Maritime trade and exploration in the Colonial Era created an environment ripe for piracy. One of the most famous pirates in history, Captain William Kidd, was commissioned by the King of England in 1695 as a privateer to hunt and capture pirates. Robert Livingston of New York engineered the arrangement, in which Kidd and Livingston were to receive a ten percent share of the profits recovered from any treasure obtained from pirates. Typically privateers would turn over a tenth of their treasure to the King, a third to the Admiralty for doing the paperwork and the rest would go to the investors who would keep their portion and dole out the rest to the crew.

In this extraordinary document Livingston and Kidd enter into a separate agreement with an unsavory merchant named Richard Blackham. Each sold one third of their shares to Blackham in exchange for upfront money to relieve Kidd of debt and to raise money that was needed prior to Kidd’s departure. This arrangement was highly unorthodox and was entered into in complete secrecy, unbeknownst to the King or the Admiralty.

Kidd operated as a privateer for several months before his actions bordered on piracy and the King ordered his arrest. When word spread that Kidd was suspected of piracy many of the investors, including Livingston, feared that their plan would be revealed and they too would be implicated. Parliament could ill-afford a scandal of this nature and did everything in its power to keep word from spreading that the King and Admiralty took any part in a gun-for-hire operation. Four years later, as Kidd headed to Boston from the Caribbean, Livingston informed the lieutenant governor of New York that Kidd was carrying treasure and that he should be captured. Kidd was captured and sent to England for trial. He was executed in May of 1701, serving as an example of what would become of captured pirates.

Brian Riggs
Researcher
Gilder Lehrman Collection