00:00Just like Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean saga,
00:06Captain Kidd was a famous pirate who sailed in search of treasure.
00:10However, he was much less charming and much more formidable.
00:14According to legend, he kept his loot so jealously that his specter still haunts him today.
00:24William Kidd, better known as Captain Kidd, was born around 1650.
00:29He claimed to be from Dundee, Scotland, although many people today think it was just a lie.
00:35In his youth, Kidd settled in New York, where he made friends with influential figures,
00:41including three governors.
00:43Some stories tell that he began his maritime adventures as a moose on a pirate ship
00:48before becoming himself a renowned sailor.
00:51In 1689, Kidd was already part of a pirate crew.
00:56While he was sailing in the Caribbean, he and a few other sailors mutinied.
01:01They took control of the ship, renamed Blessed William for the occasion,
01:05and made Kidd their captain.
01:08Kidd gained experience and even ended up offering his services to the British crown,
01:13then in conflict with France.
01:15The governor refusing to pay his crew, he joined the fleet that attacked and plundered the French island of Marie Galante,
01:22amassing a huge sum of money.
01:25In 1691, Captain Kidd ended up marrying Sarah Bradley, one of New York's richest women,
01:32widow of two previous marriages and herself heir to an immense fortune.
01:40A few years later, the governor of New York, Massachusetts and New Hampshire
01:45asked Captain Kidd to chase away the pirates lurking in the region.
01:50It was not just a simple request, but a mission of the greatest importance emanating from the king himself.
01:56Refusing would have been perceived as a sign of disloyalty and would have definitely tainted his reputation.
02:03This is how the journey that was to bring Captain Kidd into the legend began.
02:09This expedition was funded by influential lords, among the most powerful in England at the time.
02:16The king himself had signed a letter of marque that authorized Kidd to sail as a corsair,
02:22namely a pirate acting on behalf of his country.
02:26This letter also stipulated that 10% of the booty recovered would go back to the crown.
02:31To finance his trip, Kidd had no choice but to sell one of his ships, the Antigua,
02:37and to acquire a new one, the Adventure Galley, ideal for hunting pirates.
02:42This ship was equipped with 34 guns, oars and a crew of 150 men.
02:47These oars, very practical, allowed the ship to move even in the absence of wind.
02:53Kidd meticulously chose his crew, selecting only the most competent and loyal officers.
03:03As he sailed aboard the Adventure Galley, a strange incident occurred.
03:07Kidd was supposed to salute a ship of the Navy, but he did not give up.
03:12In response, the building shot a shot of semolina to remind him of his place in the hierarchy.
03:18Instead of executing himself, Kidd and his crew reacted by turning around
03:22and showing their naked back as a sign of contempt.
03:25Furious, the British captain then requisitioned several members of Kidd's crew on board,
03:31although the corsair crews had generally been exempted from this corvée.
03:35In Cour-D'Homme, Kidd sailed to New York, where he seized a French ship.
03:40To replace his lost crew, he hired many criminals, some of whom were probably former pirates.
03:47Then, in September 1696, Captain Kidd sailed to Cape Bonne-Espérance, south of Africa.
03:54His journey was full of ambushes from the start.
03:57Cholera struck, weakening and killing many sailors.
04:02In addition, their brand new ship began to leak.
04:07Kidd, supposed to catch pirates in the Indian Ocean, never managed to find them.
04:15Desperate to make money to cover his expenses, Kidd saw his plan collapse.
04:20The worst happened a few months later, when he smashed the skull of one of his own companions
04:25to have wanted to board a Dutch ship, which would have been considered an act of piracy.
04:30The man died shortly after.
04:32Kidd's situation only worsened until a Royal Navy officer denounced these acts of piracy.
04:38He then changed the bow of his ship so that it looked more like the French one
04:43and seized a large Indian ship, the Quedagh Merchant, loaded with silk, gold and silver.
04:49The captain then decided to keep this ship and sailed to Madagascar.
04:54There, his path had to cross that of Robert Culliford, who had robbed him of the Antigua a few years earlier.
05:01There are two versions of this story.
05:03One claims that Kidd would have been kind to him,
05:06the other claims that out of fear, he preferred to wait for reinforcements before trying anything.
05:11Either way, most of Kidd's crew then deserted him to join Culliford.
05:17Faced with these difficulties, Kidd preferred to give up and go home.
05:21He left behind him the Adventure Galley, which was full of water.
05:26And after having recovered all the valuables and set it on fire, he boarded the Adventure Prize.
05:32The British authorities had promulgated a law granting amnesty to pirates of the Indian Ocean,
05:37but they made sure that Kidd could not benefit from it,
05:40in retaliation for the powerful political allies he had made in England.
05:44Upon arrival in Anguilla, Kidd learned that he was wanted and that he would not enjoy any royal pardon.
05:50The governments had succeeded,
05:52and the new magistrates in place intended to use him to discredit their rivals.
05:57They hoped that Kidd would reveal compromising information about his allies,
06:00but Kidd refused to give the slightest name, hoping until the end that his friends would come to his rescue.
06:05This did not prevent them from dropping him.
06:07Some think that he could have escaped his punishment if he had settled down, but it was hard to know.
06:12Kidd was therefore sent to London to be tried in front of the High Court of the Emirate,
06:17accused of piracy in the high seas and of the murder of one of his sailors.
06:20He was finally imprisoned in the sadly famous prison of Newgate, awaiting his trial.
06:26He was found guilty of all charges and sentenced to be executed publicly,
06:31although many found the evidence insufficient for such a verdict.
06:36Captain Kidd was executed on May 23, 1701.
06:40His body remained exposed above the sieve for three years,
06:44as a warning to anyone who would be tempted by piracy.
06:48The same fate awaited some members of Kidd's crew, but they managed to negotiate their release.
06:54The loot that Captain Kidd had accumulated over the years led people to believe that he had hidden it somewhere.
07:01This led to numerous treasure hunts in various parts of the world.
07:05Some say that Kidd could have hidden his treasure along the Rauway River in New Jersey,
07:11just opposite Staten Island.
07:13Other evidence suggests that he would have hidden a small part of his loot on Gardiner Island, near New York.
07:18The latter would have been discovered and shipped to England to serve as evidence against Kidd during his trial.
07:25Around Fundy Bay, people have been looking for Kidd's treasure since 1875 at least,
07:31because they think he would have hidden it there from the time he was corsair.
07:35A point on the island is even nicknamed Money Cove because of this legend.
07:41Given Kidd's tragic and unfair fate, it is not surprising that people thought they saw his ghost.
07:49Some reported seeing him at Trinity Church Cemetery, as if he was looking for his own grave.
07:56There is also the story of these two men who, in 1825, tried to dig up Kidd's jewels.
08:04They did find a chest, but before they could open it, Kidd's ghost would have appeared just above them.
08:13This terrifying vision made the two men faint.
08:17They both claimed to have seen a terrifying figure emerge from the grave,
08:22exhaling sulfur vapors and seeming to slide on the ground.
08:26Fortunately, no tangible evidence confirms these terrifying stories.
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