various interviews with Bellomont. The sloop and her contents, as well as the other three sloops' goods were arrested, and Kidd was afterwards taken across to England. He and six others were tried at a sessions of Admirality at the Old Bailey in May 1701 for piracy and robbery on the high seas, and found guilty. Kidd was further charged with the murder of the man Moore in the bucket incident, and also found guilty.
Kidd's defence was that the man mutinied against him, that his accusers had committed perjury and that he was "the most innocent person of them all." But the Court thought otherwise, and a week or so later he and the other six men were executed at the Execution Dock, and afterwards their bodies were hung up in chains, at intervals along the river, where they remained for a long time.
Of the treasure which was brought by Kidd to America, and has frequently been sought for by treasure-hunters unavailingly, the exact total of gold dust, gold coins, gold bars; silver rings, silver buttons, broken silver, silver bars; precious stones—diamonds, rubies, green stones, and so on—reached the following enormous amount—
Gold 1111 oz.
Silver 2353 "
Jewels 17 "
A certain amount of plate and money was successfully retained by Kidd's wife, and of what was left of the booty after payment of the legal fees involved in his trial, the sum of £6472 was, by special Act of Parliament, handed over to Greenwich Hospital.[1]
- ↑ I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness for some of the facts here mentioned to an interesting article by Mr. Winfield M. Thompson in the Rudder for the year 1909.
