Empire: World History - 198. The Pirate Trial of the Century

Episode Date: October 29, 2024

William Kidd, a respectable Scottish privateer during the late 17th century, tasked with hunting down pirates on the orders of a murky cabal of British aristocrats, but with the crown’s blessing, finds himself and his crew frustrated by the absence of pirates in the waters off Madagascar during October 1696. With mutiny brewing on his ship The Adventure, Kidd - ever mercurial in his willingness to abandon the law - brutally killed one of his crew with a bucket, before attacking an apparently French Trading vessel captained by an Englishman - illegally. From that point onwards Kidd went rogue, attacking vessels hither and thither, drubbing and torturing as he went, or so the stories say… So, was Kidd really a devious, thieving pirate, whose innocence was but a calculated ruse, or a truly blameless man, caught up in powers and intrigues above his head, and pushed to the brink by a traitorous mutiny?  Join William and Anita as they discuss William Kidd’s burgeoning pirating career and his turn to the dark side: his spate of violent pillaging, his time on the run from the British government and the famous treasure hoards he buried along the way; culminating in the most famous trial of the century, and a gibbet on Execution Dock…. To buy William's book: https://coles-books.co.uk/the-golden-road-by-william-dalrymple-signed-edition Twitter: @Empirepoduk Email: [e-mail] Goalhangerpodcasts.com Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community. Discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcasts, add free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at www.mparpoduk.com. And welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnan. And me, William Durimple. And you join us in the middle of, well, it doesn't often happen, but we are on very opposite sides of an argument here, talking about the life of William Kidd, infamous pirate, or was he? In the last episode, we were talking about the mythology and the reality of what it was like to be in the King's service as a private ear,

and how easy it is to cross the line and suddenly be deemed to be a badden. And you're convinced that Captain Kidd, William Kidd, has crossed the line, aren't you? So I see this as a morality tale, in fact, of this guy who's basically, a successful businessman who's made his fortune, and then by a whole series of misfortunes, is shoved closer and closer to the criminal world and goes over the line from privateer to pirate, from pirate chaser to pirate himself. But you think he's a willful badden at this point? I think he's a slaver, a raider, and a badden. I'm no fan of Captain Kidd. Scotsman, though he may be.

No, well, that's unusual for you. And I'm going to take the pro-Skots thing, of this is a man who, was forced to leave behind. You don't say no to the king. You don't say no to the king's mark. You can't do it without seeming disloyal and having everything that you've built around you crumbled to nothing. And he's been given a crew that he didn't want, full of criminals, he has to please. And along his voyage, where he's going out to do what the king told him to do, everything is thwarting him, especially the Royal Navy, it turns out. You know, so this is a difficult situation with him. But we left you last time. He's trying to keep it together.

on the Adventure Galley. He's trying to keep the crew together. They've been bashed around, not getting any loot, not boarding any ships and relieving French and Dutch vessels of their wealth and booty, which is what they were promised. And so he's got to go and catch some pirates who might have some treasure and catch that stuff. So he's bobbing around in the waters of Madagascar, which I think we agree doesn't have this pirate king notion of this one utopian nation, but these little enclaves of pirate settlements. But unfortunately, When he gets there, they catch nothing. They've seen nothing.

You know, they have such bad luck. See, that again seems to me improbable because the whole coast is riddled with pirate havens at this point. So I think he's one of the lads rather than a pirate hunter. You think it's deliberately not catching them? Yeah. Well, I bet the thing is it doesn't make any sense. His crew are getting really annoyed and angry and more and more restless

because they have been promised spoils. So they're getting muteness. And tensions are boiling up. We're talking now about October 1696. And they are starting to question him. There's one man, William Moore, who is particularly vocal. And he sees this, you know, sort of passing ship, a Dutchman. And he says, look, let's go after that. It is exactly the right ship. We should go and get it. But Kit says, it's a Dutch ship. I know, you know, we've had our difficulties. But, you know, King William is Dutch-born. We should really wait for a French vessel or another pirate ship. And Moore starts riling up the crew that this guy does not know what the hell he's doing. He is not fit to be a captain. I don't think we should be under him anymore. Let's mutiny slitters throw it and take over the ship.

And Kid, who is just adamant, we're not going after this Dutch ship, calls him a lousy dog. Even a lousy dog, isn't it? A dog covered with lousies? Yeah, yeah. Oh, well, maybe lousy, lousy. dog. But what does more say in response? Because we have this quote. If I'm a lousy dog, then you have made me so. You have brought me to ruin and many more. This is where it just goes bad. Because Kid takes an iron bucket and smacks more around the head with it and kills him.

So he doesn't die immediately, but he does die the next day. And it is a horrifying thing for the crew to see. Hang on a minute. So he's doing it as an example to the rest of the crew. You question me. this is what you get. But it sort of gives you the sense of desperation on that ship. So there are accounts of this incident that we'll come to in time, which give both sides of the accounts, the Anita case for the defence and that there's a prosecution case. So everyone agrees that this guy Moore is crowned over the head with an iron bound bucket and that he dies. The rights and wrongs of this remains disputed. We'll come back to this at the end of the story. But it's at this point that I think that I have the best evidence for

kid going AWOL. Going rogue. Yeah. It's at this point that he leaves Madagascar and he starts hunting down mogul vessels. Now this, of course, is something that's very sensitive for the East India company. The East India company is at this moment sending a whole variety of ambassadors to the Mongol court, trying to get the Fiaman, trying to get trading rights. And the one thing you don't want to do is to capture mogul grand ladies crossing on the hodge to Mecca, ready to go on their holy pilgrimage.

and rob them of all their goodies. And that is, I think, a directly anti-East India Company raiding trip. And we have the details. We have the details. Okay, but I will question all of this, by the way. And I won't question that it happened, but I'll question why it happened and how it happened. We've never been in this situation before of being rival cases. No.

It's what history is all about, though, isn't it? It is. And especially old sources. So I've got a letter from, well, I have to say one of my forebears, Thomas Pattle, who is. the chief factor of car. Immediately discounting that. Immediately discounting that letter. And Thomas Battle is the grandfather of the man who ends up in the coffin full of rum.

Do you remember that story? Oh, we did it in our live show. Yes, so those of you who weren't able to go to our live show, and if we do it again, we will tell this story again, but one of William's forebears blows up. Blows up. Anyway, but carry on. This man's grandfather turns out to be on the case of Captain William Kidd. and in 1697, Thomas Pattle, Chief Factor at Kawa, writes a letter giving evidence that

Kidd has been attacking Mogul Vessers. And he says they've been to Mokka, in other words, they're sailing up the Red Sea with full intent to take one of the Moors ships but were prevented by the convoy. Now, that's not legal trade. That is getting in the way of the East India Company. And Patel continues. They now intend to take some of Abdul Gaffa's ships either here or in the cove or wait for them outside, which will cause abundance of trouble for us with the Mughal government.

I am not saying William Kidd is a Boy Scout, but I'm saying you can push and push a man. Let's examine the timing of that. So he writes that in 1697. We're still in 1696. This is a year earlier where he's trying to keep his crew together, where he's facing a mutiny where he can't find any pirates, and he kills William Moore. Now, before he can even sort marshal his crew back together and do whatever he might want to do, we don't know what is in his head. But I suspect you're trying to keep your ship together. But word has already got back and he has no friends. This is a man who has alienated the Navy. The East India Company hate his guts. People are, you know, the shadowy backers are now getting a little bit nervous because if they

are seen to be the sponsors of somebody who is now gone rogue, they don't know what he is. So there is this act of grace which is going to be declared. And they're sort of starting to formulate it, which will pardon pirates in the Indian Ocean, which will. sort of let them off the hook. But his name is placed on the list not to pardon. They've already made up their mind about him that he has gone rogue, that he is a badden. And then they get letters like from Pathel a year later in 1697 saying, no, he's gone rogue. And he does go rogue. But I would put it to you, Malad, that everyone's let you down. Everything you thought you were going to do is not happening. So yes, you're right. He does go after every vessel, anything he can get his hands on.

And we have the evidence of what happens immediately after he's killed more. A few days later, Kid runs away from a ship called the East India Merchant, which he apparently thinks to be a ship of war called the Scepter, which is out to catch him as a pirate. And he next appears off Tele Cherry, which I've been to the Fort in Telly Cherry, it's just in Kerala and is now famous for its very, very delicious cooking. But he tries to get into Celli Terry and attempts to take a small ship lying under under the fort, though clearing off when the guns of the fort opened on him and returning to

the vicinity of Calicut, where on the 12th of November, he took the company vessel thankful, actually attacking full-scale East India Company vessels. He is, but I'm saying you can push a man so far, and his very survival now rests on keeping his crew together, not having his throat cut, and giving them what they were owed. And if you know, and you find out that your name is already pirate, even though you've been trying to do the right thing, but your name is now pirate in London. And no one's backing you. Not your backers are backing you. No one is coming forward and saying, hang on, we sent him out there. They're all just painting you as some renegade who has his own ship. Nobody's mentioning that it was a ship that was given to him by the British state.

He is just being portrayed that way. So you know what? He starts acting that way. And there is an additional conspiracy theory that's now turning round as more and more reports turn in of this guy trying to fall on East India Company's ships. There is a theory going around in London that, in fact, he is a Jacobite and that he's working on behalf of Jacobite backers, which is one of the reasons why they were secretive. So there's a whole conspiracy theory that the guys who gave him the money to buy the ship were doing it on behalf of the English government called the Old Pretender. The Old Pretender the Stewart line. It's such a good story. We need a new movie of this. I know, I know. Because, you know, William does not like Stuets. He's

had his problems with them and he thinks they were in the past. So, you know, he doesn't help himself. So after killing William Moore, I suppose once you are a murderer, it is easy then to become a badden. And there are all sorts of reports that are coming back to London, florid tales of him taking ships and then torturing crews that he captures. You've got to tell us, Anita, about, is it the drubbing? The drubbing, the drubbing. So it does come from an Arabic word, Daraba, to beat. That's how we think it comes to the English language. Specifically beating the feet. It's the standard Ottoman punishment.

If you're trying to get information out of somebody, you strap them up with their heads below, with their feet up in the air, and you beat the soles of their feet until they tell you what you want them to do. So there is a modification at sea. A drubbing at sea is you're sort of hung up by your heels, again, but you are beaten with sharp objects.

So cutlasses is what is said to be the weapon of choice by William Kidd. The hilt or the actual blade? I mean, I wasn't there, but I'm assuming that if these things are horrifying and he has already spilled blood, I mean, you lose control hitting somebody. I don't think you'd do the soft bit, do you, if you're trying to find out where somebody might have hidden things that you're trying to find. But, you know, all of these stories, particularly there are stories coming back about crew members

that he takes on this trading ship called the Mary and that he takes several members of the crew and he tortures them for days with the cutlass and kills them. So, you know, now, now he is full-blown stuff of nightmares. And all of this stuff is getting back to London. And they just think, right, okay, you're done. You're now on a list of people that we want to kill. You're on your own hit list. But I don't think he has entirely given up hope that he can talk himself out of this.

I think there's some indications that he's still thinking that if he gets enough passports and enough official backing, that he can come back from the dark side. and that proves not to be the case. No, let's look at another really important piece of evidence, the attack on a ship called the Kada merchant ship. This is a crucial moment, yeah. This is a turning point. So why don't you tell us what happened with the KDAR?

What is the KDAR merchant, first of all? So the Kada merchant is a measure of the complexity of the Indian Ocean at this time. We often just think of it as, you know, moguls, Portuguese, Dutch, and a bunch of pirates. But there's all sorts of crossovers at this time. And the Kedar is a very interesting indication of this. So it's owned by the Armenians. And remember, the Armenians are operating hand and glove with the East India Company in the early days. And the Armenians are often the interpreters and the door openers for the East India Company

as they try to establish themselves with the different courts around the Indian coast. And reflecting that close relationship between the Armenians and the East India Company, This ship is Armenian-owned, but it's built by the British, captained by an Englishman, but leased to the moguls for the HAD traffic. It's got a multinational, United Colors of Beneton, but one of the ones that should be off his radar. However, let me put it to you, that it was a common practice. If ships were very, very far away, and they thought that they were going to be attacked by French,

that they would hoist false flags. You would have false flags aboard your ship. And the Kidal merchant, according to Kidd, has a French flag that is flying. So he thinks, and he will argue later at his trial, that it is a French ship and he is doing what he's meant to do. And to approach the French ship, he does what is common practice and raises a French flag on his own ship. Now the Kada merchant and the Adventure Galley are looking at each other over a stretch of water, looking at French flags, going, oh God, the enemy. But really they're on the same side. But they've got the wrong.

wrong colours flying. And one of the crucial factors in this and the reason that this becomes such an important part of the story is that on the Kedar merchant are rich mogul princesses travelling with their jewels. Well, not just their jewels. I mean, they've got satins, gold, silver plate, muslins. There's a whole inventory of the stuff that's on the Kidal merchant. It has got a lot of bling and stuff of value on it. Exactly. And so this is absolutely a major turning point for him because if he can capture this, he is rich and he also, of course, can use the ship and use the crew. You have a flotilla. And if you have a flotilla, your men think you're getting somewhere.

They also, you know, think they're going to get paid. So, you know, as far as he can see, it is a French ship. And what he argues and what will then come up in the trial is that, you know what, kid, as soon as you got on the ship and you saw it was a British captain, you should have known that it was a British ship. You should have seen that it was one of ours and you shouldn't have touched it. he though says I found French passes, sea passes on that ship. So I had no reason to believe that this wasn't a French ship and everybody's telling lies at sea,

pretending to be something else. And so I legitimately took the sea passes and kept them. And I legitimately attacked and took the KDAR merchant as my own and took everything on it. And there's a very interesting detail that is in the grey book, which I think is fascinating. He takes the Kedar merchant and he effectively. effectively enslaves the Moorish crew. As well as an English captain, there are Indian Muslims actually working the vessel. They come to be known as the Lashkas later, yeah, right.

As the Lashkas. And they are taken by him and they're put into his first ship, the Adventure Galley, which has sprung a leak. And they're made to work the pump. Yes. He is a man of his time and he's beastly in this whole idea of the pirate utopia and having no vision of cast and color. I mean, it's just calling bullshit on that story. But he takes the Kedar merchant, he takes everything on the Kada merchant, he puts the French sea passes in his pocket because he might need them for later. And he renamed the Kedar merchant because it is his prize.

So he's got the Adventure Galley, which is slightly falling apart because it's been at sea for such a long time, not really accomplishing very much. And he names his new ship. The artist formerly known as Kedar. It becomes the adventure prize. And so, you know, now he's feeling maybe things are changing. And if I've got two ships and we go back to Madagascar, maybe we can catch some pirates. Is his argument, or will be his argument at trial. But you would argue, I'm sure, he returns to Madagascar as a successful pirate

and he wants to be with his pirate brethren. I mean, is that, is that what you're thinking is happening? I think exactly that. But what happens when he gets back to Madagascar is he bumps into his old mate. Nemesis. Robert Culliford. The guy who'd left him on the Caribbean island, the Johnny Depp moment when he's waving at the departing ship. And takes his black pearl and runs away. Yes, that's right.

And the lovely detail here that I like best is that when they meet again, the first thing they do, according to the contemporary document, which I got in front of me, is they have a rum cocktail together. Right. That is one piece of source evidence. Another piece of source evidence is that they snarl at each other. And Kid makes it known that he's a scurvy dog or words to that effect and he took his ship. But he doesn't produce an out and out more because he's waiting for reinforcements to come because he hasn't got enough men to take Cunleth. But he wants to take Cunleth. So that's the intention. You've got two men who have beef who are looking at each other, either drinking rum cocktails or snarling at each other.

Join us after the break and find out what happens next. Welcome back. So yes, we left you two men, either having rum cocktails. and slapping each other on the back or snarling at each other waiting to slit each other's throes. But these are men, Kid and Culliford, who have history. And Cullifid is a man who has stolen a ship from Cid, so kid owes him. So the argument is that he's sort of keeping him sweet until he gets reinforcements and the Adventure Prize arrives as well, and more men arrive and he's going to take Culliford's ship and pay him back. But not only that, this sort of feeds into

my argument, William. If he wants to take Cullifid's ship, there's something in him that thinks, I'm going to sail back to England with Culliford's head on a spike. He's one of those people on the hit list that I've been given and I will come back as a hero. But actually, whatever kid has got in his mind, it is all going to go very, very badly wrong because his men are awful. So although kids say to him, his crew, they shaft him. Instead of sort of sticking with him and sticking with whatever plan he has, either waiting or taking Cullerford, they go over to Cullerford. they defect and they leave Kidd. And not just one or two of them,

97 of them go over to Kullford. Yeah. And the account that Kidd gives, because he actually writes, the reason we know so much about Kidd and the reason that he has provided such rich material both for historians and novelists, is that he writes his own account.

And in his narrative, he gives this version of events. He says, when he arrived at the port of St. Mary's, which is one of these pirate ports in Madagascar, there was a pirate ship anchored there, commanded by Robert Culliford, who with his men left the same as Kid coming in and ran into the woods. So you can see the scene of this ship appears, and the baddies who are busy sort of drinking rum on the shore run into the woods. Kid says that he very properly chased after Cullifan doing his job as a pirate chaser, but this is the point to which kids' mutinous crew refused, and thereupon 97 of them deserted and joined Cullifers. and subsequently looted the adventure galley and the prize the Keder Merchant

and threatened several times to murder the narrator, which is kid, which they designed in the night to effect, but was prevented by locking himself into a cabin at night and securing himself by barricading the same with bales of goods and having about 40 small arms beside pistols ready charged. Yeah, there's the picture. There he is. He's in his cabin. He's got maybe a handful of loyal men by his side,

the ones he actually would have chosen to sail with anyway that hadn't been nicked by the Royal Navy. The rest of them that were foisted on him from, you know, Newgate prison and the marshalcy, he were trying to hammer down the door and cut him to ribbons. And he's in there with 40 pistols, all armed and ready to go. So what happens next? So what he says happens is that their wickedness was so great

that after they had plundered and ransacked sufficiently, they went four miles off to where the narrator's chest was lodged. is where Kidd has put his treasure. The chest is a treasure chest. Right. And broke it open and took out 10 ounces of gold, 40 pounds of plate, 370 pieces of eight. It's so good this. Actually got pieces of eight in a treasure chest. The narrator's journal and a great many other papers that belong to him. But the worst thing that happens, says Kidd, is that the deserters also take the captive moors, and they've been saving the adventure galley by pumping away all the water that's been leaking into it. And the minute that the moors are carried off, this ship sinks

in the harbour because no one is operating the pumps anymore. So he's there, he's lost his vessel, he's lost his crew, and he's lost his treasure. This is a man who's in a lot of trouble. So now, you know, he's got this sort of chest of treasure, and this is where the Treasure Island mythology comes into it because now he's on the run because, you know, he's got nothing, he's got nothing to protect him. And he is trying to get back to America. That's what he's trying to do. And this is the mythology of where on the way back, he buries some of his treasure. That's right. Once the adventure galley has sunk and the deserters have gone off, he still has the keder merchant. He's still got a ship. So he's not completely stranded. And unbeknown to the crew,

he has already buried some of his treasure and he now manages to dig this up. But does he dig it up? This is the whole question mark because people are still hunting for it. There is this enormous amount of treasure that he has buried somewhere. But he does have some wealth on him.

Whatever he escapes with on what is now called the Adventure Prize which was formerly the artist known as KDAR. He's got some wealth and he's trying to get back to America. Now this is to me, another bit of evidence that suggests he doesn't think that he has crossed over to the dark side because he knows, he knows there are several

sort of men of war ships that are after him. In his head, William, he is trying to get back to America. He is trying to get back to the people who he thinks he's still working for, namely Lord Belmont or Le Belmont in the film, who is the man who got him involved in all of this stuff to begin with, you know, the governor of Massachusetts and Boston. Because if he can get back, then he can sort all of this out. There's been an all of this out. There's been an all of awful lot of he thinks misinformation flying around about him. But if he can just get to New York and explain it, Belmont will back him. So he sails all the way back to the Caribbean and he docks in Anguila in the West Indies in April 1699. And he goes ashogs. He needs food and water. And it's

there that he hears that the British government, encouraged by the East India Company, has formally declared him pirate and put out a bounty on him. So he then has to go immediately because Anguilla is a British island and he's not safe there. So he immediately hop-footed it to the safer Danish island of St Thomas. And then he hops along from non-British island to non-British island. He goes to Hispaniola. And at this point he unloads and sells some of the bales of cloth from the Kedommerchum, which again seem not to have been taken by the deserters.

And in that state, he makes it back to New York City. But you know what? He does have other stuff as well. So it's not that he's raggedy, sort of nothing. He also has an amount of treasure with him still. Not nearly what he's earned on his voyages, but a little bit. And he buries it in a place called Gardner's Island. You know, they really were big on burying.

This is not a joke. You know, the Jolly Roger flag flying, that's all rubbish. But pirates did bury their treasure and put them in caves and mark spots on maps, which only they knew where they put it. But this is a little island in Vermont, which is now a lovely holiday destination. from rich New Yorkers to go and have a little break. Just go and have a little sail around. But he does. And actually, that stuff has been dug up. So we know that is true. The gardener stuff did happen. But when he gets back to New York, is he welcomed in open arms by Lord Belmont?

Does he, William, does he get a hug and a well done and a slap on the back and sorry it was so awful? He absolutely does not. And Lord Belmont, who has heard that his protege has been formally declared pirate and the news has reached New York is very worried because he's worried that he now may be seen as the backer of a pirate. So very devious negotiations now go on between Belmont and Kid and the British. But can I just say actually, Kid writes a letter to Belmont before he reaches New York. And he, you know, the fact that he writes a letter to somebody he thinks is his friend, he wouldn't do that and you wouldn't sail back home if you thought that there's no coming back from this, I've crossed over, I'm a badden. So he still thinks that Belmont's on his side,

but Belmont wants nothing more to do with him, but also more than that wants to use him as a bargaining chip to get in with the king. You know, if you get in with King William, and you present pirate number one William Kidd, who says, I'm not a pirate, I'm not a pirate, shut up, kid, you are a pirate. If you present him in chains, the King of England will favour you. And I think that Kid is aware that this is a possibility, because at this point, Perhaps unnecessarily, he offers Belmont effectively bribes. And there's a list of what he offers him, which include three or four small jewels, a green silk bag of about five pounds, the weight of a bar of gold.

Two children, a kid had bought at St. Mary's, a black girl and a boy named Dundee. So there is definitely slaves on this ship. And so the idea that we're in some paradise of colour blindness is nonsense. But can I just also say that Knoxie? can the head, because if the child is called Dundee, that sort of tells you a little bit about what... Maybe like Dundee. You're wrong about that with everything else in this kid's story. So anyway, so he's trying to sort of get in with Belmont, but it is a disaster because first all of him and says, yeah, no, okay, I'll take all of that. That sounds lovely, lovely. Thanks very

much for the presence. Why don't we meet in Boston and I will protect you? So Kid turns up, in good faith, to meet Belmont, his mate and hand over his presence. July 1699. And he is arrested and he is thrown in jail and the conditions of his imprisonment are bad. They are awful. So bad that he's said to have been driven at least temporarily insane. He sends most of this time. It's 12 months he's held by Belmont in America. He's most of the time in solitary confinement. His wife, do you remember Sarah Oot? Yes. of the Dutch name, she's also arrested and imprisoned. And they are never seen again. They're separated even though he's sort of desperate. And then there's this wonderful moment when he's made to itemise his loot that he unloaded on Gardner's Island. So we have this signed statement from him.

Captain William Tidd declares and saith that in his chest, which he left at Gardner's Island, there were three small bags or more, or Jasper Antonio, several pieces of silk, with silver and gold cloth, about a bushel of cloves and nutmegs mixed together and strawed up, several books of fine white calicoes, several pieces of fine muslins, several pieces more of flowered silk, and he does not remember well what further was in it, but there was neither gold nor silver in the chest, and it was fastened with a padlock and nailed and corded about. It's a lovely detail. See, I love this. It makes it so visual.

So after holding him and sort of, you know, telling King's a bit of. William, I'm going to send him back to you. Kid is then transported back to England. Now, the thing is, he could be a great bit of political dynamite because there is a new administration who's in charge in the government. The Tories are now in power. And the Tories think they can make much, because they know, everybody kind of knows, although it's not public, that the wigs are the ones who backed Kid, the most notorious pirate of the day, is how he's described in England. And they bring him and they say, right, you know what, mate, you have to name names. Name. Name your wig backers and kid refuses.

So there must be some honour. He could have saved his life by naming them. And who knows if the tories would have let him live, but they wanted it. So he stands trial before the High Court of the Admiralty in London. And it's a sensational case. Everyone is watching. Everyone's looking. And the charges are piracy and murder.

He's confined in Newgate prison, which is a disgusting place. It is hell on earth. And he's held there for almost two years even before the trial. Never once does Kidd admit to being a pirate? All the way through the trial, he says, I am innocent. I did what I was told to do. This is what you sent me out. He said, look, you know, the reason I attacked the Cadal merchants,

there were French passes on it, which he supposedly had sent back as proof of his innocence, and they were conveniently lost. They have subsequently turned up these French passes. So we know they were real. He found them on the ship, which gave him sort of justification for the attack. Only 12 members of crew stayed loyal to him. Every one of the other treacherous bastards on that ship all turned on him. Gave evidence against him.

Yeah, they all completely condemned him saying, no, no, oh no, he was definitely a pirate. Parliament is recalled during this whole time. He keeps saying, look, you know, these mutineers, they were mutineers, they are not to be trusted, and they perjure themselves. You know, they talked about the attack on William Moore with a bucket, being premeditated, that, you know, Kid was somehow sort of sitting there, stroking his chin going, tomorrow he dies, tomorrow I should kill. Rather than what Kid says it was that it was me or him, he was starting a mutiny,

it was the first thing I could grab and I hit him over the head. And at some point, he is so tired and sick. And also, you know, people lying about letters that he sent to Belmont and the production of these French passes that would have meant, you know, Look, this is evidence. And his original buccaneering pass. None of it's allowed to come out. None of it's allowed to come out.

And that genuinely was a real thing. He actually had been given a pass. And it's in the archives today. So it probably was available then. No, it was. But all of it is hidden. The mark is not even produced. Everybody lies and lies again saying,

no, he was never working for us. He was never, you know, the wig backers, they've just disappeared as fast as, you know, they can into the shadows because they don't want anything to do with this. And Kidd at one point, on the second day of the trial, when he realizes there is nothing he can, say, Kidd says a statement, and it's the only time he'll talk during his trial, I will not trouble this court anymore, for it is folly. And he offers no defence after that. And meanwhile, all the

members of his crew are either making up stories or telling their tales. And getting pardons. Yeah, one of them says, for example, I heard him say, come boys, I will make money enough out of that fleet. So they're all giving these sort of bits of evidence. And this is how we are able to reconstruct the story of William Kidd with the amount of detail that we have. But I say fake news to them. Why are you trusting a mutinets? Hashtag fake news. Anyway, so at the end of the trial, this is just a formality now. They give him the death penalty. And he said to cry out when he hears that he's sentenced to death. My lord, this is a very hard sentence for my part. I am the most innocentist person of them all, for I have been sworn against by perjured persons.

So he's sentenced and he's sent briefly back to Newgate to await his hanging. And it's then that he writes this important letter, which he addresses to Robert Harley, the Speaker of the House of Commons. And he dangles his buried treasure as a way of getting him off the hook. And this is, you know, this is, in a sense, the first time that buried treasure, which is such a sort of staple of pirate stories, every pirate story you've ever heard has the buried treasure. This is when it actually enters the national consciousness. And his letter says, I wish to inform the House, he tells the Speaker of the House of Commons,

that in my late proceedings in the Indies, I have lodged goods and treasures to the value of £100,000, which I desire the government may have the benefit of, in order thereto that I desireth no man of liberty, but to be kept prisoner on board such ship as may be appointed for that purpose. So he thinks that by going out to dig up his treasure, he can somehow get out of prison and maybe manage to escape onto a desert island or whatever his plot. But it is too late for Kidd. There is no escape. So on the morning of the 23rd of May, 1701, in whopping, it's sunset.

Kid, with his hands tied behind his back, is marched to the gallows. He has a rope put around his neck and the trap door opens beneath him. And then the unthinkable happens. This is a true story. The rope snaps. It snaps. And he thinks, oh my God, I'm saved. Salvation. You know, God is on my side. And, you know, this might be a temporary reprieve. I mean, his brain is whirling about what could happen. But they do not wait. It's been a rainy day. There are descriptions of him being hauled out of the mud, cloaked in dirt, hauled back to the gallows. A second rope is put up. And he is hanged that day, the 23rd of May. 1701, all the while saying, I am not a pirate. I was loyal. These are liars. There is a, you know,

their story that says his body was left. I don't know if this is true. I don't know, but his body was left there to hang for 20 years as a warning for other sailors and privateers. That is true because we actually amazingly, not only have the descriptions of him hanging in chains, but we have the account of the carpenter. Oh, good. Who actually raised the gibbet that he's hung from? More evidence. What does the carpenter say? It's actually an invoice, I think. It's the invoice of the carpenter saying,

for one gibbet to hang said William Kidd's body after death. For 20 years? The carpenters doesn't know he's going to be there 20 years, but he puts in an invoice for hanging this gibbet. And then, you know, finally, whether it's 20 years or whether it's a month, it's still ghastly and gruesome. His body is supposedly then taken back to Iel Saint-Marie, where it is buried in a large black tomb,

in the cemetery, sitting upright as a punishment for his dastardly deed. I mean, I think that is rubbish, but it is a very romantic notion that even in death you will have no peace. It is apparently rubbish, but it's significant rubbish because sitting upright is a voodoo right. And so it's part of the whole Caribbean folklore, but it's not true. It's probably not true. What we do know is that definitely there was treasure that was in Gardner's Island because it was dug up.

It was in a place called Cherry Tree Field. and it was reportedly found and sent to England, and it was then used as evidence against Kidd in his trial. But the big treasure that he was dangling in front of the authorities and the Speaker of the House, people have been trying to look for it even up until 1983. So two gentlemen called Court Graham and Richard Knight were searching for Captain Kidd's treasure off the Vietnamese island,

Foucock, and Knight and Graham were caught. They were convicted of illegally landing on Vietnamese territory and they were fined $10,000 each and imprisoned for 11 months until they paid the fine. Why did they choose that particular island? Do we know? I don't know if they have a map. They're not going to tell us, are they? They're going to go back at some point. But then even more remarkably, they actually do discover the wreck of the Keder Merchant that actually turns up in 2007, as recently as this millennium, this century. In the 13th of December, 2007, the wreckage of the Keder Merchant It was found by divers in shallow waters off the Dominican Republic.

How good is that? It's such a good story. It is such a good. So look, this is the whole thing about history. You have different sources. You have to employ your own thinking in this. And you have to agree with me. That is all we have done for.

My romantic friend. I think he was stitched up. I think he was stitched up. This clear crook, this total rogue. He was not anything of the sort. They hid all the evidence at the trial. line. Anyway, listen, it's been such a romp. More pirates coming up. We've got to have more pirates. We've got to have more pirates. We love a pirate.

Anyway, until the next time we meet is goodbye from me, Anita Arden. And goodbye from me, William Duremberg.