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Kidd and Culliford at Madagascar (1698)

Captain William Kidd lay in the harbour of Ile Sainte-Marie off Madagascar from about 1 April to November 1698, in company for the earlier part of that stay with the pirate Robert Culliford in the Mocha frigate, which sailed about 15 June; he lost the bulk of his crew to Culliford, saw the Adventure Galley end there, and sailed months later in the prize he called the Adventure Prize with a skeleton company; whatever passed between the two captains became the Crown's proof of piratical intention at the Old Bailey in May 1701.

Also writtenThe desertion at St Mary's, 1698; Kidd at Ile Sainte-Marie, April to November 1698; The meeting of Captain Kidd and Robert Culliford

The harbour of Ile Sainte-Marie, off the east coast of Madagascar, is where William Kidd's expedition stopped being an expedition. He came in "about the First of April 1698", by his own narrative, with the Adventure Galley, so far gone that "it required Eight men every Two Glasses to keep her free", the prize he called the Adventure Prize, otherwise the Quedagh Merchant, taken off the Malabar coast, and a lesser prize that was sunk about 6 May. Dr Newton, for the Crown, later dated the arrival to early May. Kidd carried a commission to take pirates, and a notorious one was at anchor in front of him.1

The ship in the roads

The pirate was Robert Culliford, once an East India Company seaman. Kidd's narrative names her the Moca frigate and him "Robert Culliford, Commander thereof". The surgeon Robert Bradinham described "a ship called the Resolution, which was formerly called the Mocha Frigate", and Dr Newton agreed; Graham Brooks, editing the trial in 1930, reversed it. Captain Charles Johnson's General History of 1728 offers a third form, "the Resolution, formerly the Mocco Merchant". On Kidd's account Culliford's men ran into the woods when the galley came in, and were fetched back by Kidd's own crew.2

Two accounts of the same quarrel

Kidd said the same thing in June 1699, July 1699 and at the bar in May 1701: he proposed to his company that they take the Mocha frigate, "having sufficient Power and Authority so to do", and they refused, saying "they would rather fire two guns into him than one into the other". Two of the Boston depositions tell it his way. The earliest telling does not. Duncan Campbell, reporting Kidd's own words on 19 June 1699, reversed the initiative: "Several of his company moved Kidd to take the Moco frigate", he would attempt it if they joined him, supposing her lawful prize, but would not go on with them to the Red Sea, whereupon ninety men deserted, took the ship, and obliged Culliford "to go along with them".3

The Crown's two witnesses swore the opposite. Bradinham said Kidd "went aboard with them, and swore to be true to them ... and he assisted this Captain Culliford with guns, and an anchor, to fit him to sea again". Joseph Palmer put the guns at four and had Kidd swear over a tub of bumbo on the frigate's quarter-deck: "Before I would do you any harm I would have my soul fry in hell-fire." The words are not stable across the tellings, and the Lord Chief Baron summed the oath up from the bench as "or to that effect". Kidd denied all of it. Asked "Did you not go aboard Culliford?" he answered "I was not aboard Culliford", and was told "These things press very hard upon you". His narrative records no meeting at all. Mr Justice Turton conceded the disagreement from the bench: one witness said two guns, the other four.4

The count that will not settle

Five figures were given, and no two of the strongest agree. Kidd to the Earl of Bellomont: "Ninety-five men went away from me in one day". Kidd's narrative: "Ninety-seven men deserted". Campbell, and the cook Abel Owen with the steward Samuel Arris at Boston: ninety. William Jenkins, Richard Barlicorn and Robert Lamley, who put the galley's company at about 115, said "Ninety and upwards". Bradinham, cross-examined, said "about 60 or 70". Johnson gives only "the greatest Part of the Company".5

Their reason is nowhere stated. The articles are the likeliest answer: they had shipped on New York terms of no purchase no pay, and Culliford had a working ship and an immediate share.

The galley and the five months

The frigate sailed about 15 June 1698, "being manned about 130 Men, and Forty guns, bound out to take all Nations". For four or five days beforehand the deserters had stripped both his ships of guns, powder, sails, anchors and cables, and had broken open his chest at the house of the trader Edward Welch, four miles off. What was left him is given three ways: thirteen men in his narrative, about twenty plus Madagascar hands in Campbell's report, not above forty in Johnson. He was "forced to stay Five months for a fair Wind", and sailed at last in the Adventure Prize.6

The Adventure Galley never left, and the record cannot agree how she ended. Kidd's narrative and the calendared text have her sink in the harbour once the pumping party deserted. Hugh Parrott deposed that "They stript the Galley at Madagascar, and burnt her to save her Iron-work"; Jenkins, Barlicorn and Lamley had her run ashore, stripped and fired for the same reason. Campbell has her burnt at sea before she reached the island. Bradinham gave neither: "when she came to shore they left her, because she was not fit to go to sea again".7

The pardon, and who got it

A proclamation of 8 December 1698 offered the King's pardon to pirates east of the Cape who surrendered to Captain Thomas Warren and three named commissioners, "or any Three of them". It excepted two men by name, "Henry Every alias Bridgman, and William Kidd", the broadside transcript giving Bridgeman and Kid. Nicholas Churchill, James Howe and Darby Mullins had surrendered to Colonel Jeremiah Bass, and the Lord Chief Baron refused the plea on the face of the instrument: "there is no such man mentioned in this proclamation". Culliford, arraigned at the same sessions on four indictments, pleaded guilty and argued the proclamation, and judgment against him "was respited". The officer sent to take him hanged on 23 May 1701.8

Nothing in the harbour was ever charged; it served at the Old Bailey sessions as proof of intention on the counts that were. The Lord Chief Baron told the jury that Kidd, "commissioned to take pirates, instead of taking him, grows to such an intimacy with him"; Mr Coniers put it shortest: "I believe you kept company more with Captain Culliford than with Captain Warren."

Captain Charles Johnson's General History of 1728 circulated the Crown's version with the doubt taken out, having Kidd swear that "he was now in every Respect their Brother, and just as bad as they" and make Culliford "a Present of an Anchor and some Guns". That first phrase is Johnson's own supply, nowhere in the trial record. In May 2015 Barry Clifford announced the Adventure Galley found off Ile Sainte-Marie; a UNESCO mission under Michel L'Hour reported no wreck, stones probably from a jetty, and an ingot about ninety-five per cent lead.

What the sources cannot yet give is Culliford's own account: he was in custody in London, arraigned, pleaded and respited, and no statement by him about Ile Sainte-Marie appears in the trial text. Nor is there any inventory or receipt to settle whether Kidd gave him two guns, four guns, an anchor and ammunition or nothing whatever, and no muster book to fix how many men walked away. Which of the frigate's names came first, and which way the renaming ran, is unsettled between the texts that give them.

What the evidence does not settle

Aid given to Culliford

  • Type and amount of aid to Culliford is not settled

Number of deserters to Culliford

  • Number of deserters to Culliford differs across four accountsConfirmed

Kidd and Culliford's prior acquaintance

  • Whether Kidd and Culliford knew one another before their meeting at Madagascar in 1698Unverified

Each line is one question with its own grade, taken from the register where a claim carries it. Nothing here is graded as a whole.

Sources for this record

Every statement above that rests on a checked claim carries a small number; the numbers lead here. Each entry gives what is claimed, how far the record supports it, and where it comes from.

  1. Captain William Kidd brought the Adventure Galley and the prize he called the Adventure Prize, otherwise the Quedagh Merchant, into the harbour of Ile Sainte-Marie off Madagascar, by his own narrative "about the First of April 1698", the galley so leaky that "it required Eight men every Two Glasses to keep her free" and woolded round with cables to hold her together, the same narrative recording a lesser prize sunk at the island "about the 6th Day of May"; Dr Newton, opening for the Crown in 1701, instead dated the arrival to the beginning of May 1698, and the variance is carried. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Period narrative and trial pamphlet: Narrative of the voyage of Captain William Kidd, written in his own hand and delivered at Boston, July 1699, calendared as CSP Colonial vol. 17 item 680.XXV; with the opening of Dr Newton in The Arraignment, Tryal and Condemnation of Captain William Kidd (London, 1701); both consulted through Graham Brooks (ed.), The Trial of Captain Kidd, Notable British Trials (1930)
  2. The pirate lying in the harbour was Robert Culliford, a former East India Company seaman, and his ship is named four ways in the record: the Moca frigate in Kidd's narrative, "a ship called the Resolution, which was formerly called the Mocha Frigate" by the surgeon Robert Bradinham and by Dr Newton, the reverse by the 1930 editor Graham Brooks, and "the Resolution, formerly the Mocco Merchant" in Captain Charles Johnson's General History of 1728; by Kidd's account Culliford and his men ran into the woods on his arrival and were fetched back by Kidd's own crew. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Period narrative and trial pamphlet: Kidd's Narrative, July 1699 (CSP Colonial vol. 17, 680.XXV); The Arraignment, Tryal and Condemnation of Captain William Kidd (London, 1701), the evidence of Bradinham and the opening of Dr Newton, with Brooks's editorial footnote, in Brooks (ed.), The Trial of Captain Kidd (1930); Captain Charles Johnson, The History of the Pyrates, vol. II (London, 1728)
  3. Kidd said consistently in June 1699, in July 1699 and at the bar in May 1701 that he proposed to his company that they take Culliford's ship, "having sufficient Power and Authority so to do", and that they refused, saying "they would rather fire two guns into him than one into the other", a version supported by the Boston depositions of Abel Owen and Samuel Arris and by the examination of Gabriel Loff; the earliest account, Duncan Campbell's report of 19 June 1699, reverses the initiative, having the crew move Kidd to take the Moco frigate and then desert, take her, and oblige Culliford "to go along with them" to the Red Sea. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Period narrative and state paper: Kidd to the Earl of Bellomont, 24 June 1699 (CSP Colonial vol. 17, 680.VI); Kidd's Narrative, July 1699 (680.XXV); Duncan Campbell to Bellomont, 19 June 1699 (680.IV); the Boston examinations of Abel Owen, Samuel Arris and Gabriel Loff, July 1699; with Kidd's statements at the Admiralty Sessions of 8 and 9 May 1701 in Brooks (ed.), The Trial of Captain Kidd (1930)
  4. The Crown's two witnesses swore the opposite: Robert Bradinham that Kidd "went aboard with them, and swore to be true to them ... and he assisted this Captain Culliford with guns, and an anchor, to fit him to sea again", and Joseph Palmer that Kidd presented Culliford with four guns and swore over a tub of bumbo on the frigate's quarter-deck, "Before I would do you any harm I would have my soul fry in hell-fire", a form of words that is not stable in the record, Palmer giving "Before I would do you any damage I had rather my soul should broil in hell-fire" at the fourth trial and the Lord Chief Baron summing it up as "or to that effect"; Kidd denied all of it, answering the Lord Chief Baron "I was not aboard Culliford", and Mr Justice Turton conceded the discrepancy in charging the jury, one witness giving two guns and the other four. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet: The Arraignment, Tryal and Condemnation of Captain William Kidd (London, 1701), the evidence of Bradinham and Palmer, Kidd's cross-examinations and denials, and the charges of the Lord Chief Baron and Mr Justice Turton; consulted through Brooks (ed.), The Trial of Captain Kidd (1930)
  5. The number of men who deserted Kidd for Culliford is given in the record as ninety-five in Kidd's letter to Bellomont and again at the bar, ninety-seven in Kidd's narrative, ninety in Campbell's report and in the Boston deposition of Abel Owen and Samuel Arris, "Ninety and upwards" out of a company of about 115 in the joint deposition of William Jenkins, Richard Barlicorn and Robert Lamley, and "about 60 or 70" by Bradinham under cross-examination, while Johnson's General History says only that "the greatest Part of the Company left him"; no muster or pay book for the Adventure Galley is cited in the sources consulted here. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Period narrative, state paper and trial pamphlet: Kidd to Bellomont, 24 June 1699 (CSP Colonial vol. 17, 680.VI); Kidd's Narrative, July 1699 (680.XXV); Campbell to Bellomont, 19 June 1699 (680.IV); the Boston depositions of Owen and Arris, of Hugh Parrott, and of Jenkins, Barlicorn and Lamley, July 1699; Bradinham's evidence in The Arraignment, Tryal and Condemnation of Captain William Kidd (1701); Johnson, The History of the Pyrates, vol. II (1728); the trial and depositions consulted through Brooks (ed.), The Trial of Captain Kidd (1930)
  6. Kidd's narrative records that the Mocha frigate sailed about 15 June 1698 "being manned about 130 Men, and Forty guns, bound out to take all Nations", that for four or five days beforehand the deserters carried away guns, powder, sails, anchors and cables from both his ships and broke open his chest at the house of the trader Edward Welch four miles off, and that he was left with thirteen men, was "forced to stay Five months for a fair Wind" and then sailed in the Adventure Prize; Campbell's report instead gives about twenty men left plus hands procured at Madagascar, and Johnson's General History not above forty. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Period narrative and state paper: Kidd's Narrative, July 1699 (CSP Colonial vol. 17, 680.XXV); Campbell to Bellomont, 19 June 1699 (680.IV); Johnson, The History of the Pyrates, vol. II (1728); consulted through Brooks (ed.), The Trial of Captain Kidd (1930) and British History Online
  7. The end of the Adventure Galley at Ile Sainte-Marie is recorded four ways and is not resolved: sunk in the harbour once the pumping party deserted, in Kidd's narrative and in the calendared text; run ashore, stripped and burnt for her ironwork, in the Boston depositions of Hugh Parrott and of Jenkins, Barlicorn and Lamley; burnt at sea before she reached the island, in Campbell's report of Kidd's oral account; and simply left because "she was not fit to go to sea again", in Bradinham's evidence at the bar. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Period narrative, state paper and trial pamphlet: Kidd's Narrative, July 1699 (CSP Colonial vol. 17, 680.XXV) and the calendared text of item 680; the Boston depositions of Hugh Parrott and of William Jenkins, Richard Barlicorn and Robert Lamley, July 1699; Campbell to Bellomont, 19 June 1699 (680.IV); Bradinham's evidence in The Arraignment, Tryal and Condemnation of Captain William Kidd (1701); consulted through Brooks (ed.), The Trial of Captain Kidd (1930)
  8. The royal proclamation of 8 December 1698 offered pardon to pirates east of the Cape of Good Hope on surrender to Captain Thomas Warren and the commander in chief for the time being and to Israel Hayes, Peter Delanoye and Christopher Pollard, "or any Three of them", excepting two men by name, given as "Henry Every alias Bridgman, and William Kidd" in the wording read into the trial record and as Bridgeman and Kid in the transcript of the broadside; Nicholas Churchill, James Howe and Darby Mullins lost its benefit because they had surrendered to Colonel Jeremiah Bass, who was not named in it, while Culliford, arraigned at the same sessions on four indictments, pleaded guilty, argued the proclamation and had judgment respited, and Kidd was hanged on 23 May 1701. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. State paper and trial pamphlet: By the King, a Proclamation, given at the court at Kensington, 8 December 1698, printed by Charles Bill and the executrix of Thomas Newcomb, open web transcript sourced to The National Archives; collated against the text read into The Arraignment, Tryal and Condemnation of Captain William Kidd (London, 1701), with the argument on the pardon, the ruling of the Lord Chief Baron and the arraignment and respite of Culliford, consulted through Brooks (ed.), The Trial of Captain Kidd (1930)