New York and other ports on America’s eastern seaboard had waxed fat on the proceeds of piracy, and Bellomont was given express instructions to stamp out the piracy that infested the coast.Įarly in 1695, Kidd took a cargo in the Antigua to London, where he met Livingston – who introduced him to Bellomont. The political backdrop to what followed was that in 1695 the colonial administrator Richard Coote, 1st Earl of Bellomont, was appointed Governor of New York and Massachusetts, replacing the corrupt Benjamin Fletcher, who was in league with the pirates who frequented New England to dispose of their plunder. During those war years, he had impressed a certain Colonel Robert Livingston, a prominent New York merchant and government official, with his daring seamanship. He was also an experienced privateer, having operated with distinction against French vessels in the West Indies. Born in Dundee, he was by the 1690s a respectable and prosperous citizen of New York, and the captain of his own ship, Antigua. Image: Peter Newark’s Military Pictures Infested coastsĬaptain Kidd was 50 years old when he stepped into the situation that would transform the rest of his life. Portrait of William Kidd, the Scottish-born sea captain and privateer who became one of history’s best known pirates.
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