William Kidd
William Kidd was a Scottish sea captain sent to hunt pirates who was hanged as one, in a case that has been argued over ever since. Born in Dundee around 1654, he was a successful privateer in the Caribbean and settled in New York, where he married a wealthy widow, owned property and helped fund the building of Trinity Church. In 1695 he was engaged in London for a venture to suppress piracy in the Indian Ocean and to take French shipping. The backers were four powerful Whig ministers and the Earl of Bellomont, with the king himself taking a tenth share, and the arrangement was kept quiet because officials profiting from privateering was politically dangerous. The voyage went wrong from the start. A third of his crew were pressed into the navy at the outset, and their replacements were closer to pirates than sailors. Disease killed a third of the men, they took almost nothing for a year, and the crew grew mutinous. In October 1697 Kidd killed his gunner William Moore with a bucket during an argument. In January 1698 he captured the Quedagh Merchant, an Armenian-owned ship sailing under a French pass, which he took as a lawful prize. Its captain was English and its cargo belonged to Mughal courtiers, and the Mughal emperor threatened the East India Company's trade over it. He was declared a pirate, sailed to New York to clear himself, and was arrested by Bellomont, who abandoned him. The French passes that supported his defence were withheld at his trial. He was hanged at Execution Dock in May 1701, the rope breaking once, and his tarred body displayed for years.
- Lived: 1654 CE – 1701 CE
- Nationality: Scottish
- Roles: privateer, pirate
