Captain Kidd Ship Found

Fibonacci · Post by **Fibonacci** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 9:28 pm

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/captain-ki ... 0000000001

RedGlitter · Post by **RedGlitter** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 9:50 pm

Wow! Would I love to see that! A relic from the 1600s...too cool.

Historians differ on whether Kidd was actually a pirate or a privateer â€” someone who captured pirates. After his conviction of piracy and murder charges in a sensational London trial, he was left to hang over the River Thames for two years.

Did I read that right? They just hung the guy over the river and let him dangle for two years?

Post by **spot** » Thu Dec 13, 2007 11:15 pm

A commonplace punishment, the body was displayed in a gibbet. Most towns had one at a prominent crossroads. Ours in Bristol was on the Downs just along from where the Zoo was laid out in 1860 or so. Around the same time the gibbet was finally dismantled and replaced with a water trough and public drinking fountain and we stopped public hangings over the prison gatehouse by the river. Even back then we never gibbeted any eleven year old children, strangely enough.

Post by **spot** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 3:23 am

Here's a couple of passages from The Pirate Hunter: The True Story of Captain Kidd by Richard Zacks, which describe the ship and the journey he made in it:His ride home was this ransacked 400-ton Moorish ship, so exotic with its Muslim carved curlicues and design, an attention-grabber in the Atlantic. Many, perhaps most men, would have taken the Â£10,000 in gold, which he had risked his life to save, and hitched a quiet return on another vessel and excused himself with the tale of mutiny. Who would dare to sail a third of the way around the world in that? But Kidd knew those remaining 300-plus bales of East India goods were worth 10 times more on the other side of the Cape of Good Hope. (Here on St. Mary's, a hard-ass "fence" like Edward Welch paid a pittance per bale -- a few quarts of rum -- since no one else was offering anything.) If Kidd could deliver the goods to London or New York, they might easily go for Â£75 a bale, generating at least another Â£15,000, plus the value of the ship, and the other trinkets, and the sugar and the iron and the cannon. Maybe he could round up Â£35,000 for the investors. Then they would at least quadruple their money. Not too shabby. And there was no longer a big crew to split shares with; they had mutinied.

[...] Kidd knew he had made enemies and he was sailing in an exotic ship that appeared stolen. Though his documents would back him up, he couldn't take chances: He had to avoid the main shipping lanes and couldn't even consider a stop in the Cape of Good Hope or St. Helena. However, it would be insane to try to sail from Tulear to New York City, so he planned the following route: 2,500 miles at sea to Annobon, an obscure island off central Africa, and then 4,000 miles along the easy trade winds to the Caribbean, and then follow the current (not yet called Gulf Stream) up the American coast to New York. Kidd now had 22 men, five boys, and a handful of young slaves to sail the 400-ton, three-masted Moorish vessel. If attacked, he could man maybe two or three of the 30-plus cannon on board. From a distance, however, the Quedagh Merchant looked like a formidable, if somewhat exotic, ship of war.

[...] Every colonial governor, it turned out -- even Governor George Leonard on tiny Anguilla -- had orders to seize Kidd "to the end that he and his accomplices may be prosecuted for the notorious piracies they have committed in the East Indies." Kidd was flabbergasted, since the captain didn't think he had committed any crime, and his crew took it even worse. Kidd later wrote: "The news of ... being proclaimed pirates ... put the (crew) into such consternation that they (afterward) sought all opportunities to run the ship upon some reef or shoal lest I should carry her into some English port."

No ship in the harbour was strong enough to take him so he was safe for the moment. Taking no chances, Kidd immediately ordered the tired men to weigh anchor. In four hours, Kidd was adrift again. Capt. William Kidd, of Dundee and New York, was now the most wanted criminal in America.

RedGlitter · Post by **RedGlitter** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 5:27 am

spot;739749 wrote: A commonplace punishment, the body was displayed in a gibbet. Most towns had one at a prominent crossroads. Ours in Bristol was on the Downs just along from where the Zoo was laid out in 1860 or so. Around the same time the gibbet was finally dismantled and replaced with a water trough and public drinking fountain and we stopped public hangings over the prison gatehouse by the river. Even back then we never gibbeted any eleven year old children, strangely enough.

Maybe not gibbeted any kids but surely victorian England's treatment of them is known to have been shoddy. The history of your juvenile chimney sweeps alone, kids with soot induced sores and lung disease is mortifying.

Snooze · Post by **Snooze** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 6:02 am

Isn't it interesting the way a thread morphs and evolves?

Post by **spot** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 2:33 pm

RedGlitter;739814 wrote: Maybe not gibbeted any kids but surely victorian England's treatment of them is known to have been shoddy. The history of your juvenile chimney sweeps alone, kids with soot induced sores and lung disease is mortifying.

I can quite see that Victorian England's treatment of the poor was reprehensible. In what way did Victorian England's treatment of children extend that? Juvenile chimney sweeps were invariably poor. The children of rich Victorian families were never chimney sweeps. Had Victorian England's treatment of children been generally shoddy the rich kids would have been mortified along with the poor and I don't think they were. Injustice in parallel with poverty is what stands out back then. Some countries have improved matters since, some to greater extents than others.

Snooze · Post by **Snooze** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 2:42 pm

Poor people should all be gibbeted, then we wouldn't have this problem.

Snooze · Post by **Snooze** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 2:44 pm

Better yet, feed the homeless to the hungry.

Post by **spot** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 2:46 pm

Snooze;740218 wrote: Poor people should all be gibbeted, then we wouldn't have this problem.If we ever reach such a utopian state as to only have a thousand poor people left in England I'd see to their gibbeting myself but the country never had, even at the height of gibbeting, more suspended body cages than that deployed. If you gibbeted all the poor people today we'd scarcely have room to manoeuvre our cars around the back streets.

Post by **spot** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 2:47 pm

jimbo;740222 wrote: were there any survivors???

What makes you think there were any dead?

RedGlitter · Post by **RedGlitter** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 2:48 pm

I admit it. I have totally lost this conversation. It started with the chimney sweep kids. Anyone want to fill me in on what Spot said?

Post by **spot** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 2:50 pm

Moderator! Off topic thread drift! Feck!

Snooze · Post by **Snooze** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 2:55 pm

jimbo;740224 wrote: if your homeless and hungry do you have to eat yourself

:D

Only if they're flexible.

Snooze · Post by **Snooze** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 2:55 pm

RedGlitter;740226 wrote: I admit it. I have totally lost this conversation. It started with the chimney sweep kids. Anyone want to fill me in on what Spot said?

I know! Some people, huh? I never go off topic.

Nomad · Post by **Nomad** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 8:55 am

YO HO HO AND A BOTTLE OF RUM

I love it when pirates say that !