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The Kidd Privateering Venture Formed (1695)

The private syndicate constituted by the Articles of Agreement of 10 October 1695 between the Earl of Bellomont of the one part and Robert Livingston and William Kidd of the other, which fitted out the Adventure Galley, procured a letter of marque and a pirate-hunting commission, and sent Kidd to sea in the spring of 1696.

Also writtenThe Articles of Agreement of 10 October 1695; The Kidd syndicate; The Bellomont and Livingston venture

One indenture put William Kidd to sea: the Articles of Agreement of 10 October 1695, made between Richard Coote, Earl of Bellomont, of the one part, and Robert Livingston and Kidd of the other. The commissions, the King's grant of pirates' goods, the nominees named in that grant and the ministerial money hang off it. It survives in full in the appendix to Cornelius Neale Dalton's The Real Captain Kidd of 1911.1

How the bargain was made

By one account Livingston brought the proposal: he had spoken with "one Captain William Kidd", who knew the principal rovers and their rendezvous and would seize most of them if given "one of the King's ships, a good sailer of about thirty guns" and 150 men. The Admiralty declined, and Livingston's substitute was private capital.

The shares and the deadline

Bellomont undertook four-fifths of the cost of buying, rigging, furnishing and victualling the ship, Livingston and Kidd the remaining fifth. The opening payments are fixed: 1,600 pounds from Bellomont, 400 pounds from Livingston and Kidd, both due on or before 6 November 1695. No total is named in the deed.2

Clause 10 divides the take: the crew's part comes off first and may not exceed a fourth. Kidd was to contract with his men on "No Purchase, No Pay; and not otherwise". What remained was split into five, four parts to Bellomont, the fifth shared equally by Livingston and Kidd: sixty per cent of the gross to one side, seven and a half per cent each to the other two.3

Livingston and Kidd bound themselves jointly and severally to refund Bellomont's whole advance by 25 March 1697 if the voyage did not repay it, with only the dangers of the seas, the enemy and Kidd's own death excepted. If Kidd delivered 100,000 pounds or more at Boston, the ship became his outright. The incentive structure was set before the Adventure Galley left the river.4

The commissions and the grant of pirates' goods

The letter of marque against the French is dated 11 December 1695, the date of the declaration for letters of marque catalogued at The National Archives as HCA 26/3/58. The King's grant recites the pirate-hunting commission as passing under the Great Seal on 26 January in the seventh year of the reign, which on the regnal reckoning falls in 1696, and it names the quarry: Thomas Too, John Ireland, Tho Wake and William Maze. None of the four, on this evidence, was taken by Kidd.5

Bellomont had covenanted to procure the grant of pirates' goods, "to some indifferent and Trusty Person", within three months of Kidd's departure. Dalton's text is teste under the privy seal at Westminster, addressed to "Sir John Somers, Knight, our Keeper of our Great Seal of England". Six grantees are named: Bellomont, "Edmund Harrison, Merchant", Samuel Newton, Rowley, George Watson and Thomas Renolls, recited as the persons at whose "great and sole charges" the galley had been fitted out. Livingston is not among them, nor Kidd, nor any minister.6

The names behind the names

Somers admitted at his impeachment that Newton had been named in the grant "by and in trust for him". The trusts, if any, behind Rowley, Watson and Renolls are not established.7

Four ministers supplied most of the capital: Somers, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal; Edward Russell; Henry Sidney, Earl of Romney; and Charles Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury. They subscribed a thousand pounds apiece, within a total of about 6,000 pounds, and none of the four appears on the face of the venture's papers. The literature also styles Somers Lord Chancellor, an office he took only on 22 April 1697.8

Out of the river

Harrison picked men with settled families in England, a precaution the Bellomont pamphlet concedes was "in a great degree rendered ineffectual". The galley was launched in Captain William Castle's yard at Deptford on 4 December 1695. She lay at the Buoy in the Nore about the latter end of February, and about 1 March Kidd's men were pressed for the fleet. Russell was a partner in the venture and the press gang took most of the crew regardless. Kidd made up his complement in New York, the port whose piratical connections the scheme existed to suppress.

The reckoning in Parliament

Once Kidd was reported a pirate the arrangement became a weapon against its backers. John Evelyn noted on 3 December 1699 that Parliament had "called some great persons in the highest offices in question for setting the Greate Seale to the pardon of an arch pirate, who had turned pirate again". On 16 March 1700 the Commons addressed the King, praying that Kidd "might not be tried, discharg'd, or pardon'd, until the next Session of Parliament", and that Bellomont transmit all papers relating to him. On Dalton's account Kidd's French passes reached the Secretary of the Admiralty by that route, before the Old Bailey trial, where the Quedagh Merchant was central.

A motion to remove Somers from the King's presence and counsels for ever is reported as defeated by 167 to 106; a censure vote on Kidd's commission is separately reported as rejected, 199 to 131. Neither division has been reconciled to the Commons Journals. The grant went in as one of the fourteen articles of his impeachment in 1701. He admitted the trust, denied the rest, and pleaded that it "was formed as a recompense to the grantees, who at their own charge had provided and fitted out the said Ship". He entered that answer about the day after Kidd's body was hung in chains, and was acquitted on 17 June.

Where the accounts differ

The date of the grant is unresolved: Dalton's text gives 30 April in the ninth regnal year, endorsed as received 27 May 1697, while much of the secondary literature says 1696. Its address to Somers as Keeper of the Great Seal, a style he lost that April, suggests an instrument framed while he was still Lord Keeper. Whether an earlier warrant and a later passing of the letters patent reconcile the two dates is not established. The nominee names differ between Dalton's narrative and his appendix: John or William Rowley, Renolls or Reynolds, with one recital slipping to "William Newton".

The Articles and the grant are recoverable in full, but only through Dalton's appendices, and Somers's answer at his impeachment only through Dalton's report of the pleadings; the enrolled letters patent have not been consulted, and Dalton is Kidd's advocate, so his narrative carries a case as well as a text. The negotiation behind the Articles is known only from the two Person of Quality letters of 1701, printed to vindicate Bellomont's memory. No subscription list has been seen for the four ministers' thousand pounds apiece: that figure and the total of about 6,000 pounds are the ones commonly given, not ones taken from the venture's own accounts. The Calendar of State Papers Colonial for 1699 and 1700, which would supply Bellomont's own account, has not been searched.

What the evidence does not settle

Grantee name variants

  • Rowley and Renolls may have variant spellings or forenamesConfirmed

Origin of the letter of marque

  • The letter of marque may derive from the Admiralty or Bellomont

The Commons divisions against Somers

  • The two Commons vote tallies against Somers are unreconciledLikely

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. The venture was constituted by a single indenture, the Articles of Agreement of 10 October 1695, made between Richard Coote, Earl of Bellomont, of the one part and Robert Livingston and Captain William Kidd of the other. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Primary indenture: Articles of Agreement between the Earl of Bellomont, Robert Levingston and Captain William Kidd, 10 October 1695, printed in full in Dalton, The Real Captain Kidd (1911), Appendix A item 2
  2. Bellomont undertook four-fifths of the cost of buying, rigging, furnishing and victualling the ship and Livingston and Kidd the remaining fifth, the opening payments being 1,600 pounds from Bellomont and 400 pounds from Livingston and Kidd, both due on or before 6 November 1695; no total outfit figure is named in the deed. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Primary indenture: Articles of Agreement, 10 October 1695, in Dalton, Appendix A item 2
  3. The Articles required Kidd to contract with his crew on "No Purchase, No Pay; and not otherwise", their share not to exceed a fourth of everything taken, and divided the remaining three parts into five, four to Bellomont and the fifth shared equally between Livingston and Kidd. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Primary indenture: Articles of Agreement, 10 October 1695, clause 8 and clause 10, with the sealing memorandum, in Dalton, Appendix A item 2
  4. Livingston and Kidd were bound jointly and severally to refund Bellomont's whole advance by 25 March 1697 if the voyage did not repay it, excepting only the dangers of the seas, the enemy and Kidd's own death, while the closing covenant promised Kidd the ship outright if he delivered 100,000 pounds or more at Boston. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Primary indenture: Articles of Agreement, 10 October 1695, in Dalton, Appendix A item 2
  5. The King's grant of pirates' goods recites that the pirate-hunting commission passed under the Great Seal on 26 January in the seventh year of the reign, naming Thomas Too, John Ireland, Tho Wake and William Maze as the quarry; the separate letter of marque against the French is dated 11 December 1695, the date of the declaration for letters of marque catalogued as HCA 26/3/58, which the Archive follows. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Primary letters patent: Copy of the King's Grant of Pirates' Goods, in Dalton, Appendix A item 1, for the recital; its conversion to 1696 new style is an inference and is Probable. The letter of marque date from the declaration for letters of marque, The National Archives, HCA 26/3/58, folio 59, dated 11 December 1695, as carried on the Archive's source records
  6. The King's grant of pirates' goods was made to six grantees, Bellomont, "Edmund Harrison, Merchant", Samuel Newton, Rowley, George Watson and Thomas Renolls, recited as the persons at whose "great and sole charges" the Adventure Galley had been fitted out, and it was addressed to "Sir John Somers, Knight, our Keeper of our Great Seal of England"; neither Livingston, nor Kidd, nor any of the ministers is named in it. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Primary letters patent: Copy of the King's Grant of Pirates' Goods, teste under the privy seal at Westminster, endorsed as received 27 May 1697, signed Tho. Watkins, in Dalton, Appendix A item 1
  7. Samuel Newton's name was used in the grant in trust for John Somers, as Somers was forced to admit at his impeachment in 1701; the trusts, if any, behind Rowley, Watson and Renolls are not established. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Impeachment pleadings, reported: Dalton, The Real Captain Kidd (1911), reporting the articles of impeachment against Somers and his answer; confirmed as Dalton's report of the pleadings rather than from the enrolled proceedings
  8. Four Whig ministers, John Somers as Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, Edward Russell, Henry Sidney, Earl of Romney, and Charles Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury, supplied most of the capital, commonly given as 1,000 pounds apiece within a total of about 6,000 pounds, and appear nowhere on the face of the venture's papers. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Secondary narrative: Dalton, The Real Captain Kidd (1911), for the subscriptions of "one thousand pounds apiece"; office dates from the Dictionary of National Biography article on Somers. No subscription list has been seen.