CAPTAIN KIDD’S FIRST ENTERPRISE

Western Star, Issue 1387, 7 September 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

CAPTAIN KIDD’S FIRST ENTERPRISE

Among notorious pirates probably no one is better known in England than Captain Robert Kidd, whose trial and execution formed the subject of many once popular ballads. He commence! life in the king’s service, and had so far distinguished himself, that we find him in the first month of 1695 receiving a commission from His Majesty William 111. to command a “private” man-of-war to “apprehend, seize, and take” certain American pirates. The privateer was actually fitted out at the expense of Lord Beliemont, at one time Governor of the Barbadoes and others, who knew the wealth that the pirates had acquired ; and they obtained the King’s commission, partly with the view of keeping the men under better command, and also 'to give their enterprise some sort of sanction of legality. Kidd sailed for New York, where he engaged more men, increasing officers and crew to a total of 150. Each man was to have one share in any division of spoil, while he reserved for himself and owners forty shares. This vessel was the Adventure galley of thirty tons. After calling at Medeira and the De Verde Islands ior provisions aad necessaries, he set sail for Madagascar, then a rendezvous of

THE INDIAN OCEAN PIRATES. After cruising on that and the Malabar coast, were he was not at first successful in meeting with any of the pirat* vessels he touched at a place called Mabbee, on the Eed Sea, where he helped himself to a quantity of natives’ corn withoutofferingpaymeat. Hitherto he had acted strictly in his capacity as a legalised privateer, but he now began to show his true colours. The Mocha fleet was expected shortly to pass that way, and when he proposed to his crew that they should attack it, one ana all agreed. He thereupon senta'well-manned boat to reconnoitred, which returned in a few days wi h the news that there were 14 or 15 ships about to sail. It will be understood that the Mocha fleet had nothing to do with the American pirates, but wfos a conamerical fleet, in this case consisting of English, Dutch, and Moorish vessels, convoyed by a vessel or vessels of war, in the fashion of those days.

THE MAN AT THE MASTHEAD soon announced its approach, and Kidd, getting into the midst of the vessels, fired briskly at a Moorish ship. Two men-of-war, however, bore down upon him, and knowing he was not a match for them, Kidd reluctantly put on all sail, and ran away. Shortly afterwards he took a small vessel belonging to Moorish owners, the master being an Englishman, who he forced into his service as pilot. He used the men brutally, having them hoisted by the arms and drubbed with a cutlass, to to find out whether or no any valuables were on board. As there was next to nothing to be found, he seized some quantity of coffee and pepper, and let the vessel go. When he touched shortly afterwards at a Moorish he found that he was suspected, and soon after this he discovered that many places along the coast had become alarmed. A Portuguese man-of-war was despatched after him, and met him j he fought her gallantly for six hours, when he again became convinced that prudence, in this case, was the better part of valour, and made good his escape.—From “The Sea, its stirring Story of Adventure, Peri 1 , and Heroism.”