Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period: Illustrative Documents
History
Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period: Illustrative Documents
Pirates; Privateering; United States -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775 -- Sources
That Capt. Kidd at his going to New Yorke promised to return himselfe
or send some other persons in two Moneths time to bring Necessaryes
for refitting his said ship the _Adventure Prize_ and also a
Condemnation for the said ship and Goods and to indempnifye all
persons that should purchase any of the said Goods, alledging that the
said ship was a lawfull prize being taken with a French passe which
Captain Kidd shewed me, and actually in the time of War with
France.[10]
[Footnote 10: See doc. no. 76, note 9.]
That after the Departure of Capt. Kidd the Seamen shiped by him in the
said ship did plunder and convert to their owne uses the best and most
choicest of the goods of the said ships Cargoe, which did not come to
my Knowledge till they had been near Five Weeks on board the said
ship, and indeed it was out of my power to prevent them had I
discovered it sooner being only myselfe and Negro Boy, And they were
Eighteen in numbers.
That the said Seamen belonging to the said ship as afores'd when they
found I was not ignorant of their villanies openly declared they would
not stay longer on board the said ship, but being terrified with the
thoughts of Capt Kidds returning, they Joyned all (saving the
Boatswaine) and came on the Quarter Deck and said I might remain in
the ship and be damned for they would stay no longer. The Man that
thus affronted me I shoved on the main Deck[11] and ordered the rest
to go on the Main Deck likewise and told them they had engaged
themselves to Capt. Kidd to stay on board the ship as long as I should
be there, And that I was resolved to stay till the two Months in which
Capt. Kidd promised to return were expired unless some Extraordinary
Accident intervened: I also charged them with stealing out of the
Ships Hould severall Bales of Goods And that if they went from the
Ship before Capt. Kidd's Arrivall I was oblidged as his Friend and in
my owne Justification to write to all Governm'ts in those parts to
have them secured; this calmed them for two or three dayes.
[Footnote 11: _I.e._, shoved down from the quarter-deck onto the main
deck.]
That the said Seamen did again Joyne and draw up a Paper directed to
me setting forth their Resolution of leaving the Ship and signed with
their names within a Circle commonly called a Round Robin, so gott on
board A Sloope and went for the Island Curacao leaving the Ship to me
and three more.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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