The Gunner

On 30 October 1697, on the deck of the Adventure Galley, Kidd quarrelled with his gunner William Moore. The trigger was Kidd's refusal to let the crew take an English ship, the Loyal Captain, which he had examined and released. Kidd struck Moore on the head with a wooden bucket bound with iron. Moore died the next day.

That is the whole event, and it produced half the case against Kidd. When he finally stood trial, the murder of William Moore was charged separately from the piracy and tried first, on the testimony of crewmen who had watched the blow land.

Keep the two cases apart, because the trial did and this Collection does. The piracy charges turned on commissions and captured papers, on arguments a document could win or lose. The murder charge turned on what men saw. No French pass touches it. Whatever the passes prove about the Quedagh Merchant, they prove nothing about the bucket.

The date, the object and the blow are all fixed by the murder indictment and the sworn testimony in the printed 1701 trial record. The jury returned Guilty.