Chilluminati Podcast - Episode 206 - The Bombastic Life of Pirate William Kidd Ft. Crendor

Episode Date: June 4, 2023

The most accidental Pirate in the world. Patreon - http://www.patreon.com/chilluminatipod MERCH - http://www.theyetee.com/collections/chilluminati Special thanks to our sponsors this episode - EVERYONE AT HTTP://PATREON.COM/CHILLUMINATIPOD Jesse Cox - http://www.youtube.com/jessecox Alex Faciane - http://www.youtube.com/user/superbeardbros Editor - DeanCutty http://www.twitter.com/deancutty Art Commissioned by - http://www.mollyheadycarroll.com Theme - Matt Proft End song - POWER FAILURE - https://soundcloud.com/powerfailure Video - http://www.twitter.com/digitalmuppet

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Jaluminati podcast, episode 206, I think, as always, I'm one of your hosts, Mike Martin, joined by the Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan of LA, Alex and Jesse. Hey. Well, hang on, he said hey, but we also have a special guest here, and it's important that I introduce him right now, the ever, the man who brought us the episode Egyptian colony in the United States. And by brought us, I mean, I chose it while he showed up here. Crendor has returned. And in that, I need to think of a pair for Crendor and Jesse, because they have their own duo podcast. Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth? All right. That means Alex gets to do the Jun Tao and the Chinese consulates daughter of LA,

Crendor and Jesse Cox. No, we could actually be called like Cox and Crendor or something. Yeah, that'd be crazy. That might, it might be crazy. That might catch on, I think. It could catch on. Yeah, you might have a podcast that goes hundreds and hundreds of episodes if you decide to do that. Almost 400. That'd be wild. Yeah. Yeah. We could call it like YouTube.com slash Cox and Crendor podcast. All one word. He's chilling in your shill spot, Alex. Mine. Yeah. You mean where we sail the URLs like patreon.com. So that's Summoning Pod, the greatest website of all time. Where you can get not just ad free episodes, but also a mini soda fair episode. Our new show, Rotten Popcorn, where Mike is finally going to watch

X Files this week if he doesn't forget again. And is it, is it a new show at this point? It's brand new. It's hot off the presses. It's so sexy. You gotta, everybody's talking about it. You got to go find out what the hell they're all talking about. It's, people are buzzing. Mike has never seen the X Files. Isn't it impossible? People are buzzing. He doesn't know who Fox Mulder is. You know, I mean, he could see, he could recognize a picture. You could recognize a picture of him, but who, who is he really? You don't know. You told me he's me. So I clearly know him very, very, very well. You're about to, you're about to find, you're about to fill that hole, man. Am I like a reincarnation of a fictional character? I don't want to oversell it, but well, if we're

going to talk about reincarnation, then we need to talk about who Fox Mulder was during the Civil War, but that's not even in the first episode X Files. That's in season five. So don't even worry about it. That makes no sense to me. Oh, but it will. It will, my boy. It will. Anyway, go to the website. Is that the plan? We're going to chip away at the whole series on Popcorn? If I, if look, if it's the most listened to episode of all time. No promises. No promises. I'm not going to say we're going to watch all nine, 11 seasons of the X Files now that I'm an old man. We have to unlock this for this poor boy. I can't believe that he's never seen it. Anyway, go to that website, give us the money. We make the show and that's how it works. So that's, that's it. That's true.

You pay us. We keep making the show. It keeps being good. That's the vibes. Good vibes. Were you here when Frendor was on this last episode? I was there for Egypt, but I wasn't there when he told the story live on air about me driving with blunts in my pockets or whatever the other story. Can you refresh us on that story on how you met Alex for the very first time? Well, this wasn't the first time I met Alex. This was just one of the times we were, we were going to, I don't even remember. It was so long ago, but then you went to get your keys and instead you're like, oh, I only got blunts in my pocket, not keys. And you had to go get your keys. Yeah. That was a, I was doing cheat cosplay at that time, just like I do all the time. It

was a good cosplay. Yeah. Just like I do all the time. Welcome back, Frendor. Do the show after, oh man, you were episode 99. So it's been over a hundred and something episodes since you've been on. Damn, dude. I'm excited because you gave me a couple of topics to look into that you were curious about. And while we didn't go with the Polybius route, we, I wanted to go the Oak Island route and you would ask me if we had done Oak Island in the past. And the answer technically is yes, specifically about the money pit that that's there because it was on episode 136, 2022 Alex Mysteries, part three episode, whatever. You got like an encyclopedia. You're like section 22. That's just I'm like the square enix of episode namers. So that's the vibes. We did in about like

pretty big detail talk about the money pit, the consistent digging that people are doing when they found like the boards underneath the sand and then like weird like what was like coconut hairs covering it. It's an absolutely insane story. I don't even know how real it is. It just feels like sometimes like just an endless treasure hunt funded by sheer belief and rich people. And that's it. But I don't know. It's like they're like, we, but they keep finding like crazy ancient shit. I watch like they did watch like three episodes, three seasons of that show where they're like just pull out like a Roman coin. Like, what does that do in there? Like, I don't know. There is no way that any of that is no any more than a producer being like, all right, this episode,

we haven't found stuff for a while. So I bought this coin. We're going to stick it in the pit. You guys are going to find it. Okay. Oh, fucking yeah. Throw cavemen tooth. They're like, okay, we'll act good. You sound it sounds perfect. No, they definitely found it. Yeah. It's real. Yeah. It's real. It's definitely absolutely correct. It's real. Well, while that story is still apparently ongoing, like there's they haven't found anything yet, but weird old things keep being found there. I did come across a list of many of the different legends of the people who may have buried treasure there, of course, including Blackbeard, because Blackbeard has buried treasure everywhere in the world. And of course, the only pirates there ever was there. Exactly. Well,

then I ran across a pirate I hadn't heard of, but the name sounded familiar because it's he has the same name as another legendary outlaw a few centuries later, Alexander Louis Fasiani bingo. And you are an outlaw. What did you do? What is your crime, Mr. Fasiani? I was too cool. How's this guy not in jail? Boy, that's that's I mean, yeah, that's it. Yeah, somebody stop me. I've seen the mask. That's good. Of all the movies that you could have seen, I'm glad that you sat down and watched knock that one off the list. I was a child when you want. I don't get to choose what I get to see as a child. Fair. I remember playing the mask video game for the Super Nintendo. Oh my god. I'm going to do

that tonight. Oh, there was. I rented it at Blockbuster Video. I'm doing that tonight. Did not know about that. Is that a platformer? Like what kind of game? Yeah, I think it's a platformer, if I remember. Does it have lines from the movie in it? But like, you know, 32 bit like I know he does the thing where the mask goes like it's like I shoot out. Oh my god. It does that. Oh yeah, 1995. Dude, 93%. 93 out of 100. Hell yeah. I am now suddenly interested. That's how Son of Mask was born. I never saw Son of the Mask. So, you know, I saved myself that you're doing pretty good then. Yeah, so I figured I saw the good one. I didn't need to see was Jamie Kennedy who was playing fucking Son of the Mask or whatever

it was back when he was still pop. No, the baby is the man. Oh Jesus Christ. His whole skull comes out. Look at that. Look at that skull-less eyeball-less, tongue-less mouth of that just awful. Oh god. Go do yourself a favor internet and go look at a screenshot or two of this fucking game. Actually, go boot it. I'm sure there's a browser where you can go. I don't think this one's coming out again anytime soon. No, no remake remaster or spiritual success. Go ahead and check that one out. Jesus Christ. Great game. In my looking through of multiple people who supposedly buried their treasure there, including Blackbeard, like I said, I came across a name I recognized, William Kidd, who most people, at least for me, the first thing that comes to mind when you see William Kidd is

Billy the Kid. Billy the Kid from the Old West. No, no. No, no. See, Jesse's a history fan. No, no, no. He already knows where I'm going with this. Does he though? I do. I do. It turns out historical stuff I know. It's crazy. Krendor, you've known Jesse for much longer than we have. Is he a man who knows a lot or is he a man who pretends to know a lot? It could be both. Depends what you're talking about. All right. Well, yeah, it's the illusion of knowledge. Yeah, there's plenty of times where he's like, oh, yeah, 100%. He doesn't know what's going on. Well, we're not talking about Billy the Kid, though I would love to do that one day. Today, we're talking about a infamous pirate with the same name, Captain William Kidd, who was kind of did his time as pirate in the

late 1690s into basically 1700, 1701, where he would eventually be arrested. His name has kind of become synonymous with lost treasure and the romanticized image of the high seas pirate, while many of the claims about him have been exaggerated. Nonetheless, they make for extremely fascinating stories. And one of the most enduring legends associated with the pirate kid is the fabled treasure that he supposedly buried where else but Oak Island off the coast of Nova Scotia, which has been the focus of numerous and well-publicized treasure hunts for more than a century that we covered in episode 136. And despite extensive searches and significant investments of endless dollars, no definitive proof of kids treasure has ever been discovered there. And that remains true

to this day. Other locations rumored to house kids hidden treasure include Gardeners Island in New York, Liberty Island, and even the coast of Madagascar. Yet despite these persistent legends and extensive searches, his treasure remains a mystery. No one having claimed it thus far. And in addition to the treasure tales, outlandish claims about kids pirate exploits have also found their way into folklore. Some suggest kid was part of a secret pirate brotherhood, a society of seafarers who stashed their plunder in a communal treasure trove. Others report that kid's ghost even haunts the area around London's execution dock, where he would eventually be hanged from murder and piracy. And despite these colorful legends and myths, obviously it's important to

remember that he was a historical person. This man was real. And he was a privateer turned pirate whose life and career were much more complex and interesting than the legends tell. And before we dive in fully, a big shout out to the sources for this. And there's so many sources for this damn dude. The main ones I used was Captain Kid, The True Story of a Pirate by Richard Zaks, which was from 2002, alongside Captain Kid and His World by Robert C. Ritchie that came out in 1996. However, there are other books, many other, including the very first one called The History of Captain Kid by Alexander Equilmillan, which was published in 1699, while he was still alive. So that's like where you're going to get a good chunk of it, if you want to read it. And then

after he was put to death, they then Daniel Defoe wrote a book, The Trial of Captain Kid, that was released in 1701. So there's some like real close to the source historical records of what we know. And so the stuff that we know as fact, we know kind of just dead on. The other things that add to his legend, there is evidence that some of the things he may have done actually hold truth to them, but they very unlikely follow the legends that are kind of spilled nowadays, the myths that have passed around how violent and horrible the pirate this man was, because that was not really the truth of Captain William Kid. With all that kind of laid out, though, let's jump in right where this man was born in the coastal town of Greenock, Scotland. In around 1645, historical

records are kind of hard to keep real good track of that far back. A boy by the name of William Kid was born into a world of seafaring adventures and deep sea mysteries right from the get go. His father was a sea captain, a man who had imparted tales of exploits to his son, all through his childhood until like a lot of other men at sea and happening, this happens to, he just became lost at sea one day. His father just gone. This early loss would undoubtedly have a profound impact on kid shaping his future life on the waves. And young William was brought up in the busy Scottish port town where tales of adventures, even without his father, about far off lands and bountiful treasures were part of his everyday life. This was his norm. And this is

all he really knew. And so kind of going to the sea was something that he always saw himself doing. One can kind of imagine the young boy standing on the docks, looking out to the horizon, all those ships, a bunch of pirates and privateers and merchants coming through, having all kinds of cool conversations with them. And I can see like a six, seven, eight year old just dreaming of the adventures that waited him when he finally got hold enough. Can I just say thus far, we're like one for one for one, like indistinguishable from if there was like a Super Nintendo, JRPG about pirates right now. He's the kid who lost his dad surrounded by those that he knows is who like the tales of pirates standing on the dock, looking out at sea. Star Wars, bro.

If only there was some call to action that would lead to an old man who used to be his dad's friend, pirate. Right, right, right. And then it'll be on the run once someone burns this when the empire burns his home down. That'll lead him back home. Well, this young boy, this young boy. Do you call him a youngling? A young, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, this youngling, this youngling, all the younglings, this neophyte. Well, this young boy dreaming on the docks, little did he know that one day his name would be known worldwide, etched in the annals of piracy and adventuring history. And by the 1680s, William Kidd had made a name for himself in the New World. He had crossed the Atlantic and was living in a burgeoning colony of New York. He was a well

respected, respected sea captain, a far cry from the reputation that would follow him in his later years. And in 1689, during the War of the Grand Alliance, kid's life took a significant turn that ended up kind of dictating where the rest of his life is going. Is that a real war? That sounds like it's from a tactics game. The War of the Grand Alliance. It does. That's the that's the GBA version of the PS1 game. I honestly have never heard of that war before in my life. You probably didn't hear of it because you're not a pirate. There it is. Pirate Wars, War of the Grand Alliance. Also called the War of the League of Augsburg is another name of the war. Oh, yeah. Well, I know why they renamed it now. Holy shit. It lasted from 1689

to 1697 in the nine years war, also known as the War of the Grand Alliance. It's called the night. Okay, it's the nine years war. But I'm giving it flowery language and using more fun wording. I was like, what the hell? It was a direct conflict between France and the Grand Alliance, which was a coalition. No, it's the nine year war. There's got to be a couple nine year wars. Like there's not just one nine year war. Well, this was the nine years war. Probably. Yeah, just trying to avoid confusion. Yeah. Well, I'm sorry I used fancy language, Jesse, and confused the history of all people would know you would Jesse. I don't know the War of the Grand Alliance. Although I do know now that the Grand Alliance, I know what the Grand Alliance was composed of.

I get that now. Yeah. All right. All right. All right. Works for me. I'll take it. It's here in 1689 during the nine years war that kid joined a pirate hunting expedition and quickly proved himself to be a very capable and decisive leader. No doubt part of growing up around all of these up captains and other seafaring men. Recognizing his talents, the expedition leaders gave him command of his very own privateership. His duty was clear, capture French vessels and bring them back to English ports. In carrying out his responsibilities, kid was walking a fine line between legal privateering and privacy, a line that would blur and ultimately lead to kids downfall. When he got his first airship, you got to keep in mind around this time,

privateers are very common in pirates, which another I would love to do like a full pirate thing one day. They very much had their own back then, their own laws. They were pirate agreements, things you didn't do with other pirates. And there was a few areas out there that were pirate safe havens. A really more set of guideline. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. It's like the the unwritten rules. Yeah. Really? Truly? Yes. Although I will say during this time, privateer was literally just sanctioned pirate away for a yeah, it was a way for a nation to have legal pirates on their side. They'd be like, yes, go raid the English and they'd be like, but what pirates are like pirates for the crown. And that was that was it. So really,

it was just a cheesy way of having legal piracy. And so no, no shit, piracy ended up running rampant around this time as the governments were just kind of hiring these people. But at the same time, Jesse, it's also a way for them to distance themselves as things go wrong. They could be like, they are pirates. Oh, yeah. No, they're like, it is straight up again, like Alex was saying, it's straight up the plot of an RPG or movie where it's like, we're sending you to go be a pirate for us. But if anything goes wrong, we'll disavow all knowledge of you. That's what we did in the Middle East. I mean, yeah, shout out to Blackwater, what what? Oh, yeah, that doesn't they're not called private military PMCs anymore.

Like that's privateers. Yeah. There's nothing there's nothing similar about those words. They're land privateers. It's different. Yeah. Actually, man, I'm more of a more of a land privateer. Well, it was around the mid 1690s, that kid was drawn into a grand plan that was devised by a group of influential Englishman back home. The man who had built a reputation as a pirate hunter was now presented with a golden opportunity that I can't see anyone in this day and age, especially at his age, turning down. Kid was commissioned to hunt down pirates who were disrupting England's lucrative trade routes in the Indian Ocean. He would be given command of a brand new ship by the name of the adventure galley, a formidable vessel that was equipped with 34

cannons and had space for a crew of 150 men of which he would be captain of. And it was in the year 1696. Kid, the seasoned captain at this point, set sail from London aboard the adventure galley, heading toward the dangerous yet profitable waters of the Indian Ocean. The adventure galley? The adventure galley. That was the name of it. So that was a ship. That's a place. The ship was called the adventure. The adventure. Yeah, because it's a galley. But yeah, technically it's called an adventure. Are you sure that this isn't a comic by like a French comic artist from the 70s or something? I mean, I've never seen French comic art. Is that I don't think I've ever seen French comics. It just has the vibe. It just has the tin. It has like a tin tin vibe to it. That's all I'm

saying. Okay, I can see it. Indiana Jones. I see that. 1940s. It's very like light hearted for what was he was about to go and do, which is basically tons of murder and attacks in a horrible way of existing. At least that's kind of what he hoped. Even if it sounds terrible, it was massively profitable. And if he can make out with even a fraction of what he had hoped for, he would be set for life. But unfortunately for kid, the voyage was fraught with complications almost from the get go. Kid with sailing in treacherous waters and maintaining discipline amongst his crew was quickly proving to be a very daunting task, even for a seasoned captain at this point, like kid. His crew consisted of hardened sailors and many of whom a lot of historians believe were very likely former pirates

themselves. Oh, wait, hold on. If they're former pirates, they're still pirates. No, no, they're privateers right now. They are privateers. They are not pirates by legal law. My bad, my bad. Thank you. See, you wouldn't survive in the 1690s. Step off these long dead criminals. Dude, I wouldn't survive in like any time period before the 1990s. I'm not sure I'm going to survive this time period to be honest. Yeah. I don't know, man. I could see you as like the dude who just is in the bar all the time and people pay for your food and drinks because you're just kind of fun to hang out with and talk to. And you just kind of skate through that way. That's what I would try to do. I would need like Advil or something, you know. No, if you have if you're if your head hurts,

your blood is too hot. We just got to give you a little bit of a bloodletting. One of your humors is off balance. Yeah. Yeah. Got some demons. Yeah. Get the blue one out. Yeah. The demons are everywhere, dude. We'll exercise those. We'll bleed your blood and you'll be good for the next episode. And go back to charming the bar patrons back in the like shitty pirate haven. That's just probably my ancestry, honestly. Can you imagine how badly those place probably smelled stepping in? Oh my god. Yeah. Can you imagine just how bad the entire world smelled before everybody started cleaning themselves every day? You would have been nose blonde to it. Yeah. You would have been nose blonde to it. You wouldn't have noticed. The one time I was in a building when a septic

tank burst, I almost died because I couldn't smell it because the first thing it does is it burns away your ability to smell it. Oh, holy shit. Yeah. Yeah. Tights. Scary and disgusting all at the same time. It's tight. It's just a bunch of old poop coming to kill us with its smell. I just think about like Sundays at packs, you know, I'm like, that's kind of right. But like, it's kind of like that. Oh yeah, 100%. Probably be like that. But times 10. Dude, when I when I had the old Kobe 19 back in October, I lost my smell and taste by like 80% for like two weeks. Oh my god. God, man. That's that's like my biggest fear is like paradise and pirate times. Yeah, no kid. Yeah, man. Holy crap. You can introduce so many ladies to a little bit of tongue action and

you would not have been tasting the nastiness of the 1690s. You know what I mean? What is what? What the fuck? Why does your head go there? Why do you always? You think it had the term kind of linguist? Introduce the ladies to a little tongue action. They don't know they've never had it yet. It's the 1690s. The men are probably not too giving in their sexual endeavors. 40 year old virgin or something like a huge bag. You know what? I bet you I would have been here. All right. Give it enough time. Pauline action. Speaking of ladies and such, back to Captain Kid. Yeah. This is like I'm super interested. So for those of you who don't know, Captain Kid

wasn't like when you think of a pirate, right? You have a like a Jack Sparrowy image in your head. A filthy, disgusting, cut up man with scars. Yeah. Captain Kid was not that dude. Is Orlando Bloom playing like a Captain Kid type of role, would you say, in the Pirates movies? Kind of. If anything, our flag means death is Captain Kid. Like a dandy. Yeah. Literally, I think that's supposed to be Captain Kid in our flag. Like an Alucard looking motherfucker. Pirates had like 10 different flags they would use that all meant different fucking things from like, you're going to be tortured and killed for hours before we kill you to we're just here to steal your stuff, to we're coming to attack you. And they had like Satan's like butthole being licked

by a skeleton and like all kinds of weird shit. But like Captain Kid was just like to set the record, he was like married. He like married a woman who was a widower who I don't know how many times she was widowed, but like many times and she was still in her 20 and like married her and very much. Yeah. We're very much talking about his personal life here. And yeah, Jesse's very correct. Like there's a lot of like he like before he became a pirate. And so when you say, oh, and again, this is for people who have watched our flag means death, which is like, I am not kind. I mean, it's exaggerated, obviously. But like, this is a dude who was living a normal ass life who stared out into the water and was like, I want to be a pirate one day. And he is

not at all prepared to be a pirate. This dude is not pirate material. He didn't even necessarily want to be a pirate. He, you know, like he had he loved being a privateer, which was again, pirating, but legal pirating under the law of the English, you know, the UK, whatever. But it's what caused him to go true piracy is just straight up desperation. And we're going to see that happen here in a minute. That's because he sucked. Well, he was really good before. No, he was. He had a pretty successful career as a privateer up to this point. But for going in and trying to stop other pirates was he was bad at. He was good at being the pirate of like the ships of opposing factions. But when his job was to go get other pirates, he was God awful at it. Like he could

not do it. And with this huge crew who were consisted of many other former pirates, this was a volatile mix and kid had his work cut out to him just to keep his men in check on the on the journey. Well, but like for clarity's sake, the difference between the two of privateering and piracy is that as a as a privateer, your investment is paid by whoever's paying you up front. So he would be making money being a privateer without he like technically didn't need to do anything. He just needed to be out in the water, right? They pay him to go be a privateer as a pirate. You're free as hell. Yeah, like Jack Sparrow says, but like also you're broke because anything you earn, you earn from taking it from other people. And if you don't have people

to take from your crew is going to mutiny. Everyone's so like when he's a privateer, he's getting paid like he's making a paycheck. And after that, so it makes sense why he'd be like yeah, they weren't finding anything. They could not find pirates anywhere in the waters. And it started causing tension amongst him and his crew. Like I said, it got further exacerbated by their inability to locate their primary quarry. The first serious incident above upon board his ship, the adventure occurred when a gunner by the name of William Moore taunted and defied kid over his failure to attack a passing Dutch ship. He just didn't it wasn't he wasn't ready to cross that line yet to go full pirate. And in the heat of the argument, kid who had been

known for his hot temper at this point, grabbed a heavy wooden bucket, went up to more and cracked him over the head with it. The blow was fatal. Oh my God. The following day, Moore died. He murdered him. Oh my God. Yeah, he straight up murdered him. And I don't think he went with a bucket. Yeah, he was just like so mad. He grabbed a wooden bucket was just like fucker than just but he died. Even if you didn't mean it, if you're one of the crew, you're like, damn, this guy's a badass pirate. It's like jail. I mean, also true. It's this actually first action was is kind of where people mark the beginning of kids notoriety as a man, not just hunting pirates, but now a suspected murder. Yeah, are you the bucket guy? Oh, what a hard ass. Oh my gosh. Dude, imagine if he made

that like his tagline, like he just killed people with buckets. His flags just to fucking bucket. Bloody bucket. Can you imagine Captain Kid playing legal legends? Like he would probably lose it. Oh my God. He'd be the toxic dude. He'd be bad. He had so many accounts banned. He'd be sitting at found being like forfeit at 15 and like two minutes in. Swat his own teammate. Oh God. I got it. You still play league, dude. I'm sorry. No, I quit a couple of weeks ago. Oh, he's good. He's really good. That's really promising. He's free. He's free. He doesn't feel the pull. I got the I got TFT. Oh, that's like a more show version. It's like the nicotine patch. Yeah, it's like the nicotine patch. Oh, well, what turned the well for kid. He wasn't I don't know.

He wouldn't do well with league. He was barely doing well as this. He probably wouldn't be over the computer. He probably wouldn't get past how crazy a computer would be. He wouldn't be past electricity. He'd be like, what is this devil? I think it would make him mad. You think you think he'd pull like a Kylo Ren and like get it with a bucket. What turned the tide decisively against kid, however, was the capture of the his most prize boat because he did capture two boats that we know of. This one was the capture of the Quadah merchant, the American Armenian ship that was richly laden with valuable cargo and was sailing under a French pass. Given the condition of his vessel and the growing discontent among his crew,

kids saw an opportunity to possibly salvage the expedition. But it's important to note that the crew was getting restless, even though he technically had performed a successful takeover of a ship a couple years prior, the Cara merchant, also now known as the adventure prize. This ship was initially the Cara merchant owned by the Mughal merchants. The Mughal merchants? You're telling me this is not a JRPG? Airship lands? A bunch of little Mughals with backpacks come out? Yeah, it was. This was sailing under a French pass when Kid encountered it in the Red Sea and the French passes issued to protect the ship from privateers made the ship a legitimate target for Kid who was licensed to seize French vessels. In February of 1697, Kid and his crew attacked the ship,

a battle ensued with the Cara merchants captain Thomas Parker, offering a very fierce resistance, but time eventually worked in Kid's favor and the Cara merchant was forced to surrender. Kid's crew was delighted with the rich haul from the captured ship, which included bales of silk, satin, calico, sugar, and various other trading goods. The capture of the Cara merchant added to Kid's notoriety and would contribute to his eventual downfall. Despite the French passes, the ship was owned by subjects of a nation with which England was actually at peace, which made Kid's actions legally dubious. It's all politics that takes Kid down, man. It's ridiculous. It's like he had a French pass, but they were also kind of working for an allied place.

How could anybody verify any of these like certificates or passes? It just seems impossible. I don't know, man. Like how, yeah, how does one, I imagine a lot of shouting across decks and flag exchanges, but yeah, I don't know how you would, how you would even know. Like there's nothing you can really do about it. I always thought about that with like old timey alliances. Like what's your alliance? Like, yeah, we're with those guys. I guess. Yeah, I guess so. And if those guys attack, if you attack us, those guys are going to join. And then if they join, there's somebody across the world that might join because they're allied through like a marriage between king and daughter. And I don't know. I'm just picturing him. I'm just picturing him like sitting next to the like,

like the helm, like standing there and just like on screen. And just like nothing happens. If you want to understand how those lines, honestly, Crusader Kings 3 is a great game to learn like how those webbed alliances quickly bring about World War over the dumbest. I think that's a totally like Total War, Total War, Warhammer, you know? Yeah. No, honestly, just like it's like scaven get mad and they're like, yes, yes. And then they go fight the lizard men because they're, you know, encroaching on their holes. It's just like that. You don't want to encroach on anyone's holes, dude.

You have to be invited to encroach into a hole before you encroach into a hole. Yeah. You can't just encroach on a hole. That's rude as hell. Unless it's part of the kink. But again, that's all part. You got to consent before. Yeah. Unless you're about to teach the ladies about tongue edge, whatever math is said. The 1690s, dude. I bet you they weren't a lot of tongue action happening there and there at all. I'm going to disagree. I'm going to strongly disagree and say, people are a little more loose liberally back in the day. In 1698, just two years after he took the carrot merchant,

that's when he would take the most famous ship that he took at all, which was the Qadam merchant, which was the Armenian ship laden with all that silk, calico sugar, opium was on this ship, iron was on this ship, and around 20,000 pounds worth of gold. And I mean, like English pounds. You're going to say and about 20,000 experience. 20,000 experience, 20,000 pounds worth of gold and silver were also on the ship. So this was a big, big get in January of 1698. Kid encountered the ship near the coast of India. He initially mistook it for a French ship due to the French passes he found on board,

which would have made the seizure legal due to England's ongoing war with France. And there's your answer. They have to actually board the ship before they find the French passes. So they have to like actively attack them first to realize, oh, you cool. Oh, yo, I'm super sorry, man. How do you de-escalate at that point? You've like already killed half the crew by hitting them over the head with buckets. This whole 150 person, well, now 149, somebody got killed by a bucket. Just swings over with buckets instead of like swords and shit. Yeah, I'm more shocked about 150 people on the ship.

That's so many people on a boat. It is a lot. It's a big ship. It's a galley. Gallies are very big, you know, they're big. How many people are on cruise ships? Oh, way more than that. Never, never as many as start on the at the beginning of the journey. Oh, shit. I'm going on a cruise in December, so now I'm nervous. There is a video. Yeah, don't do this, Mathis.

Don't go online, bro. There is a video of a dude just recently who jumped off a cruise ship in the middle of the night on a bet and he's vanishing. Yeah, no shit, you're gone. What do you think is going to happen? It is going to throw on the e-brake and come get you. What's crazy is the TikTok video is people are freaking out and there's one guy who's like, he jumped off, man, he's gone. It's crazy.

I was like, you've seen it so many times. He's gone. Yeah, dude, shout outs to the family of that guy. That's fucking crazy, dude. That's that sucks. I can't. So, you know, don't do that. That guy was 10 runs.

He was 10 runs in and licked a frog. Yeah, even if it was daytime, that dude would have vanished. Yeah, you're going to get sucked under with a ship going by you and shit. And it's just the ocean is huge. Why would you do that, though? People were zooming in. There was like sharks in the water. I don't know.

When you're 18 and you're like wasted, like, I don't know. 18 is still a kid, guys. Like, I think about what I did when I was 18 and I'm like, I would not trust myself to do any task that I have to do today. Yeah, but I think I would trust myself not to do anything like that. Yeah, you still wouldn't be like, dude, what if I ran into traffic? Yeah, no, you're right. That's true.

That's true. What if I jump in the darkness of the ocean like now? Well, I have vertigo, so that would never happen to me anyway. One time I got vertigo for like a week and a half from playing Spyro. Holy shit. Yeah, it was the way the camera moved. And I was like, what the shit? And I like fucked up my vision for like a week and a half.

I was always like kind of woozy. God damn, if you ordered that to me a couple of times, but never just like a game on a TV. And I had to like go back and finish the game. So I was almost done. And I was like, here we go. How hard did you go? It was only like a couple hours.

But then like the final 30 minutes, I was like, I got to finish this. And I was like getting nauseous. I was like, but I beat it. And I was like, never again. More power to you. Dude, the camera in that game, it moves so weird. That's like actually a ringing endorsement for me. Like I got to see what game did this to you.

You talking about like the PS1 version of Spyro? The remake. Okay, the remake specifically. All right, I'll try it. Yeah, try it. I'm pretty sensitive to motion sickness. It could be that thing where like it reverses, you know, like you play it and then it gets rid of your vertigo.

It's the stupidest conversation. And I was spinning. Are you spiraling the dragon? Spiraling the dragon. Oh, this podcast is spiraling out of control. All right, let's pull it back in. So he boarded the ship, he found the French passes and immediately thought, oh, this is legal.

I'm good. It wasn't until the captain of the merchant ship, an Englishman by the name of Wright, presented his English passes. But at that point, it was way too late. Kid's crew was enticed by the ship's valuable cargo and mutiny was imminent if kid failed to seize the ship. He was basically stuck between saying, oh, fuck,

this is illegal. I got to go back or 150 maybe pirates who are absolutely rearing at like the chomping at his heels for some sort of victory, some sort of payday. You know, it's like watching Big Brother. He's going to go up the house, you know, he's going to go with what everybody thinks they should vote out.

He's not going to go with what might be right in the situation. He's being swayed by those. Survivor may be another good example for some people. It was only after a couple of volleys of gunfire that the merchant surrendered. Kid took over the ship in its precious cargo and it was this seizure that would later brand him a pirate in the eyes of English authorities.

Upon seizing the Kadam merchant, Kid made a desperate attempt to legitimize his actions. He quickly renamed the ship to something that is, this is, I wrote this wrong. That is not the right name. He renamed the ship hoping in dire straits that nobody would know that he took an English ship and he set sail for the Caribbean,

hoping to use his connections there to just clear his name. Who could possibly find out? Well, shit, he didn't kill everybody aboard the ship. He took them prisoner. He didn't kill everybody. They're going to go out, rumors spread. He's also already attacked another ship and taken it and those people are already putting the rumor out.

Rumors were still spread relatively quickly around this time and he actually finds out that the rumors of his misdeeds had outpaced him and instead of finding sanctuary, he found himself a wanted man. But before we go into what we know happened as fact next, there were rumors that Kid had taken multiple ships after this point, up to, according to some, five other ships. And we're going to talk about just a couple of them

in the moment and what they were. But the evidence that they were taken by Kid is kind of flimsy at best. It's not really all there, but there's a lot of accounts that talk about him taking it. But this all feeds into his whole ass, like notorious pirate persona that legends and myths carry in because these stories,

there was no way to fact check them back then and they just ran and ran and ran and people were sure added and added and added. And then, you know, maybe someday you're like, Oh, I know that guy. I know that. Oh, yeah, he was a horrible pirate. It adds to your own reputation. It's all part of building your own ego and your own persona.

It's in the Indian waters, the adventure galley set a course for unsuspecting ships. Kid, a seasoned privateer was an expert at what he did and his reputation was still growing. And his crew was eager for the spoils of their endeavors. One such encounter might have been with a French ship laden with valuable goods. Kid and his crew would have spotted the ship in the distance,

the French flag fluttering in the wind, a clear target that was in their sights. And as a privateer, kid was legally sanctioned to capture obviously ships like this. A warning shot from Kid's Cammin supposedly echoed across the open sea with a chilling declaration of their intent. The French ship realizing escape was futile would have probably embraced for impending onslaught.

They would quickly board the ship and Kid and his men overpowered the French crew in a swift, ruthless encounter. The spoils of the ship including trade goods, precious metals, and possibly personal belongings of the crew all would have been seized by him and his crew. The French crew would have been left with a skeleton ship, which is what pirates did who didn't kill everybody

and didn't plan on taking the ship with them. They left him with a skeleton ship, with those who didn't die left alive, enough to reach the nearest port but stripped of their valuable cargo. And that might be how the story made it out. And I looked to Blackbeard and some of the factual encounters we know about him

where that's what he would do, where he would attack ships, kill a few of the people, take them, but then just let them have enough to get the sword and be like, tell them what I did, tell them what Blackbeard did to you. And that helped build so that when he encountered other ships on the sea, they were way more likely to not put up a fight because Blackbeard was a man who preferred to just kind of get the stuff.

He wasn't as murderous as a lot of people make him out to be, but he would if it needed to be done. He wouldn't hold no qualms to killing them. So if this is true, then that's how we would kind of hear of this little misadventure of a privateer version of Kid attacking something, maybe before the rumors of him being a pirate reached. These exploits obviously were not without their pitfalls.

The blurry line between privateering and piracy was obviously a dangerous path to front of the tread. Another speculated encounter could have been with the ship sailing under a neutral or allied flag that Kid, much like before, totally mistook for an enemy vessel. And there is perhaps it was a Dutch merchant ship carrying valuable spices from the East Indies, seeing the ship at a distance,

Kid mistaking their flag for a French one. And just as the French ship, the galley closed in, the Dutch crew realizing too late that they're in a dire situation. And in the aftermath of the capture, the Dutch flag was recognized and air of tension bubbling to the surface among Kid's crew that this wasn't nest technically an enemy ship. This was not a ship they were sanctioned to seize.

This was technically piracy. But the damage was already done. That line had already been crossed and the spoils of the Dutch ship were seized. The missteps, this misstep among others would go on to haunt Kid. His actions, whether intentional piracy or unfortunate misjudgments, cast a dark shadow over him, his crew, and his reputation. They set him on a path that would eventually lead him to the gallows

which would forever brand this man as a pirate. The new century would turn over and the 1700s started ominously for our Captain Kid. He decided to hide his main ship, rather the ship that he caught prior, the adventure prize in the Caribbean and sail back to New York on a sloop that he purchased by the name of Antonio.

A sloop is a very, very, very small ship. If you've ever played, what's that Rareware game, the pirate game? It's still going today, Sea of Thieves. Sea of Thieves, one of the ships you could take as a sloop. It's like made for one or two people. It's a very, very small vessel. Kid, now a pirate in the eyes of the world, was determined to fight for his innocence.

He believed that his patrons, powerful men, remember the Englishmen that supported him who had initially backed his privateering mission, would come to his defense understanding the mistakes that were made, why they were made, and hopefully clear his name. But of course, as the world works, politics and self-interest often make perfect alliances. Unbeknownst to Kid, his backers in England

were already well distancing themselves from him, preferring to save their own reputations rather than defend a man now labeled a pirate. As Kid approached New York in July of 1699, he was met by a grim welcome. Instead of support and a chance to clear his name, he was immediately met with an arrest warrant. It's also important to note that when Kid went to the Caribbean,

he spent about a year there, and he blew all of his money. Drinks, women, fun times for about a year, all the money he got from that ship that was split between his crew, he spent a year just kind of living the life. And that's where a lot of these other stories- That's why he's got those double D's in his name. Yeah, exactly. And this is also the time where people,

they kind of say, this is maybe where he was, he crossed the piracy line. So these ships might have actually been him, but the evidence is kind of, again, scant. The governor of Massachusetts at the time, a man by the name of Lord Bellamont, which I fucking just makes me think of Castlevania, a man who had previously been one of his staunchest supporters

was now worried about his own legal position. He ordered Kid's arrest, and the once-renowned sea captain and privateer was captured without a struggle. All of his dreams of vindication immediately evaporated before his eyes as he was placed in stone prison, spending the next year in harsh conditions, awaiting his fate.

In 1701, Kid was then extradited to England where he would stand trial for piracy in the murder of William Moore, the man he cracked over the head with a bucket. The trial was a significant event, and more evidence that humans just love true crime in all their forms. This drew huge public attention. His trial was like the trial of the past few years. Everybody wanted to know what was going to happen to him.

I can't fucking believe that. Of all the stuff he did, that's what came back and got him. Because that's what they had the hard edit evidence for, and that's why we only know these things are the actual things that took place. Kid stood before the Admiralty Court, pleaded his innocence, insisting that he had acted within the laws of privateering. He argued that the Quetta Merchant was a legitimate prize due to its French passes.

But despite his pleas, Kid was found guilty on all charges. The judgment was a foregone conclusion. The political establishment had already deemed him guilty. He was sentenced to hang. And on May 23rd, 1701, a large crowd gathered at execution dock in London to witness the end of the man who had become the most infamous pirate of his time. Even in death, Captain Kid continued to make headlines. The first two attempts to hang him failed when the rope broke each time.

That's gotta suck, man, to be Kid and just like facing death and then the rope breaks and they have to do it again and then it breaks again. Jesus, God, I can't imagine. What a nightmare. Some in the crowd saw it as a sign of divine intervention, but Kid was hanged successfully on the third attempt. Third? Yeah, his third attempt.

The rope didn't break that time. His body was gibbeted over the River Thames for three years as a stark warning to other would-be pirates. They just, his corpse was just put on display. The legend of Captain Kid did not end with his execution. Instead, from there, it simply grew and transformed, spun into countless tales of buried treasure and seafaring entry. The man who had lived a rather tumultuous life at sea

was about to embark, in a way, on an even more enduring journey into the realm of myths and legends. As early as Kid's trials, rumors circulated about the fabulous wealth that this man had amassed during his privateering voyages. Stories of hidden treasures began to spread, fueled by the belief that Kid, knowing he was a wanted man, would have sought to hide his plunder before returning to New York, which is not a bad guess, because pirates often did that.

The thing is, they didn't have, like, an X marks the spot. They just, like, somewhere around here, I think I buried it. These rumors would become the central tenet of the legend of Captain Kid. The most famous of these tales is tied to an island off the coast of Nova Scotia, Oak Island. For centuries, this remote location has been the focus of intense treasure hunts driven by the Lenge, one of the legends that Kid buried a huge fortune here.

Over the years, Oak Island was witnessed to a relentless parade of excavations, each as fruitless as it will last, and if you want more details, episode 136 has them for you. Yet the elusive promise of Kid's treasure keeps the legend alive, despite the lack of any concrete evidence that Kid ever went to Oak Island. But Oak Island is just one of the many locations linked with Kid's treasure. From the coastal regions of New England to the Caribbean and even Madagascar, countless sites have been dug up by hopeful adventurers over the many centuries,

yet Kid's treasure remains nothing more than a tantalizing mystery. The treasure is not the only aspect of Kid's life shrouded in legend, either. There's a tale that Kid was part of a pirate brotherhood, a secret society of seafarers who had hidden their plunder in a communal treasure trove, as I mentioned earlier. There's also the myth of Kid's ghost that haunts London's execution dock, a spectral mariner condemned to eternally relive his final moments, and despite the vast array of the myths and legends,

the fact remains that Captain Kid, the man, was a very different person from Captain Kid, the legend. The man was a Scottish sailor who had sought his fortune at sea, a man who straddled the blurry line between privateering and piracy. His life was a testament to the complexities of maritime life in the 17th century, a life shaped by the volatile political climate and ruthless power plays of his time. One thing we didn't talk about is why these Englishmen were throwing him under their bus. They just, the political landscape was starting to change about what the war and where they were

in term, and rumors of Kid had already began to trickle back to the shore. Like that guy said earlier, before he even arrived, they were moving around to put Kid a scapegoat and completely deny their involvement with him, but they were involved. The legend, however, is a pirate of mythical proportions, a figure who has become synonymous with buried treasure and ghostly apparitions. It's a testament to our enduring fascination with tales of pirate adventure, rebellion, and hidden riches.

A legend that will likely persist, enticing new generations of treasure hunters that are happening right now, still in Oak Island, to this day, captivating audiences with the lure of hidden riches in the thrill of the chase. That is the legend and the truth of who Captain William Kid and Oak Island actually was. So that's where your topic led me, Mr. Crendor, from Oak Island to Captain William the Kid, his buried treasure, his potential piracy legend. And all found it very, very fascinating because even more so, I would say, than Blackbeard, his tales and rumors, Captain Kid, are way more blown out of proportion compared to who

Kid actually was as a human. Like Jesse was saying, he was a man who has married. He was trying and attempted to do things all very legally. And even in the ships that we aren't sure he took, they were all almost like mistakes. Like, oops, oh, shit, you're allied with the Dutch. Oh, shit, you're an Englishman pirating something with French path. Oh, shit. And those racked up to a point where even if some of them weren't fully true,

it was too late. The political world was going to put him to the knife or hang him when he came back. And that kind of not too much longer after that, that truly happened. Privateers stopped happening. Every privateer was illegal. And now they were pirates. And the piracy world kind of just blew up from there for a while. But there's your historical episode.

I told you, Jesse, it wouldn't be a weird one. I told you it wouldn't be. No, no, it's fine. Yeah, you left out the part at the end where David Jones comes for his heart and all the pirates around the world battle him around a giant maelstrom. Yeah, yeah. When they defeat him, God shows up and they have to kill God for some reason at the end.

As long as you get the ultimate weapons as you do it. But plot twist, it isn't God. It's actually an alien that descended to earth and claimed to be God. And for some reason, one wing is involved. Yeah, every time. And that man's name, Albert Einstein. I was looking at Oak Island on a Google map, right? Yeah.

And I didn't realize they got like Sam's Island, Squid Island, Apple Island and Frog Island all around it. There's a lot of islands out there, man. The question you have to ask yourself, though, is does Apple Island have apples? Is Frog Island frogs? Or is it because they look like it when they were discovered? I don't know. Good questions.

Does not look like a frog. That's like a simpler time before islands, like before people's egos got involved in naming islands. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of apples here.

Apple Island. That's like when you look at when you play No Man's Sky and you find some like animal, and it's called like the fuck monster or some shit like that. And you're just like, how fun. Somebody was having fun. I like to imagine for Frog Island, they landed. They saw a frog and he was like, oh, sweet frog. I know there's no other frogs on the fucking island anywhere.

I'm honestly, I think it's like one of those things where they saw it through like from the ship through like some sort of telescopic lens of some sort. And they were like, looks like a frog. That's Frog Island. I mean, that's what I mean. Apple Island does kind of look like an apple. I'm not going to lie. There you go.

That's what I'm saying. Yeah. This happens. This island looks delicious. From above, because they really have like aerial shots. No, no, no. I'm saying like there's there's a possibility that, you know, when you see landmarks or something, you're like, that looks like a bear's head.

We'll name this place Bear's Head. Same thing. I guarantee from an angle, some dude saw it and was like, looks like a frog. Unless it is populated with thousands of frogs, in which case, amazing. Dude, and if you, if you go a little bit east, you have Big Gooseberry Island, Little Gooseberry Island, Big Fish Island, Little Fish Island. I want to know when these were named. Honestly, I would love to know.

They were named by, what do you call them, like prehumans? Like, just like, like Neanderthals. Like, oh, that's Big Fish Island. It's Neanderthal. Yeah, Neanderthal. They got Snake Island. Big Gooseberry Island. Snake Island.

Snake Island sounds like there's, that's where the treasure, that's where I would guess the treasure was. That's, that's it. No, people, it's because of that damn money pit, people are convinced it's there because they keep running into weird shit in the hole and then the whole floods. Let me be very specific. I don't believe any of that. They keep running into weird shit.

It's all, like, it's so convenient. They find like, it's a doubloon. Oh, it flooded. We'll see you next season. The early folks that were there, like the people who discovered in the 1700s, they said they found like, not, not anything that points to treasure, just like old weird artifacts, like old statues and like a weird like plank, like just kind of like stuff that doesn't really point to treasure.

It just kind of says, maybe things washed up here and got buried by sand over time. Like, that's kind of what it feels more like to me. Or if the treasure was there, long gone, long gone. But it could be on the other islands then. It could be. It could be on the other islands. It could be on Frog Island. They're looking in the wrong spot this whole time.

Yeah. They're doing like the behind the back thing where you just three. Well, that's it for us guys. We got to head off to make a mini-sode for patreon.com slash jilluminati pod. Thank you for all the support there. Who knows if Crandor will be there. It's a mystery. I'm not going to answer that question until you go and find out for yourself on the mini-sode.

You have to find out. It's a mystery. That's it. Crandor, thank you for joining us this week. We'll have you back again. You know, we have to. You did so much, man. I'm so happy you were here.

He told me which topics I gave him. Do you want to bring a topic like Dodger does? You want me to do one for you? And he's like, uh, do this one. What did you think the answer was? Like, honestly, do you want to do work or not do work? Do you want homework or not? This is like, this podcast is an excuse to just do shit with my friends.

All right. I don't really care. It's fun. It's delightful. That's delightful. Hi, because you're not supposed to be up here. patreon.com slash jilluminati pod. Help Matthew say hello to his friends.

It's a terrible selling point. Thank you guys so much. We're out of here. We'll see you next week. Goodbye. Redstone next. See ya. Oh, God.

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Jilluminati podcast. It's always I'm one of your hosts, Mike Martin. Join by the... I don't know who they are. There's two. What? Terrence Hill and Bud Spencer.

No. Nio and Trinity. Oh, no. I don't understand and I probably never will. Let me just tell you right now that there's two. Leon Kennedy and Claire Redfield. I'm telling you, I think he literally just looked up famous duos. Cheech and chalk.

And it's been going through the list ever since. I'm trying to dig deep. Which one of you is a dick power? Me? Your name's Jesse Cox. Oh, I want to lose my team. I want to lose my team. Hello, everybody.

Welcome back to the Jilluminati podcast. It's always I'm one of your hosts, Mike Martin. Join by Alex and Jesse. Like a shooting star across the sky. That's actually a UFO. I'll bet your dreams have never ventured here. Replace slot machines and crowds with slot canyons and small town charm. Trade neon city lights and showtimes for starlit skies and the best earth on show.

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