The Ballad of Captain Kidd: the Fall of Piracy and Rise of Universal Jurisdiction (1625–1856)
Chapter 5 The Ballad of Captain Kidd: the Fall of Piracy and Rise of Universal Jurisdiction (1625–1856) My name was William Kidd, God’s laws I did forbid And so wickedly I did, when I sailed. I’d a Bible in my hand By my father’s great command, And sunk it in the sand when I sailed. I’d ninety bars of gold And dollars manifold With riches uncontrolled as I sailed. We taken were at last And into prison cast: Now, sentence being past, we must die. To the Execution Dock While many thousands flock, But I must bear the shock, and must die. Take a warning now by me And shun bad company, Let you come to hell with me, for I must die.1 ∵ The Ballad of Captain Kidd was intended to serve as a poetic warning to any- one seeking to follow in the stead of this rogue privateer and his romanticised outlaw lifestyle. Yet a closer examination of the context surrounding Captain 1 The Ballad of Captain Kidd (selected verses), anon, 1701. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���9 | doi:�0.��63/978900439046�_006 <UN> 114 Chapter 5 Kidd’s arrest (in 1699) and trial (1701) reveals that he was probably innocent of piracy.2 Rather, Kidd was a scapegoat for the English,3 executed to appease their allies and showcase a renewed intolerance of piracy. His death was sym- bolic, then, but nevertheless marked a crucial turning point in terms of policy towards pirates, signalled by communal suppression in a new era of State rela- tions and untempered commerce.4 At last, “[l]egal recognition of pirates as criminals emerged from centuries of intermittent cooperation and conflict”.5 This “age of intolerance” towards piracy was born of necessity.
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