645, Greenock, Renfrew, Scot.—died May 23, 1701, London, Eng.) British privateer and pirate. He was sailing as a legitimate privateer for Britain when he was commissioned in 1695 to apprehend pirates who molested the ships of the East India Company. He himself turned pirate on the voyage, took several ships, and mortally wounded his gunner, William Moore. He surrendered in New York in 1699, having been promised a pardon. Sent to England for trial, he was found guilty of Moore's murder and five piracy counts, and he was hanged. Some of his treasure was recovered from Gardiners Island (off Long Island), but much has apparently never been found. After his death he attained semilegendary status and was romanticized as a dashing swashbuckler.