Captain Kidd, Pirate Hunter or Pirate—our modern dilemma

Many of us harbor a negative image of the press for inadequate, inaccurate or outright biased reporting, but these earnest professionals are beset by obstacles themselves.  It is not the first time in American history our major media are owned by private commercial interests with agendas to either hide or embellish.

When the press fails its constituents as spectacularly as it did prior to the Iraq war, we cannot trust that they are unbiased, independent reporters of the facts.  Clearly improvement is necessary to repair that trust, but even the facts are not all they are cracked up to be, in most stories—so we bear a responsibility to be educated, discerning processors of the “facts” available to us.

The story of the notorious Captain Kidd illustrates the fallibility of truth and the arbitrary nature of facts. William Kidd was a tough, successful New York merchant sea captain of the 17^th century.  He was married to a very attractive, wealthy woman, owned a beautiful a posh riverside home and

Captain William Kidd

traveled in prominent New York merchant and political circles.  His own prominence and clout gained him access to a commission from King William III, backed by some of London’s most powerful lords and some of America’s wealthiest merchants.

Captain Kidd was hired to track down and capture pirates.  He was to be paid out of the booty seized from his prey.  This is where the story becomes more of an exercise in interpretation than a spell-binding chronology—despite the exotic locales and all the adventure.

First, there is the ambiguity over who was considered a pirate and which ships were fair game.  The British Admiralty considered the ships of any government currently at war with the crown fair game—and, also, any ships flying the colors of allied countries.  This was true of the French, Spanish and anyone else with ships on the high seas, so any ship on the water was in peril basically.  Alliances were so shallow they could shift virtually overnight, forcing ships of the day to carry an extensive and rather colorful array of national flags so a captain could guess at which flag would discourage a pursuer spotted on the horizon.  With no witnesses in sight, however…

Second, Captain Kidd’s commission designated him a privateer, a seaborne mercenary commissioned by the government to aid the Royal Navy to attack ships of enemy nations in exchange for a piece of the spoils.  The terms did not afford him the latitude to offer his crew wages, just a share of the captured profits.  Of course, to a sailor, this means “no prey, no pay.”  When there were spoils to be divided, only a quarter of them were available to the crew after the

Where is Kidd's treasure?

lords and the shareholders received their share and the expenses were paid.  Pirates, everyone knew, shared in 100% of the treasure.  Despite Kidd’s enormous strength of character and charismatic leadership, he suffers several mutinies as the story unfolds.

A further complication was the extraordinarily slow delivery of mail and snail-like exchange of information.  Months would elapse before news crossed the oceans by ship.  A man could be condemned and rehabilitated before the news of his forgiveness and good grace could prevent his apprehension for the very same offense in a different port.  Once labeled a pirate, Captain Kidd’s reputation either trailed him or preceded him, but was never quite in synch.  He sometimes found himself hiding when unnecessary, calling further suspicion to himself and his crew or taking his good reputation and his welcome in certain ports for granted to his and his crew’s great peril.

His piracy trial is a fascinating read.  He was branded a pirate by jealous captains of the East India Company and the Royal Navy.  Although Scottish by allegiance, he was deemed American and

The hanging of Captain Kidd

arrogant to boot.  Robert Culliford, a little-known pirate once on Kidd’s ship, the Adventure imperiled the crown’s trade by capturing a ship on the Indian Ocean.  He divvied up the gold and daughters of the local Moslem nobility.  Rumors and retelling robbed Captain Kidd of the King’s support for fear he and his lords would be tainted by the privateer. There were few reliable sources of information then.

For great storytelling, read Richard Zach’s book, The Pirate Hunter.  It reads like an adventure novel, but his research is extensive and his description of the foibles and mores of the time are educational and delivered in a very entertaining way.  Many aspects of Zach’s story are collaborated in various online resources including Wikepedia.

William Kidd was hanged in London May 23, 1701.  His body was stuffed into an iron cage and hung in full view of the public to rot at Tilbury Point along the river Thames as a civic lesson and a message to would-be pirates that Admiralty law was not only undeniable, but infallible.

Today we share the same responsibilities as the citizenry of the 1700s.  We must gather and interpret information and “facts” with which to make informed decisions about the issues that affect us.  We would like our major media and its reporters to be accountable for telling truth, and they are, as long as it fits the editorial slant of its corporate owner.  Our task is to gather our “facts” from enough sources to make our judgments more informed.  Who knows?  With enough practice we may even learn to judge who our most reliable sources are.