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wars left the seas dotted with ships flying the black flag.
The plague of piracy left England in a ticklish spot. Subjects with investments in the East yelled for suppression of the freebooters. But subjects in the American colonies, a spawning ground for buccaneers, welcomed pirates because they kept the cost of living down. In insisting that Americans trade exclusively with the mother country, Britain was charging higher prices for goods than pirates charged for their illicit wares.
Crafty King William III thought he saw a chance to stuff the royal wallet. He agreed that a ship should be outfitted to stamp out piracy. However, he proposed that this ship should be sent out as a private undertaking, since the government couldn't spare one. The king himself offered to kick in with 3,000 pounds toward the venture. Although he later weasled out of the promise, a couple of bigwigs with an eye on an easy buck promoted the scheme. Among them were Lord Bellomont, governor of New England, and Colonel Robert Livingston, a wealthy New York landowner, who suggested that William Kidd was just the man to head the pirate-hunting expedition. He was to capture buccaneers — "the King's enemies" — and to impound their merchandise and treasure, which would be divided among the promoters, Kidd and his crew.
And so Kidd set sail in February, 1693, from Deptford in his 287-ton Adventure Galley, with 34 guns and a crew of a hundred. He had at least one strike against him from the start. Neither he nor his crew was to collect
Sivin^ February, 1949
any pay unless they took a prize. Further, Kidd had to repay Bellomont if he failed to bring in enough prizes to pay off the cost of the expedition. The second strike against him came in New York, where he anchored to replace a fifth of his crew that had been impressed into British naval service. Newcomers, who brought his strength to 150, had a hankering for unlawful plunder.
Logically, Kidd should have struck a course for Madagascar, where pirates were as numerous as fish. Instead, he carefully avoided that coast for 1? months. He cruised about for more than 12 months without taking any prizes except a small French vessel, which he had picked up en route to America. It helped buy groceries but didn't line the pockets of the crew.
In one week, 50 of the crewmen died of cholera. The unhappy, payless sailors who remained began muttering about doing a bit of piracy. Far from striking terror into the hearts of fellow skippers, Kidd couldn't even keep his own men under control.
His first act of piracy came in September, 1697, when he met with a Moorish ketch captained by an Englishman. From the ketch, Kidd got several bales of pepper and coffee and some myrrh. But he couldn't find any money. A more serious-minded pirate would perhaps have beheaded a few of the crew to loosen the tongues of the others, but not Kidd. He had some of the sailors drubbed with cutlasses. Still they wouldn't talk, so Kidd helplessly let them go off in their ship. He kept the captain and a Portuguese, the latter apparently for future use as interpreter.