His conviction may not be unjust but it is perhaps unfair and certainly unlucky. Kidd’s actions at sea clearly made the full use of the legal grey area that privateering occupied, an area that many men took advantage of, and most without feeling the full force of the Old Bailey tightening around their necks.
Dr Tom Wareham - Curator of Community and Maritime History at the Docklands Museum, London
Dr. Tom Wareham is the Curator of Community and Maritime History at the Docklands Museum, London. He is heading up a large Kidd exhibition, which opens in May 2011, where all the original documentation will be displayed.
Professor Andre Lambert
Andrew Lambert, BA (Law) MA, PhD is Laughton Professor of Naval History in the Department of War Studies at King's College, London. After completing his research in the Department he taught at Bristol Polytechnic,(now the University of West of England), the Royal Naval Staff College, Greenwich, and the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and also Director of the Laughton Naval History Unit housed in the Department.
Richard Zacks - Author
Richard Zacks was born in Savannah, Georgia but grew up in New York City. He was a Classical Greek major at the University of Michigan and studied Arabic in Cairo, Italian in Perugia, and French in the vineyards of France. After completing Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism, he wrote a syndicated column for four years carried by the NY Daily News, Boston Globe, Dallas Morning News and many others. In 2002, his book ‘Pirate Hunter: the true story of Captain Kidd’ was published, looking at the historical evidence surrounding Kidd’s life, stating that he was never a pirate, but a privateer.
Captain Kidd
William "Captain" Kidd was a Scottish sailor remembered for his trial and execution for piracy after returning from a voyage to the Indian Ocean.
William Moore
William Moore challenged Captain Kidd's leadership.
Captain Kidd was the only pirate known to ever actually bury treasure—on New York’s Gardiner’s Island.
During the first attempt to hang Captain Kidd, the rope broke and he fell. His executioners had to hang him a second time.
A few days before his public execution Kidd decided to write to Robert Harley, Speaker of the House of Commons, with the offer to provide exact details of his hidden bounty in exchange for his life. Unfortunately his offer was refused. Stories of Kidd’s hidden treasure become the subject of legend and myth spurring the imaginations of many modern day treasure hunters.
In 1983 am American combat photojournalist Cork Graham, and Richard Knight; a British comedy actor who decided to take his hand at treasure hunting made an illegal entry to Vietnamese waters in search of the of the lost treasure of Captain Kidd. The Vietnamese accused both the men of spying for the CIA and imprisoned the two treasure hunters for over a year.
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