Original subtitles

[Narrator] Captain William Kidd's life

is shrouded in mystery.

A pirate hunter turned pirate,

who was put to death professing his own innocence.

The ballad of his life, trial and tribulations

paints a picture of an evil and ruthless operator.

[Historian] It basically told the story of who he was.

He basically sold his soul to the devil

in order to be able to become the most powerful pirate ever.

[Narrator] But the truth tells a different story.

Kidd was commissioned by King William III

to hunt pirates in the Red Sea.

[Author] Madagascar became famous as a pirate island.

[Narrator] But when his mission starts to fail,

a tragic story of murder, theft, hidden treasure

and lost evidence unfolds.

[Historian] Pirate trials at the time were just a show,

it's pure humiliation.

[Narrator] Kidd is used as a political pawn

in a scheme which would ultimately find him on trial

claiming his innocence but facing execution as a pirate.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

William Kidd arrives in New York in 1690,

already a decorated privateer from Scotland.

He quickly climbs the social ladder

within this bustling new city,

which is, for now, a colony of England.

[Mark Hanna] We know that he had a pew in Trinity Church,

so he was a well-respected individual,

was a commercial captain.

[Rebecca Simon] He was really great at telling stories

about the adventures he had.

So as a result, he was able to get in with the social elite

who really loved hearing about his adventures on the high seas.

Kidd was a very upstanding gentleman.

He had a brilliant reputation of working in the maritime world.

And from there, he would meet

a very wealthy widow named Sarah Oort.

And he would marry her,

and this would really put him into high society.

[Narrator] As part of New York's social elite,

Kidd cultivates a reputation as a fearless captain

and forges a successful career in the maritime world.

♪ ♪

[David Wilson] With his partner in New York,

they travel to London

and they set up this partnership with the Earl of Bellomont,

who was operating on behalf

of the most influential politicians of the day.

[Narrator] Gripped by tales of Kidd's adventures at sea,

the Earl of Bellomont is eager to employ the Scotsman.

He commissions a 34-gun privateering vessel,

the Adventure Galley, for Kidd to captain.

[Oliver Finnegan] The scheme was

that they were going to send Kidd

into the Indian Ocean as a kind of pirate hunter.

[Simon] Pirate hunting was a pretty lucrative career

in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.

It was basically a job

where you were set out to go find a specific pirate.

They're like bounty hunters, in a way.

[Narrator] Kidd's instructions arrive

in the form of a letter of marque,

signed by the king of England, William III;

Kidd's target, the infamous Red Sea pirates.

[Finnegan] A letter of marque will be issued

in the name of a king or a queen,

and it gives the captain of a ship and the sailors on it

the right to sail out and to capture enemy shipping

as is defined by that king or queen.

[Narrator] As well as pirate ships,

a second target is detailed in Kidd's letter of marque.

England is at war with France, and he is given license

to go after any vessel in service of the French.

Kidd now has two targets,

offering great potential for wealth and plunder.

[Finnegan] This is quite an unusual letter of marque

because it was granted to William Kidd

and it gave him very particular grounds.

It didn't just say that he could sail out

and capture French shipping,

it also instructed him to capture pirate vessels

and bring them in to be condemned as lawful prize.

He would have got a share of the goods on that pirate ship

for himself.

The Crown would get a cut as well.

So it really was a moneymaking scheme

designed to suppress piracy in the Indian Ocean.

[people chatting]

[Narrator] Kidd trawls the taverns and waterways of London

recruiting for this expedition.

♪ ♪

[Hanna] You can imagine this is really easy for him to do.

Kidd showed up with a commission with the king's signature on it

and a picture of the king on the commission.

So people flocked to his ship.

[Simon] He was giving them a lot of promises,

saying, we're going to capture a lot of pirates.

We're going to be able to capture

a lot of other enemy ships.

You're going to become extremely wealthy.

And not only that, you're going to come home

and have a lot of high wages,

and so it really wasn't difficult at all

for Kidd to get himself a very large crew

who were pretty excited about going onto these journeys

into the Red Sea.

[Narrator] Although Kidd was respected by his investors

and making connections in high society,

he now has a crew of common seamen,

some of whom were known pirates.

And already their behavior

begins to rub off on the captain.

♪ ♪

[Margarette Lincoln] As they went past Greenwich,

they failed to do the customary naval salute.

♪ ♪

Warships there reminded Kidd's crew

that they were supposed to fire a cannon.

And worse, what they did, actually,

was climb the masts and pat their behinds,

which was very insulting.

[Narrator] A disgruntled naval vessel chases the ship

towards the mouth of the Thames to punish Kidd's arrogance.

They capture some of his sailors.

Kidd is forced to return for a second round of recruitment.

It takes months, but finally he's ready to begin his crusade

against the Red Sea pirates.

[Wilson] In the Caribbean by the 1690s,

pirates aren't making the same sort of wealth they used to.

[Narrator] The Spanish treasure fleet,

which had been the largest target

of the pirate attacks in the Caribbean,

now sails less often,

meaning their chances for a successful ambush

were dwindling.

[Wilson] So instead, they start to undertake

massive, long voyages from North America

around the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa

and to the Indian Ocean.

[Hanna] So, many English captains

began to sail into the Indian Ocean

to plunder ships that belonged to the Mughal Empire of India.

These ships would sail from India

on their way to the pilgrimage sites

of Jeddah and Mecca in the Red Sea.

And they were incredibly valuable.

Massive amounts of luxury items

like calico and silk, jewels, gold,

and legend grew of the value of these large ships.

[Wilson] The pirate target this Mughal shipping fleet

because it's unprotected at this point in time.

There is no convoys, no armed convoys

with the Mughal pilgrim fleet.

So the pirates see it as an easier target,

despite the costs involved in terms of traveling

from North America all the way to the Red Sea,

which is a substantial voyage.

[Narrator] Brutal attacks by the Red Sea pirates

wreak havoc across the Indian Ocean.

[cannon fire]

[Simon] The Mughal emperor was so incensed by this

that they blockaded the ports

and they threatened to block off all trade

and almost cause an all-out war.

[Hanna] This was very frustrating in large part

to the king of England,

who had a long-standing relationship

with the Mughal emperor.

It was more upsetting to the East India Company,

which is a company that had a full monopoly

on trade in the Indian Ocean.

[Narrator] Founded in England,

primarily to exploit

the lucrative spice trade,

the East India Company

is becoming a powerful presence across Asia.

[Hanna] So, when the Red Sea pirates came

and started plundering ships belonging to the Mughal Empire,

this obviously created a massive rift

between the East India Company and the Mughal emperor himself.

♪ ♪

In fact, the lives of employees of the East India Company

were threatened because obviously the Mughal emperor

saw no distinction between East India Company employees

and pirates.

[Richard Blakemore] So the East India Company

and the English authorities need to respond to these pirates.

They need to repair their international trade

and diplomacy and connection.

And William Kidd is part of that.

♪ ♪

[Narrator] William Kidd sets sail with a motivated crew,

a state-of-the-art vessel

and royal permission to hunt Red Sea pirates.

♪ ♪

They are about to make themselves very rich...

if they can find their prey.

[Hanna] The Red Sea pirates originated

in the American colonies.

I think this is important.

One of the first to sail to the Indian Ocean

actually came from South Carolina.

But others came from New York City,

some from Newport, Rhode Island, one sailed from Bermuda,

and they began to join each other in armadas,

and they based themselves on the island of Madagascar,

which was essentially a base to shoot out and attack those ships

as they made their way to the Red Sea.

So Madagascar became famous

as a sort of pirate refuge, pirate island.

[Narrator] Kidd and his crew head north

towards the Gulf of Aden,

in search of the Red Sea pirates

who have been terrorizing the Mughal convoys.

[Lincoln] So, Kidd's crew expected to attack

the Red Sea pirate ships and gain riches.

And this is normally referred to

as a kind of no purchase, no pay,

whereby you weren't given any wages;

what you got was what you managed to steal.

You got your share of the loot.

[Simon] So, this meant that they really had no choice

but to stay with Captain Kidd for as long as it took

for them to be able to rob as many ships as possible,

or else they were going to go home,

and they're barely going to have any money given to them at all.

[Blakemore] So, early in the voyage,

once they've reached the Indian Ocean,

things start to go quite badly.

Kidd may well have intended to attack pirates,

but it doesn't seem like he can find any,

and tensions start to simmer amongst his crew.

Some of the crew, according to Kidd's account,

are really keen to start attacking merchant ships

and to capture plunder.

And there also seem to be personal arguments.

The crew are not a happy ship,

and Kidd doesn't seem to have been particularly good

at managing these resentments and hostilities.

[Simon] To the point where eventually,

when they would land,

there would be people who would abandon ship

and decide it wasn't worth actually sailing

with Kidd anymore.

♪ ♪

[Lincoln] You know, these crews

were incredibly difficult to control.

What they wanted was loot.

They didn't want to be lingering around

on the open seas doing a lot of work.

[Simon] Some of the major risks that would come about,

oddly enough, is boredom.

There are long periods of time

where they might be in between attacks

or they're just really far away from land,

and so boredom can set in,

and this could cause tensions to rise.

It's very hot in the places that they're going.

They are always at risk of running very low on water.

And so this meant they're always going to be

at risk for severe dehydration

because of the lack of the water.

And so as a result, you're getting a little weaker,

your immune system might not be very good,

so you could get sick.

If there was going to be an illness

that would sweep through a ship,

it would be either scurvy or it would be an intestinal illness,

and this is because water can get contaminated very easily.

♪ ♪

[Narrator] A sickness ravages the Adventure Galley's crew.

Kidd heads for the Comoros Islands,

pausing his mission for two months

whilst disease takes the lives of many of his men.

♪ ♪

[Finnegan] When Kidd gets into the Indian Ocean,

the series of events is in effect disputed,

because there are multiple accounts of what happened.

[Narrator] Now leading a skeleton crew,

Kidd sets sail.

Animosity continues to fester

between the captain and his men.

They're yet to encounter a single Red Sea pirate,

let alone claim the plunder they were promised.

He sails towards the Gulf of Aden,

hoping to find the Red Sea pirates

in the same waters

where they target and attack the Mughal fleet.

Kidd gets desperate;

he's been floating around the Comoros Islands

for months with no result.

[Wilson] But once there, he is seen to be voyaging

amongst the Mughal pilgrim fleet.

And it seems like he's acting

just like the Red Sea pirates are.

[Lincoln] As luck would have it, he found this hugely rich ship.

[Narrator] Kidd's crew spots the vessel.

They make their approach.

♪ ♪

[Blakemore] There's an account from an English sailor

who commands an East India Company ship,

that a convoy of Indian ships,

together with English and Dutch ships,

is sailing from Mecca to India,

and that Kidd's ship, the Adventure Galley,

is spotted,

and that at that time Kidd is flying a pirate flag.

[Narrator] But Kidd's target is in convoy

with powerful warships from the East India Company.

Outmatched, he must rapidly make his escape.

[Blakemore] So it seems that at that point,

even though he's scared off by the East India Company ships

and he doesn't attack the convoy,

he is deliberately signaling his intentions.

[Narrator] An attack on the East India Company fleet

would have been in direct conflict

with his letter of marque.

His mission is to repair the rift

between the king and the Mughal emperor,

not make it worse.

[Wilson] Maybe he expected that if he was able to take a prize

that was worth an extortionate amount of wealth,

and he was able to bring that wealth back to his investors,

maybe they would turn a blind to it.

That seems to be what he's doing.

[Narrator] Having escaped the clutches

of the East India Company's officers,

Kidd and his crew are still empty-handed.

[Simon] The men on the ship are threatening to mutiny

because they're so upset

that they haven't captured any major prizes.

[Narrator] The growing animosity between Kidd and his crew

is about to reach breaking point.

[Simon] It all came to a head when one of the crewmen,

William Moore, spotted a ship in the distance

and told Kidd, we should capture this ship.

[Hanna] They see a Dutch ship, and the crew say,

well, there you go, there's a ship, let's plunder it.

This sounds great.

And Kidd says, well,

did you notice the image on my commission?

It was an image of William III.

And, you know, he's Dutch.

So I don't think this is a good idea.

I think that's probably a bad idea to attack a ship

that belongs to the same nationality of our king.

[Narrator] The conflict breaks out into a fistfight

between the gunner and the captain.

Kidd grabs a heavy bucket and strikes Moore.

♪ ♪

[Simon] And Moore dies the next day from the head injury.

[Narrator] Having killed one of their fellow crewmen,

Kidd's crew loses any faith they had left

in his leadership.

But Kidd claims his actions were justified.

[Hanna] If you actually pay attention

to international law at the time,

if you could perceive him as threatening and mutinous,

I think many officers at the time could have understood.

[Simon] Now that he's killed a crew member,

he knows that he's pretty much lost control of everything.

[Hanna] Really nothing about Kidd's story makes any sense.

There's nothing about it

that seems logical or smart or a good idea.

So you could see Kidd is in a position

where he is not sure what to do.

His crew is being mutinous.

They haven't had any prey, and he's getting very frustrated.

So he finally he sees a ship in the distance

and they say, that's it, let's go after it.

[Narrator] November 18, 1697, Kidd spots another Dutch ship--

the Rouparelle.

Facing pressure from his crew, Kidd agrees to attack.

♪ ♪

Kidd needs to do whatever he can

to bring his crew back on side.

With his letter of marque in hand, he formulates a plan.

[Wilson] What's important to remember at this point in time

is in the Indian Ocean

all the vessels that are operating in the sea

are carrying multiple passes,

so any vessel can claim to be French, Dutch or English.

The European powers that operated

implemented this pass system,

so the first to implement it were the Portuguese.

And what it meant was that any vessel

passing by Portuguese waters,

or at least waters that they claimed,

those vessels had to carry what was called a pass.

Basically the merchants had to pay for this pass

at the Portuguese port,

and it gave them protection

against any Portuguese reprisals.

So if you didn't have a Portuguese pass

and a Portuguese vessel approached you,

they could claim you as a legitimate prize.

Once the Portuguese instituted that system,

the English quickly instituted the system,

the Dutch instituted the same system,

and the French instituted the same system,

which meant that most merchant vessels

operating in that region

had to carry a pass of every single one of these nations

to stop them being claimed as a legitimate prize.

♪ ♪

But Kidd uses that system as a means to dupe those vessels

to claim that they are French.

♪ ♪

[Narrator] Kidd runs a French flag

and sails straight for the Rouparelle.

His disguise works.

The Rouparelle's captain believes Kidd is an ally,

so presents a French Pass.

It's a fatal error.

[Wilson] They present themself as French,

and then they fall under his commission.

[Finnegan] Because his commission says

he has the right to seize French ships

or to seize pirates,

there are some grounds, he believes,

that he can actually seize that ship legally.

[Wilson] It's interesting

because it's not technically piracy.

Kidd does have a commission to take French vessels.

That vessel presented itself as French,

so therefore it's legitimate.

[Narrator] Kidd and his crew celebrate.

They have finally taken a significant prize

using cunning instead of violence.

Will they now stick to their royal commission

and begin tracking down Red Sea pirates?

Or will they attack any ship

Kidd believes is carrying valuable goods?

[Narrator] Whilst traversing the southern tip of India,

Kidd and his crew face great temptation

when he spots the Quedagh Merchant.

It's a legendary vessel carrying priceless cargo,

belonging to one of the wealthiest Mughal merchants.

[Simon] The Quedagh Merchant

was one of the largest ships in the entire region.

It was one of those ships

known to have loads of coins, gold and silver.

It's going to be carrying tons of goods

such as linens and silks and other textiles,

which were always really desirable.

It's going to have loads of sugar.

Sugar was one of the most lucrative goods during the time.

It was intended to be one of the largest prizes

that one could ever capture in the Indian Ocean.

It was an Armenian ship that was being used by the French.

So the ship had what were known as French passes,

meaning that France had given them jurisdiction

to sail wherever they could.

[Narrator] A French flag hangs from the mast

of the Quedagh Merchant, making it fair game for Kidd.

If he's able to repeat his bloodless takeover

of the Rouparelle, this could be easy pickings.

Kidd hoists a French flag,

once again identifying himself as an ally.

If the captain of the Quedagh Merchant

falls for the ruse,

he will present Kidd with a French pass,

giving him legal authority to take the ship.

[Simon] Pirate attacks, for the most part,

were pretty orderly.

Most ships, such as the Quedagh Merchant,

which as a merchant ship is not going to have

very many weapons on it for defense purposes.

Pirate ships, on the other hand, will.

They're all going to have pistols,

they're all going to have swords and cutlasses,

and if they're lucky,

their ships are going to have cannons.

So what a pirate is going to do

is eventually, as they get close to the ship,

they're going to identify themselves

by eventually raising up a flag.

And around the turn of the 18th century,

there were two flags a pirate might raise up:

a red flag, which means we will take no mercy,

we are going to fight to the death;

or a black flag,

and this meant that they would be willing

to negotiate and give mercy if the people surrendered.

And this was to give the other ship kind of time

in order to prepare themselves.

[Narrator] Kidd stalks his prey

and suddenly raises the black flag.

Grappling hooks are thrown from the Adventure Galley

so Kidd and his crew can board.

♪ ♪

Kidd demands to see the captain's pass.

It's handed over.

Kidd's gamble is paying off.

But then something strange happens.

[Lincoln] The so-called French captain of the merchant ship

wasn't really the captain.

They had a captain underneath.

It was a double bluff.

And the captain was actually English.

So Kidd had done a terrible thing.

He'd actually captured a ship

that was captained by an English person,

which wasn't what he was licensed to do.

[Narrator] Despite this, Kidd seizes the Quedagh Merchant,

along with all its treasures.

[Hanna] And Kidd kept that French commission

and put it in his pocket and held it

because he knew if he ever got in trouble,

he'd need that commission.

♪ ♪

[Wilson] The problem is that he's taken a vessel

which is extremely rich and extremely wealthy,

but is also owned by an extremely influential figure.

[Simon] The value of these goods in today's money

would be hundreds of thousands of dollars or pounds,

or perhaps even going into the millions.

This was the type of capture

that would set up every single one of these sailors for life.

[Narrator] Kidd and his crew ransack the ship

and take her to Madagascar, where they split the prize.

[Wilson] You're not meant to split up the plunder

until you get to the admiralty court,

but Kidd does it anyway.

[Simon] Being the captain, Kidd would get the lavish share

and then the next below him,

such as the quartermaster or lieutenant,

would get a slightly smaller share,

but still substantial, perhaps maybe a share and a half.

And then you would have the skilled workers

like the carpenter and the surgeon,

the navigator, the gunner,

they might get a share and a quarter,

and then everybody else below them would get a share.

So because it was so equally divvied up,

everyone looked forward

to being able to get their portion of the spoils.

[Narrator] Despite their newfound wealth,

many of the crew are growing tired of Kidd's captaincy

and desert him on the pirate island of Madagascar.

Left with a depleted crew and three ships to command,

he abandons two vessels

including his original ship, the Adventure Galley.

Keeping the Quedagh Merchant,

he renames it the Adventure Prize

to avoid suspicion.

But word of his legally murky behavior

finds its way back to England.

[Simon] Kidd is in Madagascar

looking to re-outfit his ship and get more supplies

when he finds out that he's wanted as a pirate

from the English government.

[Wilson] And it must have showed Kidd at that point in time

how infamous his name had become and how other individuals

were acting against him and against his name.

[Simon] Now, Kidd adamantly believed he was not a pirate.

He adamantly denied this.

He said that he was charged to rob French ships

and that the Quedagh Merchant had French passes on it.

And so what he did is he decided

he had to kind of offload his goods.

So he sails to the West Indies,

and there he writes letters to Lord Bellomont,

his friend and financier,

basically saying, I am being falsely accused of piracy.

I need your help.

I need you to help me convince the British government

that I did not betray anybody

and that I did not violate the letter of marque.

♪ ♪

[Narrator] Desperate to prove his innocence,

Kidd sends the French passes from the Quedagh Merchant

to his investor, the Earl of Bellomont,

who is currently visiting Boston.

[Hanna] While Kidd was out at sea,

the Earl of Bellomont was actually appointed

the joint governor of New York and Massachusetts.

And Bellomont had heard suspicious rumors

that Kidd might have been a pirate.

♪ ♪

[Lincoln] But while Kidd had been away

for a number of months,

things had changed back in London.

[Narrator] The two most prominent political parties

are fighting for power in England.

♪ ♪

[Lincoln] And the Whigs were losing power,

and the rival party, the Tories, were gaining power,

and Bellomont was a Whig.

And he could see that he was on a very dangerous position here.

[Simon] Bellomont knows that his political standing and career

will be ruined if they know that he is in cahoots now

with this accused pirate.

[Blakemore] So the people who were protecting him before

are now trying to disassociate themselves

from these accusations of piracy.

♪ ♪

[Simon] We have to go back in time a little bit

to understand why.

In 1695, the English pirate Henry Avery

captured loads of Mughal ships.

And the problem is

Britain was never actually able to capture Henry Avery.

He disappeared.

And so, once again, the Mughal Empire

basically tells the East India Company

you have one chance to go after Kidd

and you have to make an example of him.

You have to capture him,

or else we will cut off all trade

and consider this to be an act of war.

[Narrator] Kidd finds himself caught

in a clash of bureaucracies.

His capture is being used

to make an example of the famous pirate

regardless of his innocence.

A manhunt is underway.

Hiding in the West Indies,

Kidd pens letters to Bellomont pleading for assistance.

♪ ♪

[Lincoln] He thought that if he was able to talk to him

and explain that he thought this was a French ship,

he could smooth it over.

[Simon] Bellomont writes a letter back to Kidd,

promising him protection if he comes to Boston.

[Narrator] Deciding to trust his former patron,

Kidd sails for Boston.

Anxious to retain the fortune he's risked everything to gain,

he devises a plan to protect his loot.

[Hanna] And he stopped off an island called Gardiner's Island.

Gardiner's Island was owned by a man named Mr. Gardiner,

who is himself a former pirate.

And while he was there, Kidd decided

maybe he would leave some of his treasure.

[Blakemore] So that he then has a bargaining chip to use

with the authorities in London.

If they let him go, maybe he'll hand over some of the treasure

to the English government.

[Wilson] And it's really from here

that this idea of Kidd's buried treasure appears.

[Narrator] Kidd continues his voyage to Boston,

expecting to be welcomed by his old friend Bellomont.

[Simon] Once he steps on shore,

he is captured and thrown into Stone Prison in 1698,

where he will spend the next two years.

[Hanna] One of the most important things

in the entire history of piracy

happened while Kidd was in prison.

Kidd told the prison guard, "I buried some of my treasure,

and if you let me out, I'll give you some of it."

That seems like a very small thing,

but the entire history of piracy has changed

ever since that one moment.

[Narrator] Having shared his secret,

rumors of Kidd's buried treasure

soon escape the prison.

[Simon] And so Bellomont actually did arrange

an expedition to go search for all these goods.

And they were so desperate

to find all of these really expensive items

that they even arrested Kidd's wife

and all of their servants

to try to find out where this might be.

[Hanna] It becomes a massive craze.

And, in fact, you could call it a mania.

[Simon] And so this has led

to all kinds of treasure excavations

going all up and down the American seaboard,

as far north as Canada,

and even going as far inland into Upstate New York.

[Hanna] They come up with all these strange

paranormal strategies to find the treasure,

because the treasure isn't just sort of something

sitting in the earth,

somehow has mystical elements of it.

They had to use divining rods to find the treasure.

There's other strategies, you go in groups of three.

Somehow it's a magical thing.

You have to go in groups of three.

And the best way to find pirate treasure

is you find it around midnight.

You have to be silent,

because if you say anything, the treasure can move.

[Narrator] In the weeks following Kidd's arrest,

Bellomont tears up Gardiner's Island,

desperately seeking buried treasure.

[Wilson] Now a box of silver was recovered from Gardiner's Island

by the Earl of Bellomont.

So it might be that that was the box itself.

So it's already been recovered.

But regardless, there was clear knowledge

that there was some treasure buried in Gardiner's Island.

[Lincoln] Which actually the Crown didn't dare keep.

It was so controversial.

Queen Anne dedicated it

towards the Greenwich Hospital for seamen,

as if it was a patriotic act.

[Narrator] Nobody believes this single box of silver

can be all Kidd left.

The search continues.

[Narrator] Meanwhile, Kidd rots in jail.

The world outside is changing,

and not for the better for a man accused of piracy.

[Blakemore] Around the time

of William Kidd's voyages and trial,

the government is also bringing in legislation

which gives British officers

the right to prosecute pirates anywhere in the world.

This is a global expansion of jurisdiction.

It is an enormous assertion of authority and power.

It's a crucial part of the way in which the empire

is expanding and developing at this time.

[Narrator] As of 1700,

piracy trials are now allowed to take place in America,

but Kidd's capture predates the new law.

He's sent to London.

A trial there will be a public spectacle

with a much larger audience.

[Wilson] And that's quite rare because of the fact

that a lot of the times pirates who are captured in the Americas

tend to escape from imprisonment.

So Kidd is quite rare

in terms of actually a pirate being taken back to London

for piracies committed elsewhere.

Kidd is really a turning point

whereby you see that crackdown on piracy

that is at least attempting to be made by the English.

[Narrator] 1700, Captain William Kidd

is shipped home to London in chains.

Many powerful people

have much to lose or gain from his trial.

The leadership of both the Whigs and the Tories,

the East India Company and Bellomont;

everything is stacked against Kidd.

[Wilson] Kidd is isolated

and kept in confinement in Newgate Prison.

And the reason for that

is because both the Whig party and the Tory party,

as well as the East India Company,

are all trying to use Kidd to advance their own interests,

either to clear their name.

The Whig party who had invested in this voyage

are really wanting a speedy trial

and execution of Kidd to clear their own names

because they are now being accused of supporting a pirate,

and the Tory party are using this as a means

to undermine and slander the Whig party as well.

And it's only after a year

that he's given some of the evidence

that is put against him

and given access to materials to start to make his case.

[Narrator] The trial is fast approaching,

and Kidd realizes he's been betrayed by his former allies.

He writes to Bellomont, begging

for the Quedagh Merchant's French passes.

They may be his only chance for freedom.

Bellomont doesn't respond.

Giving up hope, Kidd asks the prison guards for a knife;

taking his own life now his only way out.

His request is denied.

[Lincoln] His trial was held in the Old Bailey,

and he was tried for murder and for piracy.

♪ ♪

[Simon] Pirate trials at the time

were pretty much show trials.

By law in England, everybody had to have their fair trial.

And so pirates got this as well.

But the thing is, pirates were considered

to be kind of enemies of humankind.

The idea is a pirate robbed a ship,

and therefore they were trying to destroy their country,

they're trying to destroy their king,

and therefore they are violating God in a way.

So it's really just a show.

It's pure humiliation.

[Narrator] Despite being labeled as a pirate,

some of Kidd's character witnesses

highlight his previous military service.

However, this period of Kidd's life

took place a long time ago.

The statements are dismissed as irrelevant by the court.

[Simon] One might think this would add to his character

and make it so he could get off easy.

No, it had the opposite effect.

If anything, he should have known better.

He should have been setting the example.

[Hanna] Throughout his trial, Kidd never said

that he was anything but innocent.

[Simon] He is constantly telling the prosecution

that he had a letter of marque

stating that he could take French ships

and that the Quedagh Merchant itself had French passes

and that he himself had taken the passes

and they just needed to be reproduced for the trial.

[Blakemore] Except that he left the French passes

with Lord Bellomont.

These documents are never produced in evidence

at Kidd's trial.

♪ ♪

[Simon] And he is told over and over in the trial

you had time to get them together.

You didn't get them together.

There's no way we have them.

In fact, they've been lost.

No one can find them.

[Narrator] Kidd goes quiet, refusing to name his investors,

confident that his silence will be rewarded

once he's acquitted.

In this misplaced act of loyalty,

he refuses to tell the court

that the passes were sent to Bellomont.

[Simon] And then Kidd thinks he's lucky

because several members of his crew do come to the trial.

And so he thinks this will help.

But instead, what actually happens

is they all speak out against him.

We have to remember,

Kidd killed one of their crewmates in a fight,

and no one is going to forgive him for that,

even though they themselves got a lot of wealth out of it.

It doesn't matter. Kidd killed one of them.

[Narrator] Enraged by their betrayal,

Kidd pushes back, claiming his former crewmates

had threatened him into carrying out the attacks.

It's his word, that of one man, against all of theirs.

[Simon] Here's what's really interesting.

Kidd is not actually found guilty for piracy.

The evidence is just a little too shaky to do that.

But instead, he is found guilty of robbery,

having robbed many ships.

And he's also found guilty for murder--

the murder of William Moore, the member of his crew.

As a result, he was sentenced to hang by the neck until dead

at Execution Dock in Wapping, East London, on the Thames.

And this occurred May 23, 1701.

[Finnegan] This is a copy, a speech that was given

by Captain Kidd around the year 1700

when he was standing trial for piracy.

And it really, it's a very emotive statement

designed to pull at the heartstrings

of the person receiving it,

who was perhaps the judge of the High Court of Admiralty.

[Narrator] Kidd pleads to the court:

"My Lord, it is a very hard sentence.

For my part,

I am the innocentest person of them all,

only I have been sworn against by perjured persons."

♪ ♪

[Finnegan] He states that because of other events

such as the capture of Mughal shipping

by the previous pirate Henry Avery in the Red Sea,

because Henry Avery was never captured,

Kidd implies that he is being executed

to placate the East India Company

and placate the Mughal emperor.

He also states in it that he's being executed

so that other people who are more powerful than him

can effectively be acquitted.

But the speech really, really lays out Kidd's case

that he's a victim

of political circumstance and misunderstanding

and the deliberate withholding of evidence

rather than somebody that's guilty of any kind of piracy.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

[Narrator] May 23, 1701.

Kidd is taken from his cell, transferred east

through the cobbled streets of Wapping

to his fate, at the rope of the hangman.

♪ ♪

The noose is placed around Kidd's neck;

his body drops, but the cord snaps.

[Wilson] So for a split second, Kidd escapes execution.

But he's quickly taken back up the ladder and put off again,

and this time, is executed.

♪ ♪

[Simon] There is a wide amount of interest

amongst these pirate trials

because they were all publicized very well.

Kidd's trial was printed and published

the day after his execution,

and within another day after that

they had to do a second printing because that's how fast it sold.

[Lincoln] I think really it's the print of Kidd

being hung at execution dock

that grabs the imagination

because whenever you see pictures

of pirates being executed,

it's normally Kidd that you see.

[Narrator] It is not only the image of Kidd

at the hangman's noose that lives on.

His legacy and actions

continue to inspire writers and storytellers across the world.

[Simon] Every single idea we have to this day

about pirates burying anything

really stems from the rumors that were put forth

by Captain Kidd.

A lot of this was inspiration

for Robert Louis Stevenson's book Treasure Island,

which was published in 1883 and was an absolute smash hit.

It's about a treasure hunt, and it was a smash hit

in Britain and in the United States.

It's never gone out of print.

It's been adapted many, many, many times.

So the novel Treasure Island,

which was inspired a lot by piracy

and Captain Kidd specifically,

is also what inspired what we think about in terms of pirates.

The eyepatch, the peg leg, the parrot as a pet,

and of course, the buried treasure and the map

and X marks the spot.

♪ ♪

[Hanna] Ballads were sung on board ships,

ballads were sung in taverns.

It's one of the more popular musical cultures.

And Kidd's ballad became incredibly famous.

The story of Kidd

is incredibly complicated and complex and nuanced.

In reality, by writing the ballad,

they made it uncomplicated.

They made it about him giving up his soul,

which is not remarkably true of the real story.

He bought a pew in Trinity Church

where his daughters prayed on Sundays.

The idea that he was a hellish figure

who sold himself to the devil

was a mythology of the 19th century

and it came out of the ballad.

The reality was he was a successful person,

well-respected in New York, had a family,

never thought he committed an act of piracy.

He killed his gunner, but his gunner was mutinous,

and he killed his gunner because he was trying to keep his gunner

from forcing him to attack allied shipping.

He was trying to do the right thing.

I'm not saying it's okay to kill his gunner,

but there's a reason why he did it,

which had to do with him trying to not be a pirate.

[Narrator] Kidd is best remembered

as a murderous pirate deserving of his execution.

But in reality, was he a man trying to follow the law

caught in a tangle of politics

or a gentleman pirate, corrupted by greed?

[Hanna] Whether he's a pirate or not

we could argue to this day,

or you could say he had a French commission,

but he lost it.

I think he would have been exonerated

had he had the commission.

A historian in the 19th century found the commission.

So we know it's true.

♪ ♪