Source: Encyclopedia Americana
THE CASE OF CAPTAIN KIDD: A PIRATES' PIRATE. William Kidd, the notorious British pirate, was born c. 1645, most likely in Greenock, Scotland. Of obscure origin, he went to sea at a young age, and by 1690, had become a ship owner and sea captain in New York.

He placed his ship at the service of the Crown during King William's War (the first of four wars fought between England and France, 1689-1697, to determine which country would possess North America), distinguishing himself in engagements with French privateers.

So it came to be, that when Richard Coote, Earl of Bellamont, was appointed Governor of Massachusetts and New York, with instructions from the Crown to suppress piracy, Kidd came highly recommended, and was thus commissioned to privateer against French vessels and to seize all pirate ships--the catch was, that Kidd and his crew would receive no pay except from booty taken by acts of piracy. In 1696, he sailed from Plymouth, England, as commander of the galley Adventure, and, after adding to his crew in New York, set sail to Madagascar, then a pirate haunt.

By 1698-1699, complaints began to reach the authorities that Kidd himself was plundering friendly ships rather than combatting pirates. Although one version had it that Kidd was prodded by a mutinous crew, gone many months without pay, and anxious for a treasure-laden vessel, this is probably apocryphal. His richest prize was captured in January 1698, the Armenian vessel Quedagh Merchant, with a cargo estimated to be valued at 70,000 British pounds, a princely sum in those days. Kidd took the vessel as his own, scuttling the unseaworthy {Adventure}, and, in September sailed for the West Indies, reaching there in April 1699. Learning that he and his crew had been declared outlaw pirates, he left the stolen Quedagh Merchant and sailed in a small sloop to Oyster Bay, Long Island.

Eventually coming ashore at Boston, he was examined by Bellamont, protesting all the while his innocence, and insisting that his mutinous crew forced him into acts of piracy. He was nonetheless set to London as a prisoner, along with several crew members, and tried at Old Bailey in May 1701. Captain Kidd was charged with, not only the piratical seizure of six ships, but with murder as well, of a crewman named Moore, whom he smashed over the head with a bucket. His defense against the murder charge was that Moore was a mutineer, and that there was no intent to kill. He, furthermore, maintained that the plundered ships were sailing under French flag, and were therefore legal prizes under his commission. Failing to convince the judges, Kidd was found guilty of both murder and piracy, and hanged--still protesting his innocence. Some say, to this day, that he did not
receive a fair trial.

As to the treasure: It is said that a part was buried on Gardiner's Island, off Long Island, but was found in 1699. Nevertheless, there grew up stories of a hidden treasure, waiting to be unearthed, a legend which only grew with that of Captain Kidd himself, who came to be known as the greatest priate of them all. A ballad of 1701, popular later as a forecastle song, enhanced the legend, recounting his exploits in some 25 stanzas, commencing with these lines from the first stanza:
      "Oh, my name was 'Robert' Kidd as I sailed, as I sailed,--
      And most wickedly I did, as I sailed."
 

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