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The Killing of William Moore (1697)

On 30 October 1697, on the high seas near the coast of Malabar, Captain William Kidd struck William Moore, gunner of the Adventure Galley, on the head with an iron-bound bucket; Moore died the next day, and the killing became the first of six indictments and the first of four trials at the Admiralty Sessions at the Old Bailey on 8 May 1701, producing the murder conviction on which, with the piracy convictions, he was sentenced to death on 9 May 1701.

Also writtenThe death of William Moore, gunner of the Adventure Galley; The bucket blow, 30 October 1697; The murder indictment against Captain William Kidd, Admiralty Sessions, 8 May 1701

On 30 October 1697, on the high seas near the coast of Malabar, William Kidd struck the gunner of the Adventure Galley on the head with a bucket. William Moore died the next day. Almost everything the Archive holds about the quarrel comes through one lens, the first of four trials at the Admiralty Sessions at the Old Bailey on 8 May 1701. No log survives here, no muster book, no burial entry, no inquest.1

The man and the bucket

The indictment is a full common-law murder count, exact about the weapon: "a certain wooden bucket, bound with iron hoops, of the value of eight pence", brought down "a little above the right ear". Moore took "one mortal bruise" of which he "did languish, and languishing did live" until 31 October. Joseph Palmer placed him "grinding a chisel aboard the Adventure" when the blow fell. Robert Bradinham, the surgeon, gave the medical evidence in a sentence: "The wound was small, but the skull was fractured."2

Five shipmates, three of them prisoners

Two of Kidd's own men prosecuted him and three defended him. Palmer came for the Crown with Bradinham, who was not present when the blow fell. Both are reported to have left Kidd at Madagascar, the surgeon going over to Robert Culliford. The three who stayed were in the dock for piracy at the same sessions: Abel Owens the cook, Richard Barlicorn, Kidd's servant, and Hugh Parrot. Only Palmer and Owens saw the blow, and Owens contradicted the man who called him. Kidd said he "took up a bucket, and just throwed it at him"; Owens said "He took it with the strap, and struck him with it".3

Whether there was a mutiny

The defence rested on one proposition, that the blow fell during a mutiny. A fortnight or a month earlier, by different accounts, the crew had pressed him to plunder the Loyal Captain and he refused. At the moment of the blow, every witness asked directly answered the other way. Palmer: "There was no mutiny; all was quiet." Owens and Barlicorn each answered "No". Kidd alone said "Upon that a mutiny arose". The conflict is carried unresolved, as is who spoke first: Palmer has Kidd open the exchange, Owens and Parrot both have Moore open it in different words, and Kidd puts the whole exchange back at the Loyal Captain confrontation.4

Bradinham alone reported a remark made about two months later, that Kidd had "good friends in England that will bring me off for that"; no other witness corroborates it. The narrative Kidd handed to Bellomont at Boston in July 1699 never mentions Moore or the killing.

Tried first

Kidd's assigned counsel, Dr Oldish and Mr Lemmon, moved to postpone because the two French passes had not been given to him. The court let the piracy indictments stand over a day and tried the murder first. The jury returned in about an hour with a verdict of Guilty. Kidd was a convicted murderer before a word of the piracy evidence was heard, on a count owing nothing to the passes controversy that has shaped the argument about the piracy counts ever since. Sentence came on 9 May with the piracy convictions.5

Title page of the 1701 pamphlet. Letterpress type reads: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation of Captain William Kidd, for Murther and Piracy, Upon Six several Indictments, at the Admiralty-Sessions held at the Old-Baily on the 8th and 9th of May 1701, who upon full Evidence was found Guilty, receiv'd Sentence, and was accordingly Executed at Execution-Dock, May the 23d. Smaller type below names nine other men tried at the same time and place for piracy, then, beneath a rule: To which are added, Captain Kidd's Two Commissions. The imprint at the foot reads: London, Printed for J. Nutt, near Stationers-Hall, 1701.
Title page, The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation of Captain William Kidd "Murther" stands before "Piracy" in the title, as it did in the courtroom: the printed record of the Admiralty sessions of 8 and 9 May 1701 at which the killing of William Moore was tried first. Printed for J. Nutt, London, 1701. British Library copy, digitised (Internet Archive).

The charge to the jury

Lord Chief Baron Ward set out implied malice, "the law implies malice when one man, without any reasonable cause or provocation, kills another". He then applied what lawyers would call cooling time: "What mutiny or discourse might be a fortnight or month before will not be any reason or cause for so long a continuance of a passion." Had the blow fallen during an actual mutiny, he conceded, "there might have been a reasonable cause for him to plead in his defence". Ward stopped Kidd from putting it to Bradinham that the surgeon had himself been a mutineer, and refused him character witnesses.6

The pardon that did not reach him

A royal proclamation, ordered on 29 November 1698 and issued on 8 December, offered the King's mercy to pirates east of the Cape of Good Hope who surrendered to four named commissioners. Four of Kidd's men pleaded it in arrest of judgment and were refused for surrendering to the wrong persons.7

The calendar extract excepts "Captain Kidd and 3 others"; modern accounts except Henry Every and Kidd. Either way Kidd stood outside that mercy before he came home. The pardon was piracy-shaped, and so was the 1700 Act for the more effectual Suppression of Piracy, which reaches "all Piracies Felonies and Robberies committed in or upon the Sea" and does not name murder. A murder conviction sat outside the mercy a piracy conviction could still attract, which makes the bucket, rather than the Quedagh Merchant, the proximate cause of the hanging.7

Westminster

The killing took its political charge from the Whig junto men behind the venture of 1695. On 16 March 1700 the Commons resolved on an address that Kidd "may not be tried, discharged, or pardoned, until the next session of Parliament". On 16 April 1701 it ordered his commission and papers delivered to the Secretary of the Admiralty. Parliament had taken custody of an Admiralty prisoner's fate and his defence papers. The reading in the modern literature is that it did so to head off a quiet pardon by ministers who were themselves implicated.8

The one crime he denied

Kidd was hanged at Execution Dock on 23 May 1701. The accounts have the rope breaking at the first attempt. The 1701 broadside of the dying speeches has him refusing to the last to call it murder, "esteeming it rather an accidental Misfortune". A broadside ballad is reported to have appeared in Britain in 1701 and to have reached the colonies almost at once. The traditional versions still sung turn on the line "I murdered William Moore, as I sailed, as I sailed".

Captain Charles Johnson's General History of the Pyrates of 1724 gives Kidd no life in its first volume, and mentions him once in passing. Dalton has Kidd knock Moore down "in a moment of very justifiable indignation" and doubts the blow killed him; Graham Brooks, editing the trial in 1930, found the verdict unimpeachable.

What the sources cannot yet give is William Moore. Nothing recovered so far fixes his age, birthplace, family, wages or burial, and no muster or pay document of the Adventure Galley has been sought in the High Court of Admiralty classes at Kew. The working text is the 1930 Notable British Trials edition, which modernises spelling, so every quotation here needs collating against the 1701 print. Whether the stanza naming Moore stood in the 1701 ballad printing, and whether any later edition or second volume of the General History gives Kidd a chapter, are both unresolved. Whether the two Crown witnesses were pardoned before any question of evidence arose, or in exchange for testifying, is unresolved, and decides how much weight the conviction can bear.

What the evidence does not settle

William Moore's biography

  • Moore's age, birthplace and family are undocumentedConfirmed
  • When Moore joined Kidd's company and the terms of his serviceVery likely

Earliest documentary trace of the killing

  • The earliest documentary account of Moore's deathConfirmed
  • Pre-trial HCA examinations of the two witnesses are not retrievableVery likely

Pardon of the Crown witnesses

  • Whether the witnesses were pardoned before or for testimony is unresolvedLikely

Open legal questions

  • Whether the 1698 proclamation excepted Kidd with Every or othersConfirmed

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. On 30 October 1697, on the high seas near the coast of Malabar, Captain William Kidd struck William Moore, gunner of the Adventure Galley, on the head with an iron-bound bucket, and Moore died the following day, 31 October 1697. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation of Captain William Kidd, for Murther and Piracy, upon Six Several Indictments, at the Admiralty-Sessions held at the Old-Baily, 8 and 9 May 1701 (London, 1701), the indictment; consulted through Trial of Captain Kidd, ed. Graham Brooks, Notable British Trials (Edinburgh and London, 1930)
  2. The indictment describes the weapon as "a certain wooden bucket, bound with iron hoops, of the value of eight pence" held in Kidd's right hand, the blow as landing "a little above the right ear", and Moore as receiving "one mortal bruise" of which he "did languish, and languishing did live" from 30 to 31 October; Joseph Palmer placed him "grinding a chisel aboard the Adventure" when it fell, and the surgeon Robert Bradinham gave the medical evidence as "The wound was small, but the skull was fractured", adding "I believe that he died of the wound". Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation of Captain William Kidd (London, 1701), the indictment and the examinations of Palmer and Bradinham; consulted through Brooks, Trial of Captain Kidd (1930). Confirmed as to the indictment, and as to the evidence Palmer and Bradinham gave, not as to the underlying facts.
  3. Five shipmates gave evidence on the murder indictment: Joseph Palmer and the surgeon Robert Bradinham for the Crown, Bradinham stating that he was not present when the blow was struck, and Abel Owens the cook, Richard Barlicorn, Kidd's servant, and Hugh Parrot for the defence, all three of them prisoners indicted for piracy at the same sessions; only Palmer and Owens saw the blow, and Owens contradicted the prisoner who had called him, testifying that Kidd held the bucket by the strap and struck with it rather than throwing it. Very likely Strong evidence, short of proof. Trial pamphlet: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation of Captain William Kidd (London, 1701), the examinations of Palmer, Bradinham, Owens, Barlicorn and Parrot; consulted through Brooks, Trial of Captain Kidd (1930). Confirmed as to the roles of the five witnesses and the evidence they gave, not as to the underlying facts; Barlicorn is described as Kidd's servant or apprentice, and the Chief Baron told the jury he was the prisoner's servant.
  4. Every witness asked directly, including the three called by the defence, denied that a mutiny was in progress at the moment of the blow, Palmer answering "There was no mutiny; all was quiet", while Kidd's own account had it that "Upon that a mutiny arose"; the accounts of the exchange preceding the blow also differ, Palmer opening it with Kidd, Owens and Parrot each opening it with Moore in different words, and Kidd placing the exchange at the Loyal Captain confrontation itself, and the conflicts are carried unresolved. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation of Captain William Kidd (London, 1701), the examinations and Kidd's own statements; consulted through Brooks, Trial of Captain Kidd (1930). Confirmed as to the answers the witnesses gave, not as to the underlying fact.
  5. The murder indictment was tried first, on 8 May 1701, the piracy indictments standing over to 9 May after Kidd's assigned counsel, Dr Oldish and Mr Lemmon, moved to postpone because the two French passes had not been delivered to him; the jury retired and returned after about an hour with a verdict of Guilty, and sentence of death was pronounced on 9 May 1701 on the murder and the piracy convictions together. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation of Captain William Kidd (London, 1701), the proceedings of 8 and 9 May, the verdict and the sentence; consulted through Brooks, Trial of Captain Kidd (1930)
  6. Lord Chief Baron Ward charged the jury on implied malice, "the law implies malice when one man, without any reasonable cause or provocation, kills another", and on cooling time, "What mutiny or discourse might be a fortnight or month before will not be any reason or cause for so long a continuance of a passion", while conceding that a blow struck during an actual mutiny might have founded a defence; Kidd was refused permission to put to Bradinham that the surgeon had himself been among the mutineers, and refused permission to call character evidence after the charge. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Trial pamphlet: The Arraignment, Tryal, and Condemnation of Captain William Kidd (London, 1701), the charge to the jury and Ward's rulings; consulted through Brooks, Trial of Captain Kidd (1930)
  7. A royal proclamation, ordered on 29 November 1698 and issued on 8 December 1698, offered the King's mercy to men guilty of piracy east of the Cape of Good Hope who surrendered to four commissioners named in it, and it was construed strictly against four of Kidd's men, whose plea in arrest of judgment failed because they had surrendered to the wrong persons; Kidd himself was excepted from that mercy, a calendar extract used by Dalton excepting "Captain Kidd and 3 others" and modern accounts excepting Henry Every and Kidd, and neither the proclamation nor the 1700 Piracy Act, which enumerates "all Piracies Felonies and Robberies committed in or upon the Sea", names murder. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. State paper, statute and period narrative: Royal proclamation of 8 December 1698, consulted through its description and judicial construction in Dalton, The Real Captain Kidd (1911) and Brooks, Trial of Captain Kidd (1930), with the date of issue from David Wilson, "Piracy, patronage and political economy", IJMH 27:1 (2015), citing TNA HCA 1/15 f. 36; the statute from An Act for the more effectuall Suppressions of Piracy, 11 Will. III c. 7, Statutes of the Realm vol. 7, pp. 590-594. The proclamation itself has not been consulted, and the identity of the four commissioners is not recovered.
  8. The House of Commons resolved on 16 March 1700 on an address that Kidd "may not be tried, discharged, or pardoned, until the next session of Parliament", with the Earl of Bellomont to transmit all papers relating to him, and on 16 April 1701 ordered his commission "and such other papers as Captain Kidd desires" delivered by the Clerk of the House to the Secretary of the Admiralty. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. State paper: Journal of the House of Commons, vol. xiii, minutes of 2 December 1699, 16 March 1700 and 16 April 1701, quoted in Brooks, Trial of Captain Kidd (1930)