![]() We’ll probably never know.īarry Clifford is essentially leading a salvage operation. The problem (as with many pirates) is the patchy and sometimes contradictory accounts of Kidd’s life resulting in legends that have led to countless treasure hunts mainly along the coast of Nova Scotia, Connecticut and New York State (but generally not 8500 miles away in Madagascar).ĭoubts remain over both the identity of the wreck and whether anything on board can be linked to Kidd but in theory it’s not impossible that he did intentionally sink treasure in the Adventure Prize in the hope of coming back to it. ![]() The story of Captain Kidd captivated the imagination of Robert Louis Stevenson who wrote Treasure Island 182 years later, the book became the foundation for many of the myths of piracy – the widespread burial of treasure being one of them.Īnd so to return to the apparent discovery off Madagascar of the Adventure Prize, the phrase ‘Captain Kidd’s treasure’ in any real sense, or in a sense that should be applied to the man, should be that which he buried on Long Island rather to any that he may have accidentally left on the Adventure Prize when she was scuttled.įurther, the treasure that he did bury, it is generally accepted, was dug up and sent back to London on the same ship as Kidd himself. He is the only pirate that is known to have buried treasure. The body of William Kidd was put on display in a gibbet at Tilbury Point on the River Thames.īy the standards of the day William Kidd was not in any sense a prolific pirate and he never believed himself to be one in the strict sense but his notoriety comes from his actions on Long Island. ![]() Kidd was found guilty of murder and piracy and hanged in 1701. In Boston Lord Bellomont, who had previously offered Kidd clemency, was concerned about the political fallout of being linked to piracy and decided to have Kidd clapped in irons and sent to London for trial. Intriguingly, before he arrived, Kidd buried some of his profits from his Indian Ocean campaign on Long Island in the hope that he could use it as a bargaining chip should he be put on trial. He decided to sail to Boston to contact his financier Bellomont, who was now the governor of New York and Massachusetts. On arrival he learnt that he had now been branded a pirate and was actively being hunted. He subsequently became a privateer (a legal mercenary) in the Caribbean and later was persuaded by Lord Bellomont to take up a legally-dubious mission to rid the Indian Ocean of pirates.Īfter his stint in the Indian Ocean Kidd decided to abandon his ship the Adventure Prize in shallow water near Madagascar, the general consensus being that he stripped everything of value from it before sailing for the Caribbean in another commandeered vessel. William Kidd, born in Scotland in 1645, spent the 1680s as a wealthy and well respected captain operating a small trading fleet out of New York. It has certainly captured the imagination of the media but the story of what we know of Captain Kidd and his treasure is far more interesting than the allure of what doubloons or rubies may be waiting on the seabed. Barry Clifford walks ashore with what he believes is part of Captain Kidd’s treasure.
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