Here’s an interesting ecclesiastical question for followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster: how do you feel about Captain Kidd?

I ask because this is May 23rd, the 310th anniversary of Kidd’s hanging for piracy. The wreckage of his last ship, the Quedagh Merchant, is about to be dedicated as an underwater museum. Science Daily has the story.

Captain William Kidd is one of the most famous pirates of all time. His name probably ranks just beneath Blackbeard. But it’s his name that’s famous, and not his deeds. We know that Blackbeard blockaded Charleston harbor, but what did Kidd do?

And there lies the problem: Kidd was a pirate hunter who – almost, kinda – turned pirate. He’s famous largely because his conviction for murder and piracy became a show trial, and because he’s the only pirate we know of who actually buried a treasure chest. But despite all that, he never considered himself a pirate.

An Unlikely Pirate

Pullquote: My name was William Kidd,
When I sailed, when I sailed,
My name was William Kidd,
When I sailed,
My name was William Kidd;
God’s laws I did forbid,
And so wickedly I did,
When I sailed.

William Kidd of Boston was a seasoned sailor, and had served as a privateer on multiple occasions. When Robert Livingston(1) of New York hit on the idea of commissioning a privateer to hunt pirates, Kidd was a solid choice to captain the quest. Pirates who had recently taken a ship would be carrying a large amount of booty, and the pirate hunter could claim some or all of what he recovered. This offered a very large and semi-legal return on the investment for everyone involved.

Livingston was able to convince several British businessmen to join in. They pooled the funds together and built a ship – the Adventure Galley – and made Kidd the captain. His mission was to hunt pirates in the Indian Ocean and return with the proceeds. He was also given a privateer’s commission, with the authority to hunt French ships as a British privateer.

So Kidd set out to Madagascar, where rumor had it that the pirates were so thick that they had their own ports. Unfortunately, the rumors were complete fabrications. There were only a few pirates operating in the Indian Ocean at that point. Short on loot, Kidd ended up having trouble keeping his crew in line. At one point he got into a scuffle with a gunner, William Moore, and in a fit of rage left Moore dead.

Kidd didn’t get along any better with other pirate hunters, which led to one sea battle. He also didn’t get along with the British, since the Royal Navy kept trying to impress his sailors. This was a problem, because he was sailing from a British port and backed by British nobles. He needed to keep these people happy.

Word of his violent and mutinous crew, battles with other pirate hunters and conflicts with the Royal Navy leaked back to Britain. The rumor mill began painting Kidd as a bloodthirsty pirate.

Careless Privateer or Reluctant Pirate?

Pullquote: Come all ye young and old,
And see me die, see me die,
Come all ye young and old,
And see me die,
Come all ye young and old,
You’re welcome to my gold,
For by it I’ve lost my soul,
And must die.

Under pressure from his crew and desperate to show some return to his investors, Kidd boarded the merchant ship Quedagh Merchant under flimsy pretexts. Technically the merchant was under French command, and thus a fair target to a British privateer. But after taking it, Kidd found that the the ship had enough English backing that its taking would “make a great noise in England.”

But the haul from the Merchant was enough to double the investment for his backers, so Kidd had some reason to think that they would intercede on his behalf. Still, he left the Merchant in the Caribbean, and took some of the more valuable cargo and had it buried on Gardiners Island. Both of these would act as bargaining chips with his investors.

But the rumors of his piracy had spread, multiplied and expanded. When he returned, he was seized and tried for the murder of William Moore and several counts of piracy. He was hanged on May 23, 1701, in London.

The Real Kidd

So what to think of our famous “pirate,” Captain Kidd? Is he fit for the priesthood of the Flying Spaghetti Monster? One of my colleagues suggested that Kidd turned pirate, because he was surrounded by a crew that was “questioning his manhood.” (No doubt they were, but I’d think the potential for mutiny would be more alarming.)

My take is that Kidd was a privateer who had been dealt a poor hand. Had he decided to go all the way and turn pirate, never to return to England or Boston, he might have done well for himself.

But he had a wife in Boston and no desire for the short, merry life of a pirate. Instead of going rogue, he tried to return and mend fences that were beyond mending. His story is part farce, part high seas drama, but mainly tragedy.

(1) Full disclosure: I worked at the Livingston estate for a year. Some historians, like Richard Zacks who wrote The Pirate Hunter, paint Livingston as a scoundrel for getting involved with Kidd. Robert Livingston (AKA Robert the Founder, first of the Robert Livingstons) was definitely a scoundrel, but in this case I don’t think he was at fault for anything. The rumors that he stole Kidd’s plunder and hid it on the estate are not true. I looked.