Richard Zacks - The Pirate Hunter: The True Story of Captain Kidd

I spent two weeks on Ile Ste. Marie in Madagascar, exploring the site of the Kidd mutiny and the pirates cemetery. I hereby officially apologize to my travel companion, Eppie, for constantly rushing his lemur photography.

Early on, I made the inexcusable mistake of going to London during the one week of the year when the Public Record Office closes for cataloging; Paul Carter was insanely kind enough to ship me copies of dozens of documents, a supply that tided me over until I was able to return the following year. To Jeff Kaye and Alexandra Frean, thanks for the room and the toddler wake-up service in Tooting Bec.

Farther north on the same island, I want to thank Scottish historian David Dobson for his stellar job in unearthing Captain Kidds childhood in Dundee, and in pinning down the captains elusive birthdate, reported wrongly in Britannica and elsewhere. David, youre always welcome to come visit again in Pelham, NY, explaining Conventicle intricacies and delivering bottles of rare whiskey.

I probably owe my greatest debt to Bill Prochnau, that rare double threat, a novelist and nonfiction writer, who tried to rescue me from drowning in a sea of anecdotes. He gave me two weeks of his life, for which I am truly grateful. Yes, I promised to wash your car.

I also want to thank Bob Miller and Leigh Haber at Hyperion, and Esther Newberg at ICM. I met tattooed pirate-lover Pat Croce when he was buying Captain Tews chest at a Christies auction; those four 76er club box tickets helped put wind back in my topgallant sails.

In addition, I must thank two dead people: Dunbar Hinrichs, an insurance executive/amateur historian, who left a hand-typed bibliography at Cornell, a kind of treasure map leading to rare Kidd documents, and Harold T. Wilkins, who wrote a nutty book quoting more primary source documents than most researchers find in a lifetime.

Also, thanks to Hank Schlesinger, Patrick Montgomery, Jerilyn Tabor, Dr. Walter Straus, Betsy Lerner, Peter Guzzardi, Robert Ritchie (for his book), Catherine Clinton, Susan Squire, Craig Rhodes, Jim Traub, Brenda Newman, librarians everywhere, Georgia, Ziggy, and Kris.

Public Record Office (London)

COLONIAL OFFICE PAPERS:

Massachusetts Bay Council Minutes (CO5:787)

Massachusetts governors documents sent to the board of trade (CO5:860; CO5:861). Includes Palmers original deposition.

Government reports from the Leeward Islands (CO152:37). Kidds Caribbean days.

Plantations General (CO323:2). Contains Madagascar eye-witnesses and Capt. Willocks prisoner memoir aboard Culliford.

Admiralty Papers:

Captains Letters (ADM 1/2004) Kidds letters; ADM 1/2636 Thomas Warrens letters; (ADM 1/2638) Robert Wynns letters.

Admiralty reports (ADM 1/3666) many legal and expense documents, relating to Captain Kidd.

Admiralty board minutes (ADM 3/15, 3/16)

Ships Logs (ADM 51 series). Best: 4105 HMS Advice Iceberg log.

Greenwich Hospital (ADM 67/3)

High Court of Admiralty:

Pretrial Depositions (HCA 1/15, 1/16, 1/29, 1/53). A cache of detailed accounts by men under the noose.

Papers confiscated from the Margaret. (HCA 1/98). Includes Cullifords note to the widow (p171), and devious letters to lure Kidd (114, 123). Pirates note to dad (183).

Kidds sworn testimony, revealing his correct birth place and year (HCA 13/81, p 313). Found by David Dobson.

Lawsuits (HCA 24/127) #57 Kidds officers widows; #107 Cogi Baba; #110 prosecution witness Bradinham.

Cogi Babas claim (SP 42/117)

The British Library (London)

ORIENTAL AND INDIA OFFICE COLLECTIONS:

Reports from East India Company factors are in IOR E/3/52, E/3/53, E/3/54. Best: 6439 Kidds note; 6444 Monks describe Kidd encounter.

East India ships logs: L/MAR/A/CVCVIII, CXXXII

Letters from Bombay G/36/113

Letters to Bombay G/36/96, G/36/97 Surat reports on pirates and consequences.

Manuscript Division:

Duke of Portland MSS/Harley Papers (Add Misc 70036) Vol. 36, pp 35135. Key set.

U.S. Library of Congress (Washington, D.C.)

Immense collection of America-related documents photocopied from London originals. However, scattershot for Kidd. Consult: Griffin, Grace A Guide to Manuscripts relating to American History in British Depositories Reproduced for the Div. of MSS (Library of Congress, 1946).

Morgan Library (New York, NY)

Livingston Papers including: Journal of Robert Livingston during his Voyage to England, 1694-1695 tr. A. J. van Laer and several Kidd-related letters.

Yale University (New Haven, CT)

Dunbar Hinrichs donated microfilm of many key Kidd documents found in the PRO as well as photocopies of Max Lekuss translations from Royal Danish Archive material.

New York Historical Society (New York, NY)

De Peyster and Graham letters about Kidd.

NY State Archives (Albany, NY)

The fire of 1911 gutted the collection of Kidd era documents. However, some Kidd real estate records remain. (Deeds A0453. Books 9, 10, 14; British Historical Mss A1894)

Massachusetts State Archives (Boston, MA)

Two versions of Council Minutes are here; and yet another (CO5:787) is in London. The rough notes differ in interesting ways. Sarah Kidds requests, with her awkward S.K. (Vol. 61, p 316317).

Massachusetts Historical Society (Boston, MA)

Winthrop papers

Cotton Mather diary

John Marshall working class diary

Private Collection: Pat Croce, Co-owner of Philadelphia 76ERS

Journal of Lt. Thomas Langrish, of HMS Advice, Kidds prison transport.

Some key Kidd documents have been transcribed and published in:

Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period: Illustrative Documents, J. Franklin Jameson, editor (New York, 1923)

Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies Vols. 1321 (London, 1910) Some paraphrasing.

Journals of the House of Commons Vol. 13, (London, 1547)

Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York (Albany, 1856)

Anon. A New Guide to London, or Directions to Strangers (London, 1726).

Anon. Memoirs of the Life of John, Lord Somers (1716). Kidd deal from lord perspective.

Anon. Piracy Destroyd (London, 1701). Conditions in Royal Navy.

Barlow, Edward. Barlows Journal 1659 to 1703 , ed. Basil Lubbock (London, 1934). Illustrated account of long life aboard ship; tangled with Kidd near the Red Sea.

Calef, Robert. More Wonders of the Invisible World (London, 1700).

Cocks, Sir Richard. The Parliamentary Diary of 16981702 (Oxford, 1996).

Cruger, John. Account of a Voyage to Madagascar, 1700, printed in Valentines Manuals (NY, 1853).

Dampier, William. A New Voyage Around the World (London, 1697).

Dankers, Jaspar, and Peter Sluyters. Journal of a Voyage to New York, 16791680 (Brooklyn, 1867).

Defoe, Daniel. A Tour thro the whole island of Great Britain (London, 1724, reprint).

Dellon, Dr. Charles. A Voyage to the East Indies (London, 1698), tr. from French. Rare account.

Evelyn, John. Diary of (Oxford, 1955).

Fryer, John. A New Account of East India and Persia, Being Nine Years Travel, 16721681 (London, 1698).

Gay, John. The Beggars Opera (London, 1728).

Grandidier, Alfred, ed.