When the English merchantman sailed away unharmed, a violent argument erupted on the Adventure Galley over whether the potential prize should have been allowed to go free. Conflicting testimony makes it impossible to determine all the details of the argument, but it ended with Kidd hitting a seaman named William Moore over the head with a bucket. The crewman later died, providing the court with the basis for Kidd’s murder charge.

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In February 1698, almost a full year after he had been expected to return to New York, Kidd finally found his bonanza, but it proved to be a mixed blessing. The incident epitomized the perplexing legal guidelines applying to privateers. The merchantman was, in fact, a legal nightmare–owned by Indians, carrying Persian cargo, with a Moorish crew and an English captain. All sailed together, Kidd claimed, under a French pass.

The pass was the key to the matter. If it really existed, it provided undeniable proof that the Quedah Merchant was a legitimate prize. Kidd insisted that the pass had been among the papers that had been taken from him following his arrest, but the court denied his pleas that he be given access to them. In desperation, Kidd produced witnesses who claimed to have seen the pass, but the court simply ignored their testimony.

If taken lawfully, the Quedah Merchant’s cargo of silk, gold, jewels, sugar and guns could have fully compensated Kidd’s sponsors for his overextended voyage. Rather than setting course for New York, however, he headed for St. Mary’s, Madagascar, an infamous pirate haven. When he arrived, a single undermanned pirate ship, which should have been easy prey for a 34-gun warship, lay anchored in the harbour.

But rather than enjoying an advantage, Kidd found himself at his adversary’s mercy after most of his own men deserted to the enemy ship. After negotiating with his adversary, Kidd made his way safely back to the West Indies aboard the Quedah Merchant. Both Kidd’s and the prosecution witnesses’ versions of this incident seem unlikely, and it may be that they both felt it best not to tell the whole truth. The disappearance of the Adventure Galley, at a time when Kidd is known to have been dealing with a bona fide pirate, seems especially suspicious. Kidd claimed he scuttled it at St. Mary’s because it had become unseaworthy.

Kidd next dropped anchor at Anguilla, possibly because he had taken on paying passengers bound for the West Indies in order to help offset the cost of his voyage. There he heard that he was a hunted man, and he made the fatal decision to deliver himself into the hands of the colonial authorities.

The saga came to an abrupt end on 23rd May, 1701, when Kidd was hanged at Execution Dock. His sentence called for his body to remain hanging in public view until it had rotted away.

Though he was found guilty, the complete truth about Kidd’s last voyage will never be known for certain. Perhaps the most apt evaluation of Kidd’s life was made by the writer Harold Thompson in 1940, when he described Kidd as ‘a man neither very good nor very bad, the fool of fortune and the tool of politicians, a pirate in spite of himself.’

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