YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Anonymous Gift THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY MEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALXAS ATLANTA • SAM FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limitiid LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNB THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Lra TORONTO H. M. S. Lutine leaving Yarmouth Roads, Oct. 9, 1799, on her last voyage. (From the painting by Frank Mason, R. A., in the Commibttee Room of Lloyd's, London.) See Chapter XI. THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE BEING A TRUE HISTORY OF THE GOLD, JEWELS, AND PLATE OF PIRATES, GALLEONS, ETC., WHICH ARE SOUGHT FOR TO THIS DAY BY RALPH D. PAINE Author of " The Ships and Sailors of Old Salem," etc. ILLUSTRATED jI3etD gorb THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1922 Copyright 1911 By METROPOLITAN MAGAZINE COMPANY Copyright 1911 By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1911 PBINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMEBIOA CONTENTS chapter page I The World-Wide Hunt for Vanished Eiches 3 II Captain Kidd nsr Fact and Fiction ... 26 III Captain Kidd, His Treasure 61 IV Captain Kidd, His Trial and Death ... 97 V The Wondrous Fortune of William Phips . 129 VI The Bold Sea Eogub, John Quelch . . . 159 VII The Armada Galleon of Tobermory Bat . 183 VIII The Lost Plate Fleet of Vigo 221 IX The Pirates' Hoard of Trinidad .... 245 X The Lure of Cocos Island 270 XI The Mystery of the Lutine Frigate . . . 288 XII The Toilers of the Thetis 309 XIII The Quest of El Dorado 335 XIV The Wizardy of the Divining Rod . . . 361 XV Sundry Pirates and Their Booty .... 384 XVI Practical Hints for Treasure Seekers . . 420 ILLUSTRATIONS H. M. S. Lutine leaving Yarmouth Roads, Oct. 9, 1799, on her last voyage Frontispiece FACING PAGS Treasure-seekers' Camp at Cape Vidal on African Coast ... 6 Divers searching wreck of Treasure-ship Dorothea, Cape Vidal, Africa 6 Captain Kidd burying his Bible 26 Carousing at Old Calabar River 26 The Idle Apprentice goes to sea 44 John Gardiner's sworn statement of the goods and treasure left with him by Kidd 68 Governor Bellomont's endorsement of the official inventory of Kidd's treasure found on Gardiner's Island 68 The official inventory of the Kidd treasure found on Gardiner's Island ' ." 82 A memorandum of Captain Kidd's treasure left on Gardiner's Island 85 Statement of Edward Davis, who sailed home with Kidd, concern ing the landing of the treasure and goods 92 The French pass or safe conduct paper found by Kidd in the ship QueAah Merchant 104 Kidd hanging in chains 128 "The Pirates' Stairs" leading to the site of Execution Dock at Wapping where Kidd was hanged 128 Sir William Phips, first royal governor of Massachusetts . . .133 Map of Hispaniola (Hayti and San Domingo) engraved in 1723, showing the buccaneers at their trade of hunting wild cattle 140 Permit issued by Sir -William Phips as royal governor in which he uses the title "Vice-Admiral" which involved him in dis astrous quarrels 149 The oldest existing print. of 3oston harbor as it appeared in the time of Sir William Piips, showing the kind of ships in ¦ffhich he sailed to flnd his treasure 156 ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE An ancient map of Jamaica showing the haunts of the pirates and the track of the treasure galleons 166 The town and bay of Tobermory, Island of Mull 181 Duart Castle, chief stronghold of the MacLeans 188 Ardnamurchan Castle, seat of the Maclans and the MacDonalds 188 Defeat of the Spanish Armada 196 Diving to find the treasure galleon in Tobermory Bay .... 215 The salvage steamer Breamer equipped with suction dredge re moving a sandbank from the supposed location of the Flor- enoia galleon in 1909 215 Scabbards, flasks, cannon balls, and small objects recovered from the sunken Armada galleon 218 Stone cannon balls and breech-block of a breech-loading gun fished up from the wreck of the Florenoia galleon . . .218 Sir George Rooke, commanding the British fleet at the battle of Vigo Bay 225 The Royal Sovereign,, one of Admiral Sir G«orge Rooke's line-of- battle ships, engaged at Vigo Bay 229 Framework of an "elevator" devised by Pino for raising the gal leons in Vigo Bay 236 An "elevator" with air bags inflated 236 Cannon of the treasure galleons recovered by Pino from the bot tom of Vigo Bay 240 Hydroscope invented by Pino for exploring the sea bottom and successfully used in flnding the galleons of Vigo Bay . . 240 Lima Cathedral 246 Treasure-seekers digging on Cocos Island 281 Christian Cruse, the hermit treasure-seeker of Cocos Island . . 281 Thetis Cove in calm weather, showing salvage operations . . . 328 Thetis Cove during the storm which wrecked the salvage equip ment 328 Sir Walter Raleigh 348 Methods of manipulating the diving rod to find buried treasure 364 Gibbs and Wansley burying the treasure 400 The Portuguese captain cutting away the bag of moidores . . 400 Interview between Lafltte, General Andrew Jackson, and Gov ernor Claiborne 404 The death of Black Beard . . . i, i. , 404 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE Of all the lives I ever say, A Pirate's be for I. Hap what hap may he's alius gay An' drinks an' bungs his eye. For his work he's never loth: An' a-pleasurin' he'll go; Tho' certain sure to be popt off, Yo, ho, with the rum below! In Bristowe I left Poll ashore, Well stored wi' togs an' gold. An' off I goes to sea for more, A-piratin' so bold. An' wounded in the arm I got. An* then a pretty blow; Corned home I find Poll's flowed away, Yo, ho, with the rum below! An' when my precious leg was lopt, Just for a bit of fun, I picks it up, on t'other hopt. An' rammed it in a gun. "What's that for?" cries out Salem Dick; "What for, my jumpin beau? "Why, to give the lubbers one more kick!" Yo, ho, with the rum below ! I 'llows this crazy hull o' mine At sea has had its share: Marooned three times an' wounded nine An' blowed up in the air. But ere to Execution Bay The wind these bones do blow, I'll drink an' fight what's left away, Yo, ho, with the rum below ! — An Old English Bctllad, THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE CHAPTER I the world-wide hunt foe vanished riches The language has no more boldly romantic words than pirate and galleon and the dullest imagination is apt to be kindled by any plausible dream of finding their lost treasures hidden on lonely beach or tropic key, or sunk fathoms deep in salt water. In the preface of that rare and exceedingly diverting vol ume, "The Pirates' Own Book," the unnamed author sums up the matter with so much gusto and with so gorgeously appetizing a flavor that he is worth quoting to this extent : "With the name of pirate is also associated ideas of rich plunder, caskets of buried jewels, chests of gold ingots, bags of outlandish coins, secreted in lonely, out of the way places, or buried about the wild shores of rivers and unexplored sea coasts, near rocks and trees bearing mysterious marks indicating where the treasure was hid. And as it is his invari able practice to secrete and bury his booty, and from the perilous life he leads, being often killed or cap tured, he can never revisit the spot again, therefore immense sums remain buried in those places and are irrevocably lost. Search is often made by persons who labor in anticipation of throwing up with their 3 4 THB BOOK OF. BURIED .TREASURE spade and pickaxe, gold bars, diamond crosses spar kling amongst the dirt, bags of golden doubloons and chests wedged close with moidores, ducats and pearls ; but although great treasures lie hid in this way, it seldom happens that any is recovered." ^ In this tamed, prosaic age of ours, treasure-seek ing might seem to be the peculiar province of fiction, but the fact is that expeditions are fitting out every little while, and mysterious schooners flitting from many ports, lured by grimy, tattered charts pre sumed to show where the hoards were hidden, or steering their courses by nothing more tangible than legend and surmise. As the Kidd tradition survives along the Atlantic coast, so on divers shores of other seas persist the same kind of wild tales, the more con- viuciug of which are strikingly alike in that the lone survivor of the red-handed crew, having somehow escaped the hanging, shooting, or drowning that he handsomely merited, preserved a chart showing where the treasure had been hid. Unable to return to the place, he gave the parchment to some friend or shipmate, this dramatic transfer usually happening as a death-bed ceremony. The recipient, after dig ging in vain and heartily damning the departed pirate for his misleading landmarks and bearings, handed the chart down to the next generation. It will be readily perceived that this is the stock motive of almost all buried treasure fiction, the trade- i"The Pirates' Own Book" was published at Portland, Maine, 1837, and largely reprinted from Captain Charles Johnson's "General History of the Pyrates of the New Providence," etc., flrst edition, London, 1724. His second edition of two volumes, published in 1727, contained the lives of Kidd and Blackbeard. "The Pirates' Own Book," while largely indebted to Captain Johnson's work, con tains a great deal of material concerning other noted sea rogues who flourished later than 1727. THE HUNT FOR VANISHED RICHES 5 mark of a certain brand of adventure story, but it is really more entertaining to know that such charts and records exist and are made use of by the expedi tions of the present day. Opportunity knocks at the door. He who would gamble in shares of such a speculation may find sun-burned, tarry gentlemen, from Seattle to Singapore, and from Capetown to New Zealand, eager to whisper curious information of charts and sailing directions, and to make sail and away. Some of them are stUl seeking booty lost on Cocos Island off the coast of Costa Eica where a dozen ex peditions have futilely sweated and dug ; others have cast anchor in harbors of Guam and the Carolines ; while as you run from Aden to Vladivostock, sailor- men are never done with spinning yams of treasure buried by the pirates of the Indian Ocean and the China Sea. Out from Callao the treasure hunters fare to Clipperton Island, or the Gallapagos group where the buccaneers with Dampier and Davis used to careen their ships, and from Valparaiso many an expedition has found its way to Juan Fernandez and Magellan Straits. The topsails of these salty argo nauts have been sighted in recent years off the Sal vages to the southward of Madeira where two mil lions of Spanish gold were buried in chests, and pick and shovel have been busy on rocky Trinidad in the South Atlantic which conceals vast stores of plate and jewels left there by pirates who looted the gal leons of Lima. Near Cape Vidal, on the coast of Zululand, lies the wreck of the notorious sailing vessel Dorothea, in whose hold is treasure to the amount of two million dollars in gold bars concealed beneath a flooring of cement. It was believed for some time that the ill- 6 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE fated Dorothea was fleeing with the fortune of Oom Paul Kruger on board when she was cast ashore. The evidence goes to show, however, that certain of ficials of the Transvaal Government, before the Boer War, issued permits to several lawless adventurers, allowing them to engage in buying stolen gold from the mines. This illicit traffic flourished largely, and so successful was this particular combination that a ship was bought, the Ernestine, and after being over hauled and renamed the Dorothea, she secretly shipped the treasure on board in Delagoa Bay. It was only the other day that a party of restless young Americans sailed in the old racing yacht May flower bound out to seek the wreck of a treasure gal leon on the coast of Jamaica. Their vessel was dis masted and abandoned at sea, and they had all the adventure they yearned for. One of them, Eoger Derby of Boston, of a family famed for its deep-water mariners in the olden times, ingenuously confessed some time later, and here you have the spirit of the true treasure-seeker : "I am afraid that there is no information access ible in documentary or printed form of the wreck that we investigated a year ago. Most of it is hear say, and when we went down there on a second trip after losing the Mayflower, we found little to prove that a galleon had been lost, barring some old can non, flint rock ballast, and square iron bolts. We found absolutely no gold." The coast of Madagascar, once haunted by free booters who plundered the rich East Indiamen, is still ransacked by treasure seekers, and American soldiers in the Philippines indefatigably excavate the landscape of Luzon in the hope of finding the hoard of Spanish gold buried by the Chinese man-. Treasure-seekers Camp at Cape Vidal on African coast. Divers searching wreck of Treasure ship Dorothea, Cape Vidal, Africa. THE HUNT FOR VANISHED RICHES 7 darin Chan Lu Suey in the eighteenth century. Every island of the West Indies and port of the Spanish Main abounds in legends of the mighty sea rogues whose hard fate it was to be laid by the heels before they could squander the gold that had been won with cutlass, boarding pike and carronade. The spirit of true adventure lives in the soul of the treasure hunter. The odds may be a thousand to one that he will unearth a solitary doubloon, yet he is lured to undertake the most prodigious exertions by the keen zest of the game itself. The English nov elist, George E. Sims, once expressed this state of mind very exactly. " Eespectable citizens, tired of the melancholy sameness of a drab existence, cannot take to crape masks, dark lanterns, silent matches, and rope ladders, but they can all be off to a pirate island and search for treasure and return laden or empty without a stain upon their characters. I know a fine old pirate who sings a good song and has treas ure islands at his fingers' ends. I think I can get to gether a band of adventurers, middle-aged men of established reputation in whom the public would have confidence, who would be only too glad to enjoy a year's romance." Eobert Louis Stevenson who dearly loved a pirate and wrote the finest treasure story of them all around a proper chart of his own devising, took Henry James to task for confessing that although he had been a child he had never been on a quest for buried treas ure. ' ' Here is indeed a willful paradox, ' ' exclaimed the author of "Treasure Island," "for if he has never "been on a quest for buried treasure, it can be demonstrated that he has never been a child. There never was a child (unless Master James), but has hunted gold, and been a pirate, and a military com- 8 THE BOOK OP BURIED TREASURE mander, and a bandit of the mountains; but has fought, and suffered shipwreck and prison, and im brued its little hands in gore, and gallantly retrieved the lost battle, and triumphantly protected innocence and beauty." Mark Twain also indicated the singular isolation of Henry James by expressing precisely the same opinion in his immortal chronicle of the adventures of Tom Sawyer. "There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy's life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for buried treasure." And what an entrancing career Tom had planned for himself in an earlier chapter! "At the zenith of his fame, how he would suddenly appear at the old village and stalk into church, brown and weather- beaten, in his black velvet doublet and trunks, his great jack-boots, his crimson sash, his belt bristling with horse-pistols, his crime-rusted cutlass at his side, his slouch hat with waving plumes, his black flag unfurled, with the skull and cross-bones on it, and hear with swelling ecstasy the whisperings, 'It's Tom Sawyer the Pirate !— The Black Avenger of the Spanish Main.' " When Tom and Huck Finn went treasure seeking they observed the time-honored rules of the game, as the following dialogue will recall to mind : "Where '11 we dig?" said Huck. "Oh, most anywhere." "Why, is it hid all around?" "No, indeed it ain 't. It 's hid in mighty particular places, Huck, sometimes on islands, sometimes in rotten chests under the limb of an old dead tree, just where the shadow falls at midnight ; but mostly under the floor in ha'nted houses." "Who hides it?" THE HUNT FOR VANISHED RICHES 9 "Why, robbers, of course. Who'd you reckon, Sunday-school sup'rintendents?" "I don't know. If 'twas mine I wouldn't hide it; I'd spend it and have a good time." "So would I. But robbers don't do that way. They always hide it and leave it there. ' ' "Don't they come after it any more?" "No, they think they will, but they generally for get the marks or else they die. Anyway, it lays there a long time and gets rusty ; and by and by some body finds an old yellow paper that tells how to find the marks, — a paper that's got to be ciphered over about a week because it's mostly signs and hy'ro- glyphics." Hunting lost treasure is not work but a fascinating kind of play that belongs to the world of make be lieve. It appeals to that strain of boyishness which survives in the average man even though his pow be frosted, his reputation starched and conservative. It is, after all, an inherited taste handed down from the golden age of fairies. The folk-lore of almost every race is rich in buried treasure stories. The pirate with his stout sea chest hidden above high- water mark is lineally descended from the enchant ing characters who lived in the shadow land of myth and fable. The hoard of Captain Kidd, although he was turned off at Execution Dock only two hundred years ago, has become as legendary as the dream of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Many a hard-headed farmer and fisherman of the New England coast believes that it is rash business to go digging for Kidd's treasure unless one care fully performs certain incantations designed to pla cate the ghostly guardian who aforetime sailed with Kidd and was slain by him after the hole was dug 10 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE lest the secret might thus be revealed. And it is of course well known that if a word is spoken after the pick has clinked against the iron-bound chest or metal pot, the devil flies away with the treasure, leaving behind him only panic and a strong smell of brimstone. Such curious superstitions as these, strongly sur viving wherever pirate gold is sought, have been the common property of buried-treasure stories in all ages. The country-folk of Japan will tell you that if a pot of money is found a rice cake must be left in place of every coin taken away, and imitation money burned as an offering to any spirit that may be offended by the removal of the hoard. The negroes of the West Indies explain that the buried wealth of the buccaneers is seldom found because the spirits that watch over it have a habit of whisking the treas ure away to parts unknown as soon as ever the hid ing-place is disturbed. Among the Bedouins is cur rent the legend that immense treasures were con cealed by Solomon beneath the foundations of Pal myra and that sapient monarch took the precaution of enlisting an army of jinns to guard the gold for ever more. In parts of Bohemia the peasants are convinced that a blue light hovers above the location of buried treasure, invisible to all mortal eyes save those of the person destined to find it. In many corners of the world there has long existed the belief in the occult efficacy of a black cock or a black cat in the equipment of a treasure quest which is also influenced by the particular phases of the moon. A letter written from Bombay as long ago as 1707, contained a quaint account of an incident inspired by this particular superstition. THE HUNT FOR VANISHED RICHES 11 "Upon a dream of a Negro girl of Mahim that there was a Mine of Treasure, who being overheard relating it, Domo, Alvares, and some others went to the place and sacrificed a Cock and dugg the ground but found nothing. They go to Bundarra at Salsett, where disagreeing, the Government there takes no tice of the same, and one of them, an inhabitant of Bombay, is sent to the Inquisition at Goa, which pro ceedings will discourage the Inhabitants. Where fore the General is desired to issue a proclamation to release him, and if not restored in twenty days, no Eoman Catholick Worship to be allowed on the Island." A more recent chronicler, writing in The Ceylon Times, had this to say : "It is the belief of all Orientals that hidden treas ures are under the guardianship of supernatural beings. The Cingalese divide the charge between the demons and the cobra da capello (guardian of the king's ankus in Kipling's story). Various charms are resorted to by those who wish to gain the treas ure because the demons require a sacrifice. The blood of a human being is the most important, but so far as is known, the Cappowas have hitherto confined themselves to the sacrifice of a white cock, combining its blood with their own drawn from the hand or foot." No more fantastic than this are the legends of which the British Isles yield a plentiful harvest. Thomas of Walsingham tells the tale of a Saracen physician who betook himself to Earl Warren of the fourteenth century to ask courteous permission that he might slay a dragon, or "loathly worm" which had its den at Bromfield near Ludlow and had wrought sad ravages on the Earl's lauds. The Sar- 12 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE acen overcame the monster, whether by means of his medicine chest or his trusty steel the narrator say- eth not, and then it was learned that a great hoard of gold was hidden in its foul den. Some men of. Herefordshire sallied forth by night to search for the treasure, and were about to lay hands on it when re tainers of the Earl of Warwick captured them and took the booty to their lord. Blenkinsopp Castle is haunted by a very sorrowful White Lady. Her husband, Bryan de Blenkinsopp, was uncommonly greedy of gold, which he loved bet ter than his wife, and she, being very jealous and angry, was mad enough to hide from him a chest of treasure so heavy that twelve strong men were needed to lift it. Later she was overtaken by re morse because of this undutiful behavior and to this day her uneasy ghost flits about the castle, sup posedly seeking the spirit of Bryan de Blenkinsopp in order that she may tell him what she did with his pelf. When Corf e Castle in Dorsetshire was besieged by Cromwell's troops, Lady Bankes conducted a heroic defense. Betrayed by one of her own garrison, and despairing of holding out longer, she threw all the plate and jewels into a very deep well in the castle yard, and pronounced a curse against anyone who should try to find it ere she returned. She then ordered the traitor to be hanged, and surrendered the place. The treasure was never found, and per haps later owners have been afraid of the militant ghost of Lady Bankes. From time immemorial, tradition had it that a great treasure was buried near the Eibble in Lan cashire. A saying had been handed down that any one standing on the hill at Walton-le-Dale and look- THE HUNT FOR VANISHED RICHES 13 ing up the valley toward the site of ancient Eichester would gaze over the greatest treasure that England had ever known. Digging was undertaken at inter vals during several centuries, until in 1841 laborers accidentally excavated a mass of silver ornaments, armlets, neck-chains, amulets and rings, weighing to gether about a thousand ounces, and more than seven thousand silver coins, mostly of King Alfred's time, all enclosed in a leaden case only three feet beneath the surface of the ground. Many of these ornaments and coins are to be seen at the British Museum. On a farm in the Scotch parish of Lesmahagow is a boulder beneath which is what local tradition calls "a kettle full, a boat full, and a bull's hide full of gold that is Katie Nevin's hoord." And for ages past 'tis well known that a pot of gold has lain at the bottom of a pool at the tail of a water-fall under Crawfurdland Bridge, three miles from Kilmar nock. The last attempt to fish it up was made by one of the lairds of the place who diverted the stream and emptied the pool, and the implements of the workmen actually rang against the precious ket tle when a mysterious voice was heard to cry : ' ' Paw ! Paw ! Crawfurdland 's tower 's in a law. ' ' The laird and his servants scampered home to find out whether the tower had been "laid law," but the alarm was only a stratagem of the spirit that did sentry duty over the treasure. When the party re turned to the pool, it was filled to the brim and the water was "running o'er the linn," which was an uncanny thing to see, and the laird would have noth ing more to do with treasure seeking. The people of Glenary in the Highlands long swore by the legend that golden treasure was hidden in their valley and that it would not be found until 14 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE sought for by the son of a stranger. At length, while a newly drained field was being plowed, a large rock was shattered by blasting, and under it were found many solid gold bracelets of antique pattern and cunningly ornamented. The old people knew that the prophecy had come true, for the youth who held the plow was the son of an Englishman, a rare being in those parts a few generations ago. Everyone knows that Ireland is fairly peppered with "crocks o' goold" which the peasantry would have dug up long before this, but the treasure is in variably in the keeping of "the little black men" and they raise the divil and all with the bold intruder, and lucky he is if he is not snatched away, body, soul, and breeches. Many a fine lad has left home just before midnight with a mattock under his arm, and maybe there was a terrible clap of thunder and that was the last of him except the empty hole and the mattock beside it which his friends found next morning. In France treasure seeking has been at times a popular madness. The traditions of the country are singularly alluring, and perhaps the most romantic of them is that of the "Great Treasure of Gourdon" which is said to have existed since the reign of Clovis in the sixth century. The chronicle of all the wealth buried in the cemetery of this convent at Gourdon in the Department of the Lot has been preserved, in cluding detailed lists of gold and silver, rubies, em eralds and pearls. The convent was sacked and plundered by the Normans, and the treasurer, or custodian, who had buried all the valuables of the re ligious houses under the sway of the same abbot, was murdered while trying to escape to the feudal seignor of Gourdon with the crosier of the lord THE HUNT FOR VANISHED RICHES 15 abbott. * * The head of the crosier was of solid gold, ' ' says an ancient manuscript, "and the rubies with which it was studded of such wondrous size that at one single blow the soldier who tore it from the monk's grasp and used it as a weapon against him, beat in his brains as with a sledge-hammer." Not only through the Middle Ages was the search resumed from time to time, but from the latter days of the reign of Louis XIV until the Eevolution, tra dition relates that the cemetery of the convent was ransacked at frequent intervals. At length, in 1842, the quest was abandoned after antiquarians, geolo gists, and engineers had gravely agreed that further excavation would be futile. The French treasure seekers went elsewhere and then a peasant girl con fused the savants by discovering what was undeni ably a part of the lost riches of Gourdon. She was driving home the cows from a pasture of the abbey lands when a shower caused her to take shelter in a hollow scooped out of a sand-bank by laborers mend ing the road. Some of the earth caved in upon her and while she was freeing herself, down rolled a salver, a paten, and a flagon, all of pure gold, richly chased and studded with emeralds and rubies. These articles were taken to Paris and advertised for sale by auction, the Government bidding them in and placing them in the museum of the Bibliotheque. During the reign of Napoleon III there died a very famous treasure seeker, one Ducasse, who be lieved that he was about to discover "the master treasure" {le maitre tresor) said to be among the ruins of the ancient Belgian Abbey of Orval. Du casse was a builder by trade and had gained a large fortune in government contracts every sou of which he wasted in exploring at Orval. It was alleged that 16 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE the treasure had been buried by the monks and that the word NEMO carved on the tomb of the last ab bott held the key to the location of the hiding-place. In Mexico one hears similar tales of vast riches buried by religious orders when menaced by war or expulsion. One of these is to be found in the south western part of the state of Chihuahua where a great gorge is cut by the Eio Verde. In this remote val ley are the ruins of a church built by the Jesuits, and when they were about to be driven from their settlement they sealed up and destroyed all traces of a fabulously rich mine in which was buried mil lions of bullion. Instead of the more or less stereo typed ghosts familiar as sentinels over buried treas ure, these lost hoards of Mexico are haunted by a specter even more disquieting than phantom pirates or ' ' little black men. " It is " The Weeping Woman' ' who makes strong men cross themselves and shiver in their serapes, and many have heard or seen her. A member of a party seeking buried treasure in the heart of the Sierra Madre mountains solemnly af firmed as follows : "We were to measure, at night, a certain distance from a cliff which was to be found by the relative po sitions of three tall trees. It was on a bleak table land nine thousand feet above the sea. The wind chilled us to the marrow, although we were only a little to the north of the Tropic of Cancer. We rode all night and waited for the dawn in the darkest and coldest hours of those altitudes. By the light of pitch pine torches we consulted a map and decided that we had found the right place. We rode forward a little and brushed against three soft warm things. Turning in our saddles, by the flare of our torches held high above our heads we beheld three corpses THE HUNT FOR VANISHED RICHES 17 swaying in the wind. A wailing cry of a woman's voice came from close at hand, and we fled as if pur sued by a thousand demons. My comrades assured me that the Weeping Woman had brushed past us in her eternal flight." This is a singular narrative but it would not be playing fair to doubt it. To be over-critical of buried treasure stories is to clip the wings of romance and to condemn the spirit of adventure to a pedes trian gait. All these tales are true, or men of sane and sober repute would not go a-treasure hunting by land and sea, and so long as they have a high-hearted, boyish faith in their mysterious charts and hazy information, doubters make a poor show of them selves and stand confessed as thin-blooded dullards who never were young. Scattered legends of many climes have been mentioned at random to show that treasure is everywhere enveloped in a glamour pe culiarly its own. The base iconoclast may perhaps demolish Santa Claus (which God forbid), but in dustrious dreamers will be digging for the gold of Captain Kidd, long after the last Christmas stocking shall have been pinned above the fireplace. There are no conscious liars among the tellers of treasure tales. The spell is upon them. They be lieve their own yarns, and they prove their faith by their back-breaking works with pick and shovel. Here, for example, is a specimen, chosen at hazard, one from a thousand cut from the same cloth. This is no modern Ananias speaking but a gray-bearded. God-fearing clam-digger of Jewell 's Island in Casco Bay on the coast of Maine. "I can't remember when the treasure hunters first began coming to this island, but as long ago as my father's earliest memories they used to dig for gold 18 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE up and down the shore. That was in the days when they were superstitious enough to spill lamb's blood along the ground where they dug in order to keep away the devil and his imps. I can remember fifty years ago when they brought a girl down here and mesmerized her to see if she could not lead them to the hidden wealth. "The biggest mystery, though, of all the queer things that have happened here in the last hundred years was the arrival of the man from St. John's when I was a youngster. He claimed to have the very chart showing the exact spot where Kidd's gold was buried. He said he had got it from an old negro in St. John's who was with Captain Kidd when he was coasting the islands in this bay. He showed up here when old Captain Chase that lived here then was off to sea in his vessel. So he waited around a few days till the captain returned, for he wanted to use a mariner's compass to locate the spot accord ing to the directions on the chart. "When Captain Chase came ashore the two went off up the beach together, and the man from St. John's was never seen again, neither hide nor hair of him, and it is plumb certain that he wasn't set off in a boat from Jewell's. "The folks here found a great hole dug on the southeast shore which looked as if a large chest had been lifted out of it. Of course conclusions were drawn, but nobody got at the truth. Four years ago someone found a skeleton in the woods, unburied simply dropped into a crevice in the rocks with a few stones thrown over it. No one knows whose body it was, although some say, — but never mind about that. This old Captain Jonathan Chase was said to have been a pirate, and his house was full of under- THE HUNT FOR VANISHED RICHES 19 ground passages and sliding panels and queer con traptions, such as no honest, law-abiding man could have any use for." The worthy Benjamin Franklin was an admirable guide for young men, a sound philosopher, and a sa gacious statesman, but he cannot be credited with romantic imagination. He would have been the last person in the world to lead a buried treasure expedi tion or to find pleasure in the company of the most eminent and secretive pirate that ever scuttled a ship or made mysterious marks upon a well-thumbed chart plentifully spattered with candle-grease and rum. He even took pains to discourage the diverting in dustry of treasure seeking as it flourished among his Quaker neighbors and discharged this formidable broadside in the course of a series of essays known as "The Busy-Body Series": " ... There are among us great numbers of honest artificers and laboring people, who, fed with a vain hope of suddenly growing rich, neglect their business, almost to the ruining of themselves and families, and voluntarily endure abundance of fa tigue in a fruitless search after imaginary hidden treasure. They wander through the woods and bushes by day to discover the marks and signs; at midnight they repair to the hopeful spots with spades and pickaxes; full of expectation, they labor vio lently, trembling at the same time in every joint through fear of certain malicious demons, who are said to haunt and guard such places. "At length a mighty hole is dug, and perhaps sev eral cart-loads of earth thrown out ; but, alas, no keg or iron pot is foimd. No seaman's chest crammed with Spanish pistoles, or weighty pieces of eight! They conclude that, through some mistake in the 20 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE procedure, some rash word spoken, or some rule of art neglected, the guardian spirit had power to sink it deeper into the earth, and convey it out of their reach. Yet, when a man is once infatuated, he is so far from being discouraged by ill success that he is rather animated to double his industry, and will try again and again in a hundred different places in hopes of meeting at last with some lucky hit, that shall at once sufficiently reward him for all his ex penses of time and labor. "This odd humor of digging for money, through a belief that much has been hidden by pirates for merly frequenting the (Schuylkill) river, has for several years been mighty prevalent among us ; in somuch that you can hardly walk half a mile out of the town on any side without observing several pits dug with that design, and perhaps some lately opened. Men otherwise of very good sense have been drawn into this practice through an overween ing desire of sudden wealth, and an easy credulity of what they so earnestly wished might be true. There seems to be some peculiar charm in the con ceit of finding money and if the sands of Schuylkill were so much mixed with small grains of gold that a man might in a day's time with care and applica tion get together to the value of half a crown, I make no question but we should find several people em ployed there that can with ease earn five shillings a day at their proper trade. "Many are the idle stories told of the private success of some people, by which others are encour aged to proceed; and the astrologers, with whom the country swarms at this time, are either in the belief of these things themselves, or find their advantage in persuading others to believe them; for they are THE HUNT FOR VANISHED RICHES 21 often consulted about the critical times for digging, the methods of laying the spirit, and the like whim- seys, which renders them very necessary to, and very much caressed by these poor, deluded money hunters. "There is certainly something very bewitching in the pursuit after mines of gold and silver and other valuable metals, and many have been ruined by J-L* • • • "Let honest Peter Buckram, who has long without success been a searcher after hidden money, reflect on this, and be reclaimed from that unaccountable folly. Let him consider that every stitch he takes when he is on his shopboard, is picking up part of a grain of gold that will in a few days' time amount to a pis tole; and let Faber think the same of every nail he drives, or every stroke with his plane. Such thoughts may make them industrious, and, in conse quence, in time they may be wealthy. "But how absurd it is to neglect a certain profit for such a ridiculous whimsey ; to spend whole days at the * George ' in company with an idle pretender to astrology, contriving schemes to discover what was never hidden, and forgetful how carelessly business is managed at home in their absence ; to leave their wives and a warm bed at midnight (no matter if it rain, hail, snow, or blow a hurricane, provided that be the critical hour), and fatigue themselves with the violent digging for what they shall never find, and perhaps getting a cold that may cost their lives, or at least disordering themselves so as to be fit for no business beside for some days after. Surely this is nothing less than the most egregious folly and madness. "I shall conclude with the words of the discreet friend Agricola of Chester County when he gave his 22 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE son a good plantation. 'My son,' said he, 'I give thee now a valuable parcel of land; I assure thee I have found a considerable quantity of gold by dig ging there ; thee mayest do the same ; but thee must carefully observe this. Never to dig more than plough-deep." For once the illustrious Franklin shot wide of the mark. These treasure hunters of Philadelphia, who had seen with their own eyes more than one notorious pirate, even Blackbeard himself, swagger along Front Street or come roaring out of the Blue An chor Tavern by Dock Creek, were finding their re ward in the coin of romance. Digging mighty holes for a taskmaster would have been irksome, stupid business indeed, even for five shillings a day. They got a fearsome kind of enjoyment in "trembling violently through fear of certain malicious demons." And honest Peter Buckram no doubt discovered that life was more zestful when he was plying shovel and pickaxe, or whispering with an astrologer in a corner of the "George" than during the flat hours of toil with shears and goose. If the world had charted its course by Poor Eichard's Almanac, there would be a vast deal more thrift and sober industry than exists, but no room for the spirit of adventure which reckons not its returns in dollars and cents. There are many kinds of lost treasure, by sea and by land. Some of them, however, lacking the color of romance and the proper backgrounds of motive and incident, have no stories worth telling. For in stance, there were almost five thousand wrecks on ' the Great Lakes during a period of twenty years, and these lost vessels carried down millions of treasure or ; property worth trying to recover. One steamer had THE HUNT FOR VANISHED RICHES 23 five hundred thousand dollars ' worth of copper in her hold. Divers and submarine craft and wrecking companies have made many attempts to recover these vanished riches, and with considerable success, now and then fishing up large amounts of gold coin and bullion. It goes without saying that the average six teen-year-old boy could extract not one solitary thrill from a tale of lost treasure in the Great Lakes, even though the value might be fairly fabulous. But let him hear that a number of Spanish coins have been washed up by the waves on a beach of Yucatan and the discovery has set the natives to searching for the buried treasure of Jean Lafitte, the "Pirate of the Gulf," and our youngster pricks up his ears. Many noble merchantmen in modern times have foundered or crashed ashore in various seas with large fortunes in their treasure rooms, and these are sought by expeditions, but because these ships were not galleons nor carried a freightage of doubloons and pieces of eight, most of them must be listed in the catalogue of undistinguished sea tragedies. The distinction is really obvious. The treasure story must have the picaresque flavor or at least concern itself with bold deeds done by strong men in days gone by. Like wine its bouquet is improved by age. It is the fashion to consider lost treasure as the peculiar property of pirates and galleons, and yet what has become of the incredibly vast riches of all the vanished kings, despots, and soldiers who plun dered the races of men from the beginnings of his tory? Where is the loot of ancient Eome that was buried with Ajaric? Where is the dazzling treasure of Samarcand? Where is the wealth of Antioch, and where" the jewels which Solomon gavetEeTQjieen / jf Sheba? During thousan&TJf years of warfare! 24 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE the treasures of the Old World could be saved from the conqueror only by hiding them underground, and in countless instances the sword must have slain those who knew the secret. When Genghis Khan swept across Eussia with his hordes of savage Mon gols towns and cities were blotted out as by fire, and doubtless those of the slaughtered population who had gold and precious stones buried them and there they still await the treasure seeker. What was hap pening everywhere during the ruthless ages of con quest and spoliation * is indicated by this bit of nar rative told by a native banker of India to W. Forbes Mitchell, author of "Eeminiscences of the Great Mutiny": "You know how anxious the late Maharajah Soiji- dia was to get back the fortress of Gwaljox, but very few knew the real cause prompting'him. That was a concealed horde of sixty crores (sixty millions ster ling) of rupees in certain vaults within the fortress, over which British sentinels had been walking for thirty years, never suspecting the wealth hidden under their feet. Long before the British Govern ment restored the fortress to the Maharajah every one who knew the entrance to the vaults was dead ex cept one man and he was extremely old. Although he was in good health he might have died any day. If this had happened, the treasure might have been ' "As to Clive, there was no limit to his acquisitions but his own moderation. The treasury of Bengal was thrown open to him. There were piled up, after the usage of Indian princes, immense masses of coin, among which might not seldom be detected the florins and byzants with which, before any European ship had turned the Cape of Good Hope, the Venetians purchased the stuffs and spices of the East. Clive walked between heaps of gold and silver, crowned with rubies and diamonds, and was at liberty to help himself," — ^Macauley. THB HUNT FOR VANISHED RICHES 25 lost to the owner forever and to the world for ages, because there was only one method of entrance and it was most cunningly concealed. On all sides, ex cept for this series of blind passages, the vaults were surrounded by solid rock. "The Maharajah was in such a situation that he must either get back his fortress or divulge the secret of the existence of the treasure to the British Gov ernment, and risk losing it by confiscation. As soon as possession of the fortress was restored to him, and even before the British troops had left Gwalior territory, masons were brought from Benares, after being sworn to secrecy in the Temple of the Holy Cow. They were blindfolded and driven to the place where they were to labor. There they were kept as prisoners until the hidden treasure had been exam ined and verified when the hole was again sealed up and the workmen were once more blindfolded and taken back to Benares in the custody of an armed escort." CHAPTEE II CAPTAIN KIDD IN FACT AND FICTION Doomed to an infamy undeserved, his name red dened with crimes he never committed, and made wildly romantic by tales of treasure which he did not bury. Captain William Kidd is fairly entitled to the sympathy of posterity and the apologies of all the ballad-makers and alleged historians who have obscured the facts in a cloud of fable. For two cen turies his grisly phantom has stalked through the legends and literature of the black flag as the king of pirates and the most industrious depositor of ill- gotten gold and jewels that ever wielded pick and shovel. His reputation is simply prodigious, his name has frightened children wherever English is spoken, and the Kidd tradition, or myth, is still po tent to send treasure-seekers exploring and excavat ing almost every beach, cove, and headland between Nova Scotia and the Gulf of Mexico. Fate has played the strangest tricks imaginable with the memory of this seventeenth century seafarer who never cut a throat or made a victim walk the plank, who was no more than a third or fourth rate pirate in an era when this interesting profession was in its heyday, and who was hanged at Execution Dock for the excessively unromantic crime of crack ing the skull of his gunner with a wooden bucket. As for the riches of Captain Kidd, the original documents in his case, preserved among the state 26 Captain Kidd burying his Bible. Carousing at Old Calabar River. {From The Pirates' Own Book,) CAPTAIN KIDD IN FACT AND FICTION 27 papers of the Public Eecord Office in London, relate with much detail what booty he had and what he did with it. Alas, they reveal the futility of the searches after the stout sea-chest buried above high water mark. The only authentic Kidd treasure was dug up and inventoried more than two hundred years ago, nor has the slightest clue to any other been found since then. These curious documents, faded and sometimes tat tered, invite the reader to thresh out his own con clusions as to how great a scoundrel Kidd really was, and how far he was a scapegoat who had to be hanged to clear the fair names of those noble lords in high places who were partners and promoters of that most unlucky sea venture in which Kidd, sent out to catch pirates, was said to have turned amateur pirate him self rather than sail home empty-handed. Certain it is that these words of the immortal ballad are cruelly, grotesquely unjust : I made a solemn vow, when I sail'd, when I sail'd, I made a solemn vow when I sail'd. I made a solemn vow, to God I would not bow. Nor myself a prayer allow, as I sail'd. I'd a Bible in my hand, when I sail'd, when I sail'd, I'd a Bible in my hand when I sail'd. I'd a Bible in my hand, by my father's great command, And I sunk it in the sand when I sail'd. In English fiction there are three treasure stories of surpassing merit for ingenious contrivance and convincing illusion. These are Stevenson's "Treas ure Island"; Poe's "Gold Bug"; and Washington Irving 's "Wolfert Webber." Differing widely in plot and literary treatment, each peculiar to the 28 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE genius of its author, they are blood kin, sprung from a common ancestor, namely, the Kidd legend. Why this half-hearted pirate who was neither red-handed nor of heroic dimensions even in his badness, should have inspired more romantic fiction than any other character in American history is past all explaining. Strangely enough, no more than a generation or two after Kidd's sorry remnants were swinging in chains for the birds to pick at, there began to cluster around his memory the folk-lore and superstitions colored by the supernatural which had been long cur rent in many lands in respect of buried treasure. It was a kind of diabolism which still survives in many a corner of the Atlantic coast where tales of Kidd are told. Irving took these legends as he heard them from the long-winded ancients of his own acquaint ance and wove them into delightfully entertaining fiction with a proper seasoning of the ghostly and the imcanny. His formidable hero is an old pirate with a sea chest, aforetime one of Kidd's rogues, who ap pears at the Dutch tavern near Corlear's Hook, and there awaits tidings of his shipmates and the hidden treasure. It is well known that Stevenson employed a strikingly similar character and setting to get "Treasure Island" under way in the opening chap ter. As a literary coincidence, a comparison of these pieces of fiction is of curious interest. The similar ity is to be explained on the ground that both authors made use of the same material whose ground-work was the Kidd legend in its various forms as it has been commonly circulated. Stevenson confessed in his preface: "It is my debt to Washington Irving that exercises my conscience, and justly so, for I believe plagiarism was rarely carried farther. I chanced to pick up the CAPTAIN KIDD IN FACT AND FICTION 29 'Tales of a Traveler' some years ago, with a view to an anthology of prose narrative, and the book flew up and struck me: Billy Bones, his chest, the com pany in the parlor, the whole inner spirit and a good deal of the material detail of my first chapters — all were there, all were the property of Washington Ir ving. But I had no guess of it then as I sat writing by the fireside, in what seemed the springtides of a somewhat pedestrian fancy ; nor yet day by day, after lunch, as I read aloud my morning's work to the fam ily. It seemed to me original as sin; it seemed to belong to me like my right eye. ' ' After the opening scenes the two stories veer off on diverging tacks, the plot of Stevenson moving briskly along to the treasure voyage with no inclusion of the supernatural features of the Kidd tradition. Irving, however, narrates at a leisurely pace all the gossip and legend that were rife concerning Kidd in the Manhattan of the worthy Knickerbockers. And he could stock a treasure chest as cleverly as Stevenson, for when Wolfert Webber dreamed that he had dis covered an immense treasure in the center of his garden, ' ' at every stroke of the spade he laid bare a golden ingot; diamond crosses sparkled out of the dust ; bags of money turned up their bellies, corpu lent with pieces of eight, or venerable doubloons ; and chests, wedged close with moidores, ducats, and pis- tareens, yawned before his ravished eyes and vom ited forth their glittering contents." The warp and woof of "Wolfert Webber" is the still persistent legend that Kidd buried treasure near the Highlands of the lower Hudson, or that his ship, the Quedah Merchant, was fetched from San Do mingo by his men after he left her and they sailed her into the Hudson and there scuttled the vessel, 30 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE scattering ashore and dividing a vast amount of plun der, some of which was hidden nearby. Many years ago a pamphlet was published, purporting to be true, which was entitled, "An Account of Some of the Tra ditions and Experiments Eespecting Captain Kidd's Piratical Vessel." In this it was soberly asserted that Kidd in the Quedah Merchant was chased into the North Eiver by an English man-of-war, and find ing himself cornered he and his crew took to the boats with what treasure they could carry, after set ting fire to the ship, and fled up the Hudson, thence footing it through the wilderness to Boston. The sunken ship was searched for from time to time, and the explorers were no doubt assisted by another pamphlet published early in the nineteenth century which proclaimed itself as : "A Wonderful Mesmeric Eevelation, giving an Ac count of the Discovery and Description of a Sunken Vessel, near Caldwell's Landing, supposed to be that of the Pirate Kidd; including an Account of his Character and Death, at a distance of nearly three hundred miles from the place." This psychic information came from a woman by the name of Chester living in Lynn, Mass., who swore she had never heard of the sunken treasure ship until while in a trance she beheld its shattered timbers covered with sand, and "bars of massive gold, heaps of silver coin, and precious jewels including many large and brilliant diamonds. The jewels had been enclosed in shot bags of stout canvas. There were also gold watches, like duck's eggs in a pond of water, and the wonderfully preserved remains of a very beautiful woman, with a necklace of diamonds around her neck. ' ' As Irving takes pains to indicate, the basis of the CAPTAIN KIDD IN FACT AND FICTION 31 legend of the sunken pirate ship came not from Kidd but from another freebooter who flourished at the same time. Says Peechy Prauw, daring to hold converse with the old buccaneer in the tavern, "Kidd never did bury money up the Hudson, nor indeed in any of those parts, though many affirmed such to be the fact. It was Bradish and others of the buc caneers who had buried money ; some said in Turtle Bay, others on Long Island, others in the neighbor hood of Hell-gate." This Bradish was caught by Governor Bellomont and sent to England where he was hanged at Execu tion Dock. He had begun his career of crime afloat as boatswain of a ship called the Adventure (not Kidd's vessel). While on a voyage from London to Borneo he helped other mutineers to take the vessel from her skipper and go a-cruising as gentlemen of fortune. They split up forty thousand dollars of specie found on board, snapped up a few merchant men to fatten their dividends, and at length came to the American coast and touched at Long Island. The Adventure ship was abandoned, and there is reason to think that she was taken possession of by the crew of the purchased sloop, who worked her around to New York and beached and sunk her after stripping her of fittings and gear. Bradish and his crew also cruised along the Sound for some time in their small craft, landing and buying supplies at sev eral places, until nineteen of them were caught and taken to Boston. That there should have been some confusion of facts relating to Kidd and Bradish is not at all improbable. Among the Dutch of New Amsterdam was to be found that world-wide superstition of the ghostly guardians of buried treasure, and Irving interpolates 32 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE the distressful experience of Cobus Quackenbos "who dug for a whole night and met with incredible dif ficulty, for as fast as he threw one shovelful of earth out of the hole, two were thrown in by invisible hands. He succeeded so far, however, as to uncover an iron chest, when there was a terrible roaring, ramping, and raging of uncouth figures about the hole, and at length a shower of blows, dealt by in visible cudgels, fairly belabored him off of the for bidden ground. This Cobus Quackenbos had de clared on his death bed, so that there could not be any doubt of it. He was a man that had devoted many years of his life to money-digging, and it was thought would have ultimately succeeded, had he not died recently of a brain fever in the almshouse." A story built around the Kidd tradition but of a wholly different kind is that masterpiece of curious deductive analysis, "The Gold Bug," with its cryp togram and elaborate mystification. In making use of an historical character to serve the ends of fic tion it is customary to make him move among the episodes of the story with some regard for the prob abilities. For example, it would hardly do to have Napoleon win the Battle of Waterloo as the hero of a novel. What really happened and what the author imagines might have happened must be dove tailed with an eye to avoid contradicting the known facts. Like almost everyone else, however, Poe took the most reckless liberties with the career of poor Captain Kidd and his buried treasure and cared not a rap for historical evidence to the contrary. Al though Stevenson is ready to admit that his "skel eton is conveyed from Poe," the author of "Treas ure Island" is not wholly fair to himself. The tradition that secretive pirates were wont to knock CAPTAIN KIDD IN FACT AND FICTION 33 a shipmate or two on the head as a feature of the program of burying treasure is as old as the hills. The purpose was either to get rid of the witnesses who had helped dig the hole, or to cause the spot to be properly haunted by ,ghosts as an additional precaution against the discovery of the hoard. What Stevenson "conveyed" from Poe was the employment of a skeleton to indicate the bearings and location of the treasure, although, to be accurate, it was a skull that figured in "The Gold Bug." Otherwise, in the discovery of the remains of slain pirates, both were using a stock incident of buried treasure lore most generally fastened upon the un fortunate Captain Kidd. Most of the treasure legends of the Atlantic coast are fable and moonshine, with no more foundation than what somebody heard from his grandfather who may have dreamed that Captain Kidd or Black beard once landed in a nearby cove. The treasure seeker needs no evidence, however, and with him "faith is the substance of things hoped for." There is a marsh of the Penobscot river, a few miles in land from the bay of that name, which has been in defatigably explored for more than a Century. A native of a statistical turn of mind not long ago ex pressed himself in this common-sense manner : "Thousands of tons of soil have been shovelled over time and again. I figure that these treasure hunters have handled enough earth in turning up Oodlead Marsh to buUd embankments and fill cuts for a railroad grade twenty miles long. In other words, if these lunatics that have tried to find Kidd's money had hired out with railroad contractors, they could have earned thirty thousand dollars at regular day wages instead of the few battered old coins discov- 34 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE ered in 1798 which started all this terrible waste of energy." The most convincing evidence of the existence of a pirates ' rendezvous and hoard has been found on Oak Island, Nova Scotia. In fact, this is the true treasure story, par excellence, of the whole Atlantic coast, with sufficient mystery to give it precisely the proper flavor. Local tradition has long credited Captain Kidd with having been responsible for the indubitable remains of piratical activity, but it has been proved that Kidd went nowhere near Nova Scotia after he came sailing home from the East Indies, and the industrious visitors to Oak Island are therefore unknown to history. The island has a sheltered haven called Mahone Bay, snugly secluded from the Atlantic, with deep water, and a century ago the region was wild and un settled. Near the head of the bay is a small cove which was visited in the year of 1795 by three young men named Smith, MacGinnis, and Vaughan who drew their canoes ashore and explored at random the noble groves of oaks. Soon they came to a spot whose peculiar appearance aroused their curi osity. The ground had been cleared many years before; this was indicated by the second growth of trees and the kind of vegetation which is foreign to the primeval condition of the soil. In the center of the little clearing was a huge oak whose bark was gashed with markings made by an axe. One of the stout lower branches had been sawn off at some distance from the trunk and to this natural der rick-arm had been attached a heavy block and tackle as shown by the furrowed scar in the bark. Directly beneath this was a perceptible circular depression of the turf, perhaps a dozen feet in diameter. CAPTAIN KIDD IN FACT AND FICTION 35 The three young men were curious, and made fur ther investigation. The tide chanced to be uncom monly low, and while ranging along the beach of the cove they discovered a huge iron ring-bolt fastened to a rock which was invisible at ordinary low water. They reasonably surmised that this had been a moor ing place in days gone by. Not far distant a boat swain's whistle of an ancient pattern and a copper coin bearing the date of 1713 were picked up. The trio scented pirates' treasure and shortly re turned to the cove to dig in the clearing hard by the great oak. It was soon found that they were exca vating in a clearly defined shaft, the walls of which were of the solid, undisturbed earth in which the cleavage of other picks and shovels could be distin guished. The soil within the shaft was much looser and easily removed. Ten feet below the surface they came to a covering of heavy oak plank which was ripped out with much difficulty. At a depth of twenty feet another layer of plank ing was uncovered, and digging ten feet deeper, a third horizontal bulkhead of timber was laid bare. The excavation was now thirty feet down, and the three men had done all they could without a larger force, hoisting machinery, and other equipment. The natives of Mahone Bay, however, were singularly reluctant to aid the enterprise. Hair-raising stories were afloat of ghostly guardians, of strange cries, of unearthly fires that flickered along the cove, and all that sort of thing. Superstition effectually forti fied the place, and those bold spirits, Smith, Mac Ginnis, and Vaughan were forced to abandon theii" task for lack of reinforcements. Half a dozen years later a young physician of Truro, Dr. Lynds, visited Oak Island, having got 36 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE wind of the treasure story, and talked with the three men aforesaid. He took their report seriously, made an investigation of his own, and straightway or ganized a company backed by considerable capital. Prominent persons of Truro and the neighborhood were among the investors, including Colonel Eobert Archibald, Captain David Archibald, and Sheriff Harris. A gang of laborers was mustered at the cove, and the dirt began to fly. The shaft was opened to a depth of ninety-five feet, and, as before, some kind of covering, or significant traces thereof, was disclosed every ten feet or so. One layer was of charcoal spread over a matting of a substance resembling cocoa fibre, while another was of putty, some of which was used in glazing the windows of a house then building on the nearby coast. Ninety feet below the surface, the laborers found a large flat stone or quarried slab, three feet long and sixteen inches wide, upon which was chiselled the traces of an inscription. This stone was used in the jamb of a fireplace of a new house belong ing to Smith, and was later taken to Halifax in the hope of having the mysterious inscription deciphered. One wise man declared that the letters read, "Ten feet below two million pounds lie buried," but this verdict was mostly guess-work. The stone is still in Halifax, where it was used for beating leather in a book-binder's shop until the inscription had been worn away. When the workmen were down ninety-five feet, they came to a wooden platform covering the shaft. Until then the hole had been clear of water, but over night it filled within twenty-five feet of the top. Persistent efforts were made to bale out the flood but with such poor success that the shaft was aban- CAPTAIN KIDD IN FACT AND FICTION 37 doned and another sunk nearby, the plan being to tunnel into the first pit and thereby drain it and get at the treasure. The second shaft was driven to a depth of a hundred and ten feet, but while the tunnel was in progress the water broke through and made the laborers flee for their lives. The company had spent all its money, and the results were so dis couraging that the work was abandoned. It was not until 1849 that another attempt was made to fathom the meaning of the extraordinary mystery of Oak Island. Dr. Lynds and Vaughan were still alive and their narratives inspired the or ganization of another treasure-seeking company. Vaughan easily found the old ' ' Money Pit " as it was called, and the original shaft was opened and cleared to a depth of eighty-six feet when an inrush of water stopped the undertaking. Again the work ceased for lack of adequate pumping machinery, and it was decided to use a boring apparatus such as was em ployed in prospecting for coal. A platform was rigged in the old shaft, and the large auger bit its way in a manner described by the manager of the enterprise as follows : "The platform was struck at ninety-eight feet, just as the old diggers found it. After going through this platform, which was five inches thick and proved to be of spruce, the auger dropped twelve inches and then went through four inches of oak ; then it went through twenty-two inches of metal in pieces, but the auger failed to take any of it ex cept three links resembling an ancient watch-chain. It then went through eight inches of oak, which was thought to be the bottom of the first box and the top of the next ; then throught twenty-two irujhes of metal the same as before ; then four inches of oak and 38 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE six inches of spruce, then into clay seven feet without striking anything. In the next boring, the platform was struck as before at ninety-eight feet; passing through this, the auger fell about eighteen inches, and came in contact with, as supposed, the side of a cask. The flat chisel revolving close to the side of the cask gave it a jerk and irregular motion. On withdrawing the auger several splinters of oak, such as might come from the side of an oak stave, and a small quantity of a brown fibrous substance re sembling the husk of a cocoa-nut, were brought up. The distance between the upper and lower plat forms was found to be six feet." In the summer of 1850 a third shaft was sunk just to the west of the Money Pit, but this also filled with water which was discovered to be salt and effected by the rise and fall of the tide in the cove. It was reasoned that if a natural inlet ex isted, those who had buried the treasure must have encountered the inflow which would have made their undertaking impossible. Therefore the pirates must have driven some kind of a tunnel or passage from the cove with the object of flooding out any sub sequent intruders. Search was made along the beach, and near where the ring-bolt was fastened in the rock a bed of the brown, fibrous material was uncovered and beneath it a mass of small rock unlike the surrounding sand and gravel. It was decided to build a coffer-dam around this place which appeared to be a concealed entrance to a tunnel connecting the cove with the Money Pit. In removing the rock, a series of well-constructed drains was found, extending from a common center, and fashioned of carefully laid stone. Before the coffer-dam was finished, it was overflowed by a very CAPTAIN KIDD IN FACT AND FICTION 39 high tide and collapsed under pressure. The ex plorers did not rebuild it but set to work sinking a shaft which was intended to cut into this tunnel and dam the inlet from the cove. One failure, how ever, followed on the heels of another, and shaft after shaft was dug only to be caved in or filled by salt water. In one of these was found an oak plank, several pieces of timber bearing the marks of tools, and many hewn chips. A powerful pumping engine was installed, timber cribbing put into the bottom of the shafts, and a vast amount of clay dumped on the beach in an effort to block up the inlet of the sea-water tunnel. Baffled in spite of all this exertion, the treasure-seekers spent their money and had to quit empty-handed. Forty years passed, and the crumbling earth al most filled the numerous and costly excavations and the grass grew green under the sentinel oaks. Then, in 1896, the cove was once more astir with boats and the shore populous with toilers. The old records had been overhauled and their evidence was so allur ing that fresh capital was subscribed and many shares eagerly snapped up in Truro, Halifax and elsewhere. The promoters became convinced that former .attempts had failed because of crude appli ances and insufficient engineering skill, and this time the treasure was sought in up-to-date fashion. Almost twenty deep shafts were dug, one after the other, in a ring about the Money Pit, and tunnels driven in a net-work. It was the purpose of the engineers to intercept the underground channel and also to drain the pirates' excavation. Hundreds of pounds of dynamite were used and thousands of feet of heavy timber. Further traces of the work of the ancient contrivers of this elaborate hiding-place 40 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE were discovered, but the funds of the company were exhausted before the secret of the Money Pit could be revealed. Considerable boring was done under the direction of the manager, Captain Welling. The results con firmed the previous disclosures achieved by the auger. At a depth of one hundred and twenty-six feet, Captain Welling 's crew drilled through oak wood, and struck a piece of iron past which they could not drive the encasing pipe. A smaller auger was then used and at one hundred and fifty-three feet cement was found of a thickness of seven inches, covering another layer of oak. Beyond was some soft metal, and the drill brought to the surface a small fragment of sheepskin parchment upon which was -written in ink the syllable, "vi" or "wi." Other curious samples, wood and iron, were fished up, but the "soft metal," presumed to be gold or silver, refused to cling to the auger. It was of course taken for granted that the various layers of oak planking and spruce were chests containing the treasure. During the various borings, seven different chests or casks, or whatever they may be, have been en countered. It seems incredible that any pirates or buccaneers known to the American coast should have been at such prodigious pains to conceal their plunder as to dig a hole a good deal more than a hundred feet deep, connect it with the sea by an underground passage, and safeguard it by many lay ers of timber, cement, and other material. Possibly some of the famous freebooters of the Spanish Main in Henry Morgan's time might have achieved such a task, but Nova Scotia was a coast unknown to them and thousands of miles from their track. CAPTAIN KIDD IN FACT AND FICTION 41 Poor Kidd had neither the men, the treasure, nor the opportunity to make such a memorial of his career as this. Quite recently a new company was formed to grap ple with the secret of Oak Island which has already swallowed at least a hundred thousand dollars in labor and machinery. For more than a century, sane, hard-headed Nova Scotians have tried to reach the bottom of the "Money Pit," and as an attractive speculation it has no rival in the field of treasure- seeking. There may be documents somewhere in ex istence, a chart or memorandum mouldering in a sea chest in some attic or cellar of France, England, or Spain, that will furnish the key to this rarely picturesque and tantalizing puzzle. The unbeliever has only to go to Nova Scotia in the summer time and seek out Oak Island, which is reached by way of the town of Chester, to find the deeply pitted area of the treasure hunt, and very probably engines and workmen busy at the fine old game of digging for pirates ' gold. Let us now give the real Captain Kidd his due, painting him no blacker than the facts warrant, and at the same time uncover the true story of his treas ure, which is the plum in the pudding. He had been a merchant shipmaster of brave and honorable re pute in an age when every deep-water voyage was a hazard of privateers and freebooters of all flags, or none at all. In one stout square-rigger after an other, well armed and heavily manned, he had sailed out of the port of New York, in which he dwelt as early as 1689. He had a comfortable, even pros perous home in Liberty Street, was married to a widow of good family, and was highly thought of by the Dutch and English merchants of the town. A 42 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE shrewd trader who made money for his owners, he was also a fighting seaman of such proven mettle that he was given command of privateers which cruised along the coasts of the Colonies and harried the French in the West Indies. His excellent reputa tion and character are attested by official documents. In the records of the Proceedings of the Provincial Assembly of New York is the following entry under date of April 18, 1691 : "Gabriel Monville, Esq. and Thomas Willet, Esq. are appointed to attend the House of Eepresenta- tives and acquaint them of the many good services done to this Province by Captain William Kidd in his attending here with his Vessels before His Ex cellency's ^ arrival, and that it would be acceptable to His Excellency and this Board that they consider of some suitable reward to him for his good services." This indicates that Captain Kidd had been in com mand of a small squadron engaged in protecting the commerce of the colony. On May 14, the follow ing was adopted by the House of Eepresentatives : "Ordered, that His Excellency be addressed unto, to order the Eeceiver General to pay to Captain William Kidd, One Hundred and Fifty Pounds cur rent money of this Province, as a suitable reward for the many good services done to this Province." In June, only a month after this, Captain Kidd was asked by the Colony of Massachusetts to punish the pirates who were pestering the shipping of Bos ton and Salem. The negotiations were conducted in this wise: 1 Governor Henry Sloughter. CAPTAIN KIDD IN FACT AND FICTION 43 By the Governor and Council. Proposals offered to Captain Kidd and Captain Walking- ton to encourage their going forth in their Majesties' Service to suppress an Enemy Privateer now upon this Coast. That they have liberty to beat up drums for forty men apiece to go forth on this present Expedition, not taking any Children or Servants without their Parents' or Mas ters' Consent. A list of the names of such as go in the said Vessels to be presented to the Governor before their departure. That they cruise upon the Coast for the space of ten or fifteen days in search of the said Privateer, and then come in again and land the men supplied them from hence. That what Provisions shall be expended within the said time, for so many men as are in both the said Vessels, be made good to them on their return, in case they take no purchase ; ^ but if they shall take the Privateer, or any other Vessels, then only a proportion of Provisions for so many men as they take in here. If any of our men happen to be wounded in the en gagement with the Privateer, that they be cured at the public charge. That the men supplied from hence be proportionable sharers with the other men belonging to said Vessels, of all purchase that shall be taken. Besides the promise of a Gratuity to the Captains, Twenty Pounds apiece in money. Boston, June 8th, 1691. To this thrifty set of terms, Captain Kidd made reply: "Imprimis, To have forty men, with their arms, provisions, and ammunition. 2 Prizes. 44 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE "2dly. All the men that shall be wounded, which ¦ have been put in by the Country, shall be put on shore, and the Country to take care of them. And if so fortunate as to take the Pirate and her prizes, then to bring them to Boston. "Srdly. For myself, to have One Hundred Pounds in money; Thirty Pounds thereof to be paid down, the rest upon my return to Boston ; and if we bring in said Ship and her Prizes, then the same to be di vided amongst our men. "4thly. The Provisions put on board must be ten barrels Pork and Beef, ten barrels of Flour, two hogsheads of Peas, and one barrel of Gunpowder for the great guns. "5thly. That I will cruise on the coast for ten days' time; and if so that he is gone off the coast, that I cannot hear of him, I will then, at my return, take care and set what men on shore that I have had, and are willing to leave me or the Ship. ' ' These records serve to show in what esteem Cap tain Kidd was held by the highest officials of the Colonies. Such men as he were sailing out of Bos ton, New York, and Salem to trade in uncharted seas on remote coasts and fight their way home again with rich cargoes. They hammered out the beginnings of a mighty commerce for the New World and cre ated, by the stern stress of circumstances, as fine a race of seamen as ever filled cabin and forecastle. In the year 1695, Captain Kidd chanced to be an chored in London port in his brigantine Antigoa, busy with loading merchandise and shipping a crew for the return voyage across the Atlantic. Now, Eichard Coote, Earl of Bellomont, an ambitious and energetic Irishman, had just then been appointed royal governor of the Colonies of New York and The Idle Apprentice goes to sea. (From Hogarth's series, "Industry and Idleness.") On the shore of this reach of the Thames, at Tilbury, is shown a gibbeted pirate hanging in chains, just as it befell Captain William Kidd. CAPTAIN KIDD IN FACT AND FICTION 45 Massachusetts, and he was particularly bent on sup pressing the swarm of pirates who infested the American coast and waxed rich on the English com merce of the Indian Ocean. Their booty was carried to Ehode Island, New York, and Boston, even from far-away Madagascar, and many a colonial mer chant, outwardly the pattern of respectability, was secretly trafficking in this plunder. "I send you, my Lord, to New York," said King William III to Bellomont, "because an honest and intrepid man is wanted to put these abuses down, and because I believe you to be such a man." Thereupon Bellomont asked for a frigate to send in chase of the bold sea rogues, but the king referred him to the Lords of the Admiralty who discovered sundry obstacles bound in red tape, the fact being that official England was at all times singularly in different, or covertly hostile, toward the maritime commerce of her American colonies. Being denied a man-of-war, Bellomont conceived the plan of privately equipping an armed ship as a syndicate enterprise without cost to the government. The pro moters were to divide the swag captured from pirates as dividends on their investment. The enterprise was an alluring one, and six thou sand pounds sterling were subscribed by Bellomont and his friends, including such illustrious personages as Somers, the Lord Chancellor and leader of the Whig party; the Earl of Shrewsbury, the Earl of Orford, First Lord of the Admiralty; the Earl of Eomney, and Sir Eichard Harrison, a wealthy mer chant. According to Bishop Burnet, it was the king who "proposed managing it by a private enterprise, and said he would lay down three thousand pounds himself, and recommended it to his Ministers to find 46 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE out the rest. In compliance with this, the Lord Somers, the Earl of Orford, Eomney, Bellomont and others, contributed the whole expense, for the King excused himself by reason of other accidents, and did not advance the sum he had promised." Macauley, discussing in his "History of England" the famous scandal which later involved these part ners of Kidd, defends them in this spirited fashion : "The worst that could be imputed even to Bello mont, who had drawn in all the rest, was that he had been led into a fault by his ardent zeal for the public service, and by the generosity of a nature as little prone to suspect as to devise villainies. His friends in England might surely be pardoned for giving credit to his recommendations. It is highly prob able that the motive which induced some of them to aid his designs was a genuine public spirit. But if we suppose them to have had a view to gain, it would be legitimate gain. Their conduct was the very op posite of corrupt. Not only had they taken no money. They had disbursed money largely, and had disbursed it with the certainty that they should never be reimbursed unless the outlay proved beneficial to the public." It would be easy to pick flaws in this argument. Bellomont's partners, no matter how public spirited, hoped to reimburse themselves, and something over, as receivers of stolen goods. It was a dashing spec ulation, characteristic of its century, and neither bet ter nor worse than the privateering of that time. What raised the subsequent row in Parliament and made of Kidd a political issue and a party scape goat, was the fact that his commission was given under the Great Seal of England, thus stamping a private business with the public sanction of His CAPTAIN KIDD IN FACT AND FICTION 47 Majesty's Government. For this Somers, as Lord Chancellor, was responsible, and it later became a difficult transaction for his partisans to defend. There was in London, at that time, one Eobert Livingston, founder of a family long notable in the Colony and State of New York, a man of large prop erty and solid station. He was asked to recommend a shipmaster fitted for the task in hand and named Captain Kidd, who was reluctant to accept. His cir cumstances were prosperous, he had a home and family in New York, and he was by no means anxious to go roving after pirates who were pretty certain to fight for their necks. His consent was won by the promise of a share of the profits (Kidd was a canny Scot by birth) and by the offer of Livingston to be his security and his partner in the venture. An elaborate contract was drawn up with the title of "Articles of Agreement made this Tenth day of October in the year of Our Lord, 1695, between the Eight Honorable Eichard, Earl of Bellomont, of the one part, and Eobert Livingston Esq., and Captain William Kidd of the other part. ' ' In the first article, "the said Earl of Bellomont doth covenant and agree at his proper charge to pro cure from the King's Majesty or from the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, as the case may re quire, one or more Commissions impowering him, the said Captain Kidd, to act against the King's enemies, and to take prizes from them as a private man-of-war, in the usual manner, and also to fight with, conquer and subdue pyrates, and to take them and their goods, with such large and beneficial powers and clauses in such commissions as may be most proper and effectual in such cases." Bellomont agreed to pay four-fifths of the cost of 48 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE the ship, with its furnishings and provisions, Kidd and Livingston to contribute the remainder, "in pur suance of which Bellomont was to pay down 1600 pounds on or before the 6th of November, in order to the speedy buying of said ship. ' ' The Earl agreed to pay such further sums as should "complete and make up the said four parts of five of the charge of the said ship's apparel, furniture, and victualling, within seven weeks after date of the agreement," and Kidd and Livingston bound themselves to do like wise in respect of their fifth part of the expense. Other articles of the agreement read : "7. The said Captain Kidd doth covenant and agree to procure and take with him on board of the said ship, one hundred mariners, or seamen, or there about, and to make what reasonable and convenient speed he can to set out to sea with the said ship, and to sail to such parts and places where he may meet with the said Pyrates, and to use his utmost endeavor to meet with, subdue, and conquer the said Pyrates, and to take from them their goods, merchandise, and treasures ; also to take what prizes he can from the King's enemies, and forthwith to make the best of his way to Boston in New England, and that without touching at any other port or harbor whatsoever, or without breaking bulk, or diminishing any part of what he shall so take or obtain; (of which he shall make oath in case the same is desired by the said Earl of Bellomont), and there to deliver the same into the hands or possession of the said Earl. "8. The said Captain Kidd doth agree that the contract and bargain which he will make with the said ship's crew shall be no purchase,^ no pay, and not otherwise; and that the share and proportion 8 Prizes. CAPTAIN KIDD IN FACT AND FICTION 49 which his said crew shall, by such contract, have of such prizes, goods, merchandise and treasure, as he shall take as prize, or from any Pyrates, shall not at the most exceed a fourth part of the same, and shall be less than a fourth part, in case the same may rea sonably and conveniently be agreed upon. "9. Eobert Livingston Esq. and Captain William Kidd agree that if they catch no Pyrates, they will refund to the said Earl of Bellomont all the money advanced by him on or before March 25th, 1697, and they will keep the said ship." Article 10 allotted the captured goods and treas ures, after deducting no more than one-fourth for the crew. The remainder was to be divided into five equal parts, of which Bellomont was to receive four parts, leaving a fifth to be shared between Kidd and Livingston. The stake of Captain Kidd was there fore to be three one-fortieths of the whole, or seven and one-half per cent, of the booty. It is apparent from these singular articles of agree ment that Eobert Livingston, in the role of Kidd's financial backer, was willing to run boldly speculative chances of success, and was also confident that a rich crop of "pyrates" could be caught for the seeking. If Kidd should sail home empty-handed, then these two partners stood to lose a large amount, by virtue of the contract which provided that Bellomont and his partners must be reimbursed for their outlay, less the value of the ship itself. Livingston also gave bonds in the sum of ten thousand pounds that Kidd would be faithful to his trust and obedient to his orders, which in itself is sufficient to show that this shipmaster was a man of the best intentions, and of thoroughly proven worth. Captain Kidd's privateering commission was is- 50 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE sued by the High Court of Admiralty on December 11, 1695, and licensed and authorized him to "set forth in war-like manner in the said ship called the Adventure Galley, under his own command, and therewith, by force of arms, to apprehend, seize, and take the ships, vessels, and goods belonging to the French King and his subjects, or inhabitants within the dominion of the said French King, and such other ships, vessels, and goods as are or shall be liable to confiscation," etc. This document was of the usual tenor, but in ad dition, Captain Kidd was granted a special royal commission, under the Great Seal, which is given herewith because it so intimately concerned the later fortunes of his noble partners : WILLIAM REX. WILLIAM THE THIRD, by the Grace of God, King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc. To our trusty and well beloved Captain WiUiam Kidd, Commander of the ship Adventure Galley, or to any other, the commander of the same for the time being, GREETING: Whereas, we are informed that Captain Thomas Tew, John Ireland, Capt. Thomas Wake, and Capt. William Maze, and other subjects, natives, or inhabitants of New York and elsewhere, in our plantations in America, have associated themselves with divers other wicked and ill- disposed persons, and do, against the law of nations, com mit many and great piracies, robberies, and depredations on the seas upon the parts of America and in other parts, to the great hindrance and discouragement of trade and navigation, and to the great danger and hurt of our loving subjects, our allies, and of all others navigating the seas upon their lawful occasions, NOW, KNOW YE, that we being desirous to prevent CAPTAIN KIDD IN FACT AND FICTION 51 the aforesaid mischief, and as much as in us lies, to bring the said pirates, freebooters, and sea rovers to justice, have thought fit, and do hereby give and grant to the said Robert Kidd (to whom our Commissioners for exercising the office of Lord High Admiral of England have granted a commission as a private man-of-war, bearing date of the llth day of December, 1695), and unto the Commander of the said ship for the time being, and unto the Officers, Mariners, and others which shall be under your command, full power and authority to apprehend, seize, and take into your custody, as well the said Captain Tew, 'John Ireland, Capt. Thomas Wake, and Capt. William Maze, or Mace, and all such pirates, freebooters, and sea rovers, being either our subjects or of other nations associated with them, which you shall meet with upon the seas or coasts of America, or upon any other seas or coasts, with all their ships and vessels, and all such merchandizes, money, goods, and wares as shall be found on board, or with them, in case they shall willingly yield themselves up, but if they will not yield without fighting, then you are by force to compel to yield. And we also require you to bring, or cause to be brought, such pirates, freebooters, or sea rovers as you shall seize, to a legal trial to the end that they may be proceeded against according to the law in such cases. And we do hereby command all our Officers, Ministers, and others our loving subjects whatsoever to be aiding and assisting you in the premises, and we do hereby enjoin you to keep an exact journal of your proceedings in execution of the premises, and set down the names of such pirates and of their officers and company, and the names of such ships and vessels as you shall by virtue of these presents take and seize, and the quantity of arms, ammunition, pro visions, and lading of such ships, and the true value of the same, as near as you judge. And we do hereby strictly charge and command, and you will answer the contrary to your peril, that you do not, in any manner, offend or molest our friends and allies, 52 JTHE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE their ships or subjects, by colour or pretense of these pres ents, or the authority thereof granted. In witness whereof, we have caused our Great Seal of England to be affixed to these presents. Given at our Court in Kensington, the 26th day of January, 1696, in the seventh Year of our Reign. It was privately understood that the King was to receive one-tenth of the proceeds of the voyage, al though this stipulation does not appear in the articles of agreement. By a subsequent grant from the Crown, this understanding was publicly ratified and all money and property taken from pirates, except the King's tenth, was to be made over to the owners of the Adventure Galley, to wit, Bellomont and his partners, and Kidd and Livingston, as they had agreed among themselves. The Adventure Galley, the ship selected for the cruise, was of 287 tons and thirty-four guns, a power ful privateer for her day, which Kjdd fitted out at Plymouth, England. Finding difficulty in recruiting a full crew of mettlesome lads, he sailed from that port for New York in April of 1696, with only seventy hands. While anchored in the Hudson, he increased his company to 155 men, many of them the riff-raff of the water-front, deserters, wastrels, brawlers, and broken seamen who may have sailed under the black flag aforetime. It was a desperate venture, the pay was to be in shares of the booty taken, "no prizes, no money," and sober, respectable sailors looked askance at it. Kidd was impatient to make an oflSng. Livingston and Bellomont were chafing at the delay, and he had to ship what men he could find at short notice. The Adventure Galley cruised first among the West Indies, honestly in quest of "pirates, freeboot- CAPTAIN KIDD IN FACT AND FICTION 53 ers and sea rovers," and not falling in with any of these gentry, Kidd took his departure for the Cape of Good Hope and the Indian Ocean. This was in accordance with his instructions, for in the preamble of the articles of agreement it was stated that ' ' cer tain persons did some time since depart from New England, Ehode Island, New York, and other parts in America and elsewhere with an intention to pyrate and to commit spoyles and depredations in the Eed Sea and elsewhere, and to return with such riches and goods as they should get to certain places by them agreed upon, of which said persons and places the said Captain Kidd hath notice." This long voyage was soundly planned. Madagas car was the most notorious haunt of pirates in the world. Their palm-thatched villages fringed its beaches and the blue harbors sheltered many sail which sallied forth to play havoc with the precious argosies of the English, French, and Dutch East India Companies. Kidd hoped to win both favor and fortune by ridding these populous trade routes of the perils that menaced every honest skipper. When, at length, Madagascar was sighted, the Ad venture Galley was nine months from home, and not a prize had been taken. Kidd was short of pro visions and of money with which to purchase sup plies. His crew was in a grumbling, mutinous tem per, as they rammed their tarry fists into their empty pockets and stared into the empty hold. The captain quieted them with promises of dazzling spoil, and the Adventure Galley vainly skirted the coast, only to find that some of the pirates had got wind of her coming while others were gone a-cruising. From the crew of a wrecked French ship, Kidd took enough gold to buy provisions in a Malabar port. This deed 54 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE was hardly generous, but by virtue of his letters of marque Kidd was authorized to despoil a Frenchman wherever he caught him. After more futile cruising to and fro, Kidd fell from grace and crossed the very tenuous line that divided privateering from piracy in his century. His first unlawful capture was a small native vessel owned by Aden merchants and commanded by one Parker, an Englishman, the mate being a Portu guese. The plunder was no more than a bale or two of pepper and coffee, and a few gold pieces. It was petty larceny committed to quiet a turbulent crew and to pay operating expenses. Parker made loud outcry ashore and a little later Kidd was over taken by a vengeful Portuguese man-of-war off the port of Carawar. The two ships hammered each other with broad-sides and bow-chasers six hours on end, when Kidd went his way with several men wounded. Sundry other small craft were made to stand and deliver after this without harm to their crews, but no treasure was lifted until Kidd ventured to molest the shipping of the Great Mogul. That fabled poten tate of Asia whose empire had been found by Gen ghis Khan and extended by Tamerlane, and whose gorgeous palaces were at Samarcand, had a mighty commerce between the Eed Sea and China, and his rich freights also swelled the business of the Eng lish East India Company. His ships were often convoyed by the English and the Dutch. It was from two of these vessels that Kidd took his treas ure and thus achieved the brief career which rove the halter around his neck. The first of these ships of the Great Mogul he looted and burned, and to the second, the Quedah CAPTAIN KIDD IN FACT AND FICTION 55 Merchant, he transferred his flag after forsaking the leaky, unseaworthy Adventure Galley on the Mada gascar coast. Out of this capture he took almost a half million dollars' worth of gold, jewels, plate, silks, and other precious merchandise of which his crew ran away with by far the greater share, leav ing Kidd with about one hundred thousand dollars in booty. It was charged that while on this coast Kidd amicably consorted with a very notorious pirate named CuUiford, instead of blowing him out of the water as he properly deserved. This was the most damning feature of his indictment, and there is no doubt that he sold CuUiford cannon and munitions and received him in his cabin. On the other hand, Kidd declared that he would have attacked the pirate but he was overpowered by his mutinous crew who caroused with CuUiford 's rogues and were wholly out of hand. And Kidd's story is lent the color of truth by the fact that ninety-five of his men de serted to join the Mocha Frigate of CuUiford and sail with him under the Jolly Eoger. It is fair to assume that if William Kidd had been the success ful pirate he is portrayed, his own rascals would have stayed with him in the Quedah Merchant which was a large and splendidly armed and equipped ship of between four and five hundred tons. Abandoned by two-thirds of his crew, and unable to find trustworthy men to fill their places, Kidd was in sore straits and decided to sail for home and square accounts with Bellomont, trusting to his powerful friends to keep him out of trouble. In the meantime, the Great Mogul and the English East India Company had made vigorous complaint and Kidd was proclaimed a pirate. The royal pardon 56 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE was offered all pirates that should repent of their sins, barring Kidd who was particularly excepted by name. Many a villain whose hands were red with the slaughter of ships' crews was thus of ficially forgiven, while Kidd who had killed no man barring that mutineer, the gunner, William Moore, was hunted in every sea, with a price on his head. On April 1, 1699, after an absence of almost two years, Kidd arrived at Anguilla,* his first port of call in the West Indies, and went ashore to buy pro visions. There he learned, to his consternation, that he had been officially declared a pirate and stood in peril of his life. The people refused to have any dealings with him, and he sailed to St. Thomas, and thence to Curacoa where he was able to get sup phes through the friendship of an English merchant of Antigua, Henry Bolton by name, who was not hampered by scruples or fear of the authorities. Under date of February 3, the Governor of Bar- badoes had written to Mr. Vernon, Secretary of the Lords of the Council of Trade and Plantations in London : "I received Yours of the 23rd. of November in relation to the apprehending your notorious Pyrat Kidd. He has not been heard of in these Seas of late, nor do I believe he will think it safe to venture himself here, where his Villainies are so well known ; but if he does, all the dilligence and application to find him out and seize him shall be used on my part that can be, with the assistance of a heavy, crazy Vessell, miscaUed a Cruizer, that is ordered to at tend upon me." *Anguilla, or Snake Island, is a small island of the Leeward Group of the West Indies, considerably east of Porto Rico, and near St. Martin. It belongs to England. CAPTAIN KIDD IN FACT AND FICTION 57 The first news of Kidd was received from the of ficials of the island of Nevis who wrote Secretary Vernon on May 18, 1699, as follows: Tour letter of 23rd, November last in relation to that notorious Pirate Capt. Kidd came safe to our hands . . . have sent copies thereof to the Lieut, or Deputy Governor of each respective island under this Government: since which we have had this following acct. of the said Kidd : That he lately eame from Mallagascoe,^ in a large Gen- nowese vessell of about foure hundred Tons; Thirty Guns mounted and eighty men. And in his way from those partes his men mutiny 'd and thirty of them lost their lives : That his Vessell is very leaky ; and that several of his men have deserted him soe that he has not above five and twenty or thirty hands on board. About twenty days since he landed at Anguilla . . . where he tarry 'd about foure hours ; but being refused Succour sailed thence for the Island of St. Thomas . . . and anchored off that harbour three dayes, in which time he treated with them alsoe for relief ; but the Governor absolutely Denying him, he bore away further to Leeward (as tis believ'd) for Porto Rico or Crabb Island. Upon which advice We forthwith ordered his Majestic 's Ship Queenslorough, now attending this Government, Capt. Rupert Billingsly, Com mander, to make the best of his way after him. And in case he met with his men, vessell and effects, to bring them upp hither. That no Imbezzlem't may be made, but that they may be secured until we have given you advice thereof, and his Majestic 's pleasure relating thereto can be knowne, we shall by the first conveyance transmitt ye like account of him to the Governor of Jamaica. So that if he goes far ther to Leeward due care may be taken to secure him there. As for those men who have, deserted him, we have taken all possible care to apprehend them, especially if they come within the districts of this Government, and 5 Madagascar. 58 THE BOOK OP BURIED TREASURE hope on return of his Majestic 's frigate we shall be able to give you a more ample acct. hereof. "We are with all due Respect: Rt. Hon 'ble, Your Most Obedt. Humble Servants. Kidd dodged all this hue and cry and was mightily anxious to get in touch with Bellomont without loss of time. He bought at Curacoa, through the ac commodating Henry Bolton, a Yankee sloop called the San Antonio and transferred his treasure and part of his crew to her. The Quedah Merchant he convoyed as far as Hispaniola, now San Domingo, and hid her in a small harbor with considerable cargo, in charge of a handful of his men under di rection of Bolton. Then warily and of an uneasy mind. Captain Kidd steered his sloop for the American coast and first touched at the fishing hamlet of Lewes at the mouth of Delaware Bay. All legend to the contrary, he made no calls along the Carolinas and Virginia to bury treasure. The testimony of Kidd's crew and passengers cannot be demolished on this score, be sides which he expected to come to terms with Bello mont and adjust his affairs within the law, so there was no sane reason for his stopping to hide his valuables. The first episode that smacks in the least of buried treasure occurred while the sloop was anchored off Lewes. There had come from the East Indies as a passenger one James GiUam, pirate by profession, and he wished no deaUngs with the authorities. He therefore sent ashore in Delaware Bay his sea chest which we may presume contained his private store of stolen gold. Gillam and his chest bob up in the letters of Bellomont, but for the present let this CAPTAIN KIDD IN FACT AND FICTION 59 reference suffice, as covered by the statement of Edward Davis of London, mariner, made during the proceedings against Kidd in Boston: That in or about the month of November, 1697, the Examinant came Boatswain of the ship Fidelia, Tempest Rogers, Commander, bound on a trading voyage for India, and in the month of July following arrived at the Island of Madagascar and after having been there about five weeks the Ship sailed thence and left this Examinant in the Island, and being desirous to get off, enter 'd himself on board the Ship whereof Capt. Kidd was Commander to worke for his passage, and accordingly came with him in the sd. Ship to Hispaniola, and from thence in the Sloop Anto7iio to this place. And that upon their arrival at the Hoor Kills, in Delaware Bay, there was a chest belonging to one James Gillam put ashore there and at Gard 'ner 's Island, there was several chests and packages put out of Capt. Kidd's Sloop into a Sloop belonging to New Yorke. He knows not the quantity, nor anything sent on Shore at the sd. Island nor doth he know that anything was put on Shore at any Island or place in this Country, only two Guns of . . . weight apeace or thereabout at Block Island. Signed, (his mark) Edward (E* D.) Davis. In Delaware Bay Kidd bought stores, and five of the people of Lewes were thrown into jail by the Pennsylvania authorities for having traded with him. Thence he sailed for Long Island Sound, entered it from the eastward end, and made for New York, cautiously anchoring in Oyster Bay, nowadays sed ulously avoided by malefactor? of great wealth. It was his purpose to open negotiations with Bello mont at long range, holding his treasure as an in ducement for a pardon. From Oyster Bay he sent 60 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE a letter to a lawyer in New York, James Emmot who had before then defended pirates, and also a message to his wife. Emmot was asked to serve as a go-between, and he hastened to join Kidd on the sloop, explaining that Bellomont was in Boston. Thereupon the Antonio weighed anchor and sailed westward as far as Narragansett Bay where Em mot landed and went overland to find Bellomont. CHAPTEE III CAPTAIN KIDD, HIS TREASURE ^ "Tou captains brave and bold, hear our cries, hear our cries. You captains brave and bold, hear our cries. You captains brave and bold, though you seem uncontrolled. Don't for the sake of gold lose your souls, lose your souls, Don't for the sake of gold lose your souls." {From the old Kidd ballad.) The negotiations between Kidd and the Earl of Bellomont were no more creditable to the royal governor than to the alleged pirate. Already the noble partners in England were bombarded with awkward questions concerning the luckless enter prise, and Bellomont, anxious to clear himself and his friends, was for getting hold of Kidd and putting him in Boston jail at the earliest possible moment. He dared not reveal the true status of affairs to Kidd by means of correspondence lest that wary bird escape him, and he therefore tried to coax him nearer in a letter sent back in care of Emmot, that experienced legal adviser of pirates in distress. This letter of Bellomont was dated June 19, 1699, and had this to say : iMr. F. L. Gay of Boston very kindly gave the author the use of his valuable collection of documentary material concerning Cap tain Kidd, some of which is contained in this chapter. In addition, the author consulted many of the original documents among the state papers in the Public Eecord Office, London. 61 62 THE BOOK OP BURIED TREASURE Captain Kidd: Mr. Emmot eame to me last Tuesday night late, telling me he came from you, but was shy of telling me where he parted with you, nor did I press him to it. He told me you came to Oyster Bay in Nassau Island and sent for him to New York. He proposed to me from you that I would grant you a pardon. I answered that I had never granted one yet, and that I had set myself a safe rule not to grant a pardon to anybody whatsoever without the King's express leave or command. He told me you de clared and protested your innocence, and that if your men could be persuaded to follow your example, you would make no manner of scruple of coming to this port or any other within her Majestic 's Dominions; that you owned there were two ships taken but that your men did it vio lently against your will and had us'd you barbarously in imprisoning you and treating you ill most part of the Voyage, and often attempting to murder you. Mr. Emmot delivered me two French passes taken on board the two ships which your men rifled, which passes I have in my custody and I am apt to believe they will be a good Article to justifie you if the peace were not, by the Treaty between England and Prance, to operate in that part of the world at the time the hostility was committed, as I almost confident it was not to do! Mr. Emmot also told me that you had to about the value of 10,000 pounds in the Sloop with you, and that you had left a Ship somewhere off the coast of Hispaniola in which there was to the Value of 30,000 pounds more which you had left in safe hands and had promised to go to your people in that Ship within three months to fetch them with you to a safe harbour. These are all the material particulars I can recollect that passed between Mr. Emmot and me, only this, that you showed a great sense of Honour and Justice in professing with many asseverations your settled and serious design all along to do honor to your Commission and never to do the least thing contrary to your duty and allegiance to the CAPTAIN KIDD, HIS TREASURE 63 King. And this I have to say in your defense that several persons at New York who I can bring to evidence it, if there be occasion, did tell me that by several advices from Madagascar and that part of the world, they were in formed of your men revolting from you in one place, which I am pretty sure they said was at Madagascar ; and that others of them compelled you much against your will to take and rifle two Ships. I have advised with his Majesty's Council and showed them this letter this afternoon, and they are of opinion that if your case be so clear as you (or Mr. Emmot for you) have said, that you may safely come hither, and be equipped and fitted out to go and fetch the other Ship, and I make no manner of doubt but to obtain the King's pardon for you and those few men you have left, who I understand have been faithful to you and refused as well as you to dishonor the Commission you had from England. I assure you on my word and on my honor I will per- forme nicely what I have now promised, tho' this I declare before hand that whatever treasure of goods you bring hither, I will not meddle with the least bit of them, but they shall be left with such trusty persons as the Council will advise until I receive orders from England how they shall be disposed of. Mr. Campbell will satisfie you that this that I have now written is the Sense of the Council and of Your Humble Servant. (Not signed but endorsed, "A true copy, Bellomont.") These were fair words but not as sincere as might have been. Governor Bellomont was anxious to lay hands on Kidd by fair means or foul, and in the light of subsequent events this letter appears as a disingenuous decoy. It was carried back to Narra gansett Bay by Emmot, and with him BeUomont sent one Duncan Campbell, postmaster of Boston, 64 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE as an authorized agent to advance the negotiations. Campbell was a Scotchman who had been a friend of Kidd. He is mentioned in John Dunton's "Letter Written from New England, A. D. 1686." "I rambled to the Scotch book-seller, one Camp bell. He is a brisk young fellow that dresses All-a- mode, and sets himself off to the best Advantage, and yet thrives apace. I am told (and for his sake I wish it may be true) that a Young Lady of Great Fortune has married him." In reply to Bellomont's letter, thus delivered, Cap tain Kidd replied as follows : From Block Island Road, on Board the Sloop St. Antonio, June 24th, 1699. May It please your Excellencie: I am hon'rd with your Lordship's kind letter of ye 19th., Current by Mr. Campbell which came to my hands this day, for which I return my most hearty thanks. I cannot but blame myself for not writing to your Lordship before this time, knowing it was my duty, but the clam orous and false stories that has been reported of me made me fearful of writing or coming into any harbor till I could hear from your Lordship. I note the contents of your Lordship's letter as to what Mr. Emmot and Mr. Campbell Informed your Lordship of my proceedings. I do affirm it to be true, and a great deal more may be said of the abuses of my men and the hardships I have undergone to preserve the Ship and what goods my men had left. Ninety-five men went away from me in one day and went on board the Moca Frigott, Captain Robert CuUifer, Commander, who went away to the Red Seas and committed several acts of pyracy as I am informed, and am afraid that because of the men formerly belong ing to my Galley, the report is gone home against me to the Bast India Companee, CAPTAIN KIDD, HIS TREASURE 65 A Sheet of paper will not contain what may be said of the care I took to preserve the Owners' interest and to come home to clear up my own Innocency. I do fur ther declare and protest that I never did in the least act Contrary to the King's Commission, nor to the Reputa tion of my honorable Owners, and doubt not but I shall be able to make my Innocency appear, or else I had no need to come to these parts of the world, if it were not for that, and my owners' Interest. There is five or six passengers that came from Madagas car to assist me in bringing the Ship home, and about ten of my own men that came with me would not venture to go into Boston till Mr. Campbell had Ingaged body for body for them that they should not be molested while I staid at Boston, or till I returned with the ship. I doubt not but your Lordship will write to England in my favor and for these few men that are left. I wish your Lord ship would persuade Mr. Campbell to go home to Eng land with your Lordship 's letters, who will be able to give account of our affairs and diligently forward the same that there may be speedy answer from England. I desired Mr. Campbell to buy a thousand weight of rigging for the fitting of the Ship, to bring her to Boston, that I may not be delay 'd when I come there. Upon re ceiving your Lordship's letter I am making the best of my way for Boston. This with my humble duty to your Lordship and the Countess is what offers from. My Lord, Your Excellency's Most humble and dutyfull Servant, Wm. Kidd. Notwithstanding these expressions of confidence, Kidd suspected Bellomont's intentions and decided to leave his treasure in safe hands instead of carrying it to Boston with him. Now follows the documentary narrative of the only authenticated buried treasure of Captain Kidd and the proofs that he had no other 66 THE BOOK OP BURIED TREASURE booty of any account. At the eastern end of Long Island Sound is a beautiful wooded island of three thousand acres which has been owned by the Gardi ner family as a manor since the first of them, Lionel Gardiner, obtained a royal grant almost three cen turies ago. In June of 1699, John Gardiner, third of the line of proprietors, sighted a strange sloop anchored in his island harbor, and rowed out to make the acquaintance of Captain William Kidd who had crossed from Narragansett Bay in the San Antonio. What happened between them and how the treasure was buried and dug up is told in the official testimony of John Gardiner, dated July 17th, 1699. "the narrative of JOHN GARD (l) NER OP GARD (l) NER IS LAND, ALIAS ISLE OF WIGHT, RELATING TO CAPTAIN WILLIAM KIDD. That about twenty days ago Mr. Emmot of New York came to the Narrator's house and desired a boat to go to New York, telling the Narrator he came from my Lord at Boston, whereupon the Narrator furnished Mr. Emmot with a boat and he went for New York. And that evening the Narrator saw a Sloop with six guns riding an Anchor off Gardiner's Island and two days afterwards in the evening the Narrator went on board said Sloop to enquire what she was. And so soon as he came on board, Capt. Kidd (then unknown to the Narrator) asked him how himself and family did, telling him that he, the said Kidd, was going to my Lord at Boston, and desired the Narrator to carry three Negroes, two boys and a girl ashore to keep till he, the said Kidd, or his order should call for them, which the Narrator accordingly did. That about two hours after the Narrator had got the said Negroes ashore, Capt. Kidd sent his boat ashore with two bales of goods and a Negro boy; and the morning CAPTAIN KIDD, HIS TREASURE 67, after, the said Kidd desired the Narrator to come imme diately on board and bring six Sheep with him for his voyage for Boston, which the Narrator did. Kidd asked him to spare a barrel of Cyder, which the Narrator with great importunity consented to, and sent two of his men for it, who brought the Cyder on board said Sloop. Whilst the men were gone for the Cyder, Capt. Kidd offered the Narrator several pieces of damnified ^ Muslin and Bengali as a present to his Wife, which the said Kidd put in a bagg and gave the Narrator. And about a quarter of an hour afterwards the said Kidd took up two or three (more) pieces of damnified Muslin and gave the Narrator for his proper use. And the Narrator's men then coming on board with the said barrel of Cyder as aforesaid, Kidd gave them a piece of Arabian gold for their trouble and also for bring ing him word. Then the said Kidd, ready to sail, told this Narrator he would pay him for the Cyder, to which the Narrator answered that he was already satisfied for it by the Present made to his wife. And it was observed that some of Kidd's men gave to the Narrator's men some inconsiderable things of small value which were Muslins for neck-cloths. And then the Narrator tooke leave of the said Kidd and went ashore and at parting the said Kidd fired four guns and stood for Block Island. About three days afterwards, said Kidd sent the Master of the Sloop and one Clark in his boat for the Narrator who went on board with them, and the said Kidd desired him to take ashore with him and keep for him a Chest and a box of Gold and a bundle of Quilts and four bales of Goods, which box of Gold the said Kidd told the Narrator was intended for my Lord. And the Narrator complied with the request and took on Shore the said Chest, box of Gold, quilts and bales of goods. And the Narrator further saith that two of Kidd's crew 2 Damaged. 68 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE who went by the names of Cooke and Parrat delivered to him, the Narrator, two baggs of Silver which they said weighed thirty pound weight, for which he gave receipt. And that another of Kidd's men delivered to the Nar rator a small bundle of gold and gold dust of about a pound weight to keep for him, and did present the Nar rator with a sash and a pair of wortsed stockins. And just before the Sloop sailed, Capt. Kidd presented the Narrator with a bagg of Sugar, and then took leave and sailed for Boston. And the Narrator further saith he knew nothing of Kidd's being proclaimed a Pyrate, and if he had, he durst not have acted otherwise than he had done, having no force to oppose them and for that he hath formerly been threatened to be killed by Privateers if he should carry unkindly to them. The within named Narrator further saith that while Capt. Kidd lay with his Sloop at Gardner's Island, there was a New York Sloop whereof one Coster is master, and his mate was a little black man, unknown by name, who as it is was said, had been formerly Capt. Kidd's quarter master, and another Sloop belonging to New Yorke, Jacob Fenick, Master, both which lay near to Kidd's Sloop three days together. And whilst the Narrator was on board with Capt. Kidd, there was several bales of Goods put on board the other two Sloops aforesaid, and the said two Sloops sailed up the Sound. After which Kidd sailed with his sloop for Block Island; and being absent by the space of three days, returned to Gardner's Island again in Com pany of another Sloop belonging to New York, Cornelius Quick, Master, on board of which were one Thomas Clarke of Setauket, commonly called Whisking Clarke, and one Harrison of Jamaica, father to a boy that was with Capt. Kidd, and Capt. Kidd's Wife was then on board his own Sloop. And Quick remained with his Sloop there from noon to the evening of the same day, and took on board two Chests that came out of Kidd's Sloop, under the observance y //2 /2.^3,„,y^^^^'* jf^/^)(jA; ¦"'¦"¦Ci -r- > I '^J:- .^•' ,1-1 J^'^c?^^.^^^.^^.^^ John Gardiner's sworn statement of the goods and treasure left with him by Kidd. .*« ¦y.^yv/- . ^^99 ' "\ 'i^m^^^ ^i3 t7c^^^i'%. Governor Bellomont's endorsement of the oificial inventory of Kidd's treasure found on Gardiner's Island. CAPTAIN KIDD, HIS TREASURE 69 of this Narrator, and he believes several Goods more and then Sailed up the Sound. Kidd remained there with his Sloop until next morning, and then set sail intending, as he said, for Boston. Further the Narrator saith that the next day after Quick sailed with his Sloop from Gardner's Island he saw him turning out of a Bay called Oyster Pan Bay, altho' the wind was all the time fair to carry him up the Sound. The Narrator supposes he went in thither to land some Goods. John Gardiner. Boston, July 17th, 1699. The Narrator, John Gardiner, under Oath before his Excellency and Council unto the truth of his Narrative in this sheet of paper. Addinqton, Sec'ry." This artless recital has every earmark of truth, and it was confirmed in detail by other witnesses and later events. Before we fall to digging up the treas ure of Gardiner's Island, carried ashore in the "Chest and box of Gold," it is well to follow those other goods which were carried away in the sloops about which so much has been said by John Gardi ner. No more is heard of that alluring figure, "the Uttle black man, unknown by name, who as it was said had been formerly Capt. Kidd's Quarter-Mas ter," but "Whisking" Clarke was duly overhauled. All of the plunder transferred from Kidd's sloop to those other craft was consigned to him, and some of it was put ashore at Stamford, Conn., in charge of a Major Sellick who had a warehouse hard by the Sound. Clarke was arrested by order of Bellomont and gave a bond of £12,000 that he would deliver up all to the government. This he did, without doubt, but legend has been busy with this enterpris ing "Whisking" Clarke. 70 (THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE In the Connecticut River off the "upper end of Pine Meadow," near Northfield, Mass., is Clarke's Island which was granted by the town to William Clarke in 1686, and confirmed to his heirs in 1723. It then contained ten and three-fourth acres, and was a secluded spot, well covered with trees. Later, what with cutting off the woods and the work of the freshets, a large part of the island was washed away. It was here, tradition has it, that some of Kidd's treasure was hidden by "Whisking" Clarke. The local story is that Kidd and his men ascended the river, though how they got over the series of falls is not explained, and made a landing at Clarke's Island. Here, having placed the chest in a hole, they sacrificed by lot one of their number and laid his body on top of the treasure in order that his ghost might forever defend it from fortune-seekers. One Abner Field, after consulting a conjurer who showed him precisely where the chest was buried, resolved to risk a tussle with the pirate's ghost, and with two friends waited in fear and trembling for the auspicious time when the moon should be directly overhead at midnight. They were to work in silence, and to pray that no cock should crow within earshot and break the spell. At length, one of them raised his crow-bar for a mighty stroke, down it went, and clinked against metal. "You've hit it," cried another, and, alas, instantly the chest sank out of reach, and the ghost appeared, and very angry it was. A moment later, the devil himself popped from under the bank, ripped across the island like a tornado and plunged into the river with a prodigious, hissing splash. The treasure hunters flew for home, and told their tale, but viUage rumor whispered it about that one CAPTAIN KIDD, HIS TREASURE 71 Oliver Smith and a confederate had impersonated the ghost and the energetic Evil One. On October 20, 1699, Bellomont wrote in a letter to England: "I have prevailed with Governor Winthrop of Connecticut to seize and send Thomas Clarke of N. York prisoner hither. He has been on board Kidd's sloop at the east end of Long Island and carried off to the value of about 5000 pounds in goods and treasure (that we know of and perhaps a great deal more) into Connecticut Colony; and thinking him self safe from under our power, writ my Lt. Gov ernor of New York a very saucy letter and bade us defiance. I have ordered him to be safely kept pris oner in the fort, because the gaol of New York is weak and insufficient. And when orders come to me to send Kidd and his men to England (which I long for impatiently), I will also send Clarke ^ as an associate of Kidd." Three days later, the Lieutenant Governor of New York wrote Bellomont as follows : "Clarke proffers 12,000 pounds good Security and will on oath deliver up all the goods he hath been entrusted with from Kidd, provided he may go and fetch them himself, but says he will rather die or be undone than to bring his friends into a Predicament. I told him if he would let me know where I might secure these goods or Bullion, I would recommend his case to your Lordship's fa vour. He answered 'twas impossible to recover anything until he went himself." » Clarke managed to clear himself and thia threat was not carried out. 72 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE After leaving the bulk of his treasure on Gardi ner's Island, Kidd received another friendly mes sage from Lord Bellomont, and was by now per suaded that he could go to Boston without danger. With his wife on board his sloop, and she stood by him staunchly, he laid a course around Cape Cod and made port on the first day of July. Captain and Mrs. William Kidd found lodgings in the house of their friend, Duncan Campbell, and he walked unmo lested for a week, passing some of the time in the Blue Anchor tavern. "Being a very resolute fel low," wrote Hutchinson, "when the officer arrested him in his lodgings, he attempted to draw his sword, but a young gentleman who accompanied the officer, laying hold of his arm, prevented him and he sub mitted. ' ' In the letters of Lord Bellomont to the Lords of Plantations and Colonies are fully related the par ticulars of Kidd's downfall and of the finding of his treasure. On July 26th, he stated: "My Lords: "I gave your Lordships a short account of my taking Capt. Kidd in my letter of the 8th. Inst. I shall in this letter confine myself wholly to an ac count of my proceedings with him. On the 13th, of last month Mr. Emmot, a lawyer of N. York came to me late at night and told me he came from Capt. Kidd who was on the Coast with a Sloop, but would not tell me where ; that Kidd had brought 60 pounds weight of gold, about 100 weight of silver, and 17 bales of East India goods (which was less by 24 bales than we have since got out of the sloop) . That Kidd had left behind him a great Ship near the coast CAPTAIN KIDD, HIS TREASURE 73 of Hispaniola that nobody but himself could find out, on board whereof there were in bale goods, saltpetre, and other things to the value of at least 30,000 pounds. That if I would give him a pardon, he would bring in the sloop and goods hither and fetch his great ship and goods afterwards. "Mr. Emmot delivered me that night two French passes which Kidd took on board the two Moors' ships which were taken by him in the seas of India (or as he alleged by his men against his will). One of the passes wants a date in the original as in the copy I sent your Lordships, and they go (No. 1) and (No. 2). On the said 19th. of June as I sat in Coun cil I wrote a letter to Capt. Kidd and showed it to the Council, and they approving of it I despatched Mr. Campbell again to Kidd with my said letter, a copy whereof goes (No. 4). Your Lordships may observe that the promise I made Capt. Kidd in my said letter of a kind reception and procuring the King's pardon for him, is conditional, that is, pro vided he were as Innocent as he pretended to be. But I quickly found sufficient cause to suspect him very guilty, by the many lies and contradictions he told me. "I was so much upon my guard with Kidd that he arriving here on Saturday of this month, I would not see him but before witnesses; nor have I ever seen him but in Council twice or thrice that we ex amined him, and the day he was taken up by the Con stable. It happened to be by the door of my Lodg ing, and he rush'd in and came rushing to me, the Constable after him. I had him not seiz'd till Thursday, the 6th Inst, for I had a mind to discover where he had left the great Ship, and I thought my self secure enough from his running away because 74 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE I took care not to give him the least umbrage or design of seizing him. Nor had I till that day (that I produced my orders from Court for apprehend ing) communicated them to anybody and I found it necessary to show my order to the Council to ani mate them to join heartily with me in securing Kidd and examining his affairs nicely,* . , . discover what we could of his behaviour in his whole voyage. Another reason why I took him up no sooner was that he had brought his wife and children hither in his Sloop with him who I believ'd he would not easily forsake. "He being examined twice or thrice by me and the Council, and also some of his men, I observ'd he seemed much disturb 'd, and the last time we exam ined him I fancied he looked as if he were upon the wing and resolved to run away. And the Gentle men of the Council had some of them the same thought with mine, so that I took their consent in seizing and committing him. But the officers ap pointed to seize his men were so careless as to let three or four of his men escape which troubled me the more because they were old N. York Pyrates. The next thing the Council and I did was to appoint a Committee of trusty persons to search for the goods and treasure brought by Kidd and to secure what they should find tiU the King's pleasure should be known as to the disposition thereof, as my orders from Mr. Secretary Vernon import. The said Com mittee were made up of two Gentlemen of the Coun cil, two merchants, and the Deputy CoUector, whose names are to the enclosed Inventory of the goods and treasure. "They search 'd Kidd's lodgings and found hid and *Ms. torn. CAPTAIN KIDD, HIS TREASURE 75 made up in two sea beds a bag of gold dust and In gots of the value of about 1000 pounds and a bag of sUver, part money and part pieces and piggs of sil ver, value as set down in the said Inventory. In the above bag of gold were several little bags of gold; all particulars are very justly and exactly set down in the Inventory. For my part I have med dled with no matter of thing under the management of the Council, and into the Custody of the aforemen tioned Committee, that I might be free from the sus picion and censure of the world. "The enamel 'd box mentioned in the beginning of the Inventory is that which Kidd made a present of to my wife by Mr. Campbell, which I deliver 'd in Council to the said Committee to keep with the rest of the treasure. There was in it a stone ring which we take to be a Bristol stone. If it was true ^ it would be worth about 40 pounds, and there was a small stone unset which we believe is also counter feit, and a sort of a Locket with four sparks which seem to be right diamonds: for there's nobody that understands Jewels ® . . . box and all that's in it were right, they cannot be worth above 60 pounds. "Your Lordships will see in the middle of the In ventory a parcel of treasure and Jewels delivered up by Mr. Gardiner of Gardiner's Island in the province of New York and at the East end of Nas sau Island, the recovery and saving of which treas ure is owing to my own care and quickness. I heard by the greatest accident in the world the day Capt. Edd was committed, that a man ^ . . . offered 30 pounds for a sloop to carry him to Gardiner's Island, and Kidd having owned to burying some gold on that Island (though he never mentioned to 5 Genuine. *Ma. torn. 76 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE us any jewels nor do I believe he would have own'd to the gold there but that he thought he should him self be sent for it), I privately posted away a mes senger to Mr. Gardiner in the King's name to come forthwith and deliver up such treasure as Kidd or any of his crew had lodg'd with him, acquainting him that I had committed Kidd to Gaol as I was or dered to do by the King. "My messenger made great haste and was with Gardiner before anybody, and Gardiner, who is a very substantial man, brought away the treasure without delay ; and by my direction deliver 'd it into the hands of the Committee. If the Jewels be right, as 'tis suppos 'd they are, but I never saw them nor the gold and silver brought by Gardiner, then we guess that the parcel brought by him may be worth (gold, silver, and Jewels) 4500 pounds. And be sides Kidd had left six bales of goods with him, one of which was twice as big as any of the rest, and Kidd gave him a particular charge of that bale and told him 'twas worth 2000 pounds. The six bales Gardiner could not bring, but I have ordered him to send 'em by a Sloop that is since gone from hence to N. York, and which is to return speedily. "We are not able to set an exact value on the goods and treasure we have got because we have not open'd the bales we took on board the (Kidd's) sloop, but we hope when the six bales are sent in by Gardiner, what will be in the hands of the Gentlemen appointed to that trust will amount to about 14,000 pounds. "I have sent strict orders to my Lt. Governor at N. York to make diligent search for the goods and treasure sent by Kidd to N. York in three Sloops mentioned in Gardiner's affidavit.'^ ... I have ' Ms. torn. CAPTAIN KIDD, HIS TREASURE 77 directed him where to find a purchase ^ in a house in N. York which I am apt to believe will be found in that house. I have sent to search elsewhere a cer tain place strongly suspected to have received an other deposition of gold from Kidd. "I am also upon the hunt after two or three Arch- Pyrates which I hope to give your Lordships a good account of by the next conveyance. If I could have but a good able Judge and Attorney General at N. York, a man-of-war there and another here, and the companies recruited and well paid, I will rout Pyrates and pyracy entirely out of this North part of America, but as I have too often told your Lord ships 'tis impossible for me to do all this alone in my single person. "I wrote your Lordships in my last letter of the 8th. Inst, that Bradish, the Pyrate, and one of his crew were escap'd out of the gaol in this town. We have since found that the Gaoler was Bradish 's kinsman, and the Gaoler confess 'd they went out at the prison door and that he found it wide open. We had all the reason in the world to believe the Gaoler was consenting to the escape. By much ado I could get the Council to resent the Gaoler's be havior, and by my Importunity I had the feUow be fore us. We examin'd him, and by his own story and account given us of his suffering other prison ers formerly to escape, I prevail 'd to have him turn'd out and a prosecution order 'd against him to the Attorney Gen'l. I have also with some dif ficulty this last session of Assembly here, got a bill to pass that the Gaol be committed to the care of the High Sheriff of the County, as in England with a salary of 30 pounds paid to the said Sheriff. 8 Prize, or plunder. 78 THE BOOK OP BURIED TREASURE "I am forced to allow the Sheriff 40 Shillings per week for keeping Kidd safe. Otherwise I should be in some doubt about him. He has without doubt a great deal of gold, which is apt to corrupt men that have not principles of honour. I have there fore, to try the power of Iron against Gold, put him into irons that weigh 16 pounds. I thought it moderate enough, for I remember poor Dr. Oates ^ had a 100 weight of Iron on him while he was a prisoner in the late reign. "There never was a greater liar or thief in the world than this Kidd; nothwithstanding he assured the Council and me every time we examined him that the great Ship and her cargo awaited his re turn to bring her hither, and now your Lordships will see by the several informations of Masters of Ships from Curacoa that the cargo has been sold there, and in one of them 'tis said they have burnt that noble ship. And without doubt, it was by Kidd's order, that the ship might not be an evidence against him, for he would not own to us that her name was the Quedah Merchant, tho' his men did. "Andres . . ." eyne and two more brought the first news to New York of the sale of that cargo at Curacoa, nor was ever such pennyworths heard for cheapness. Captain Evertz is he who has brought the news of the ship's being burnt. She was about 500 tons, and Kidd told us at Council that never was there a stronger or stauncher ship seen. His lying had like to have involved me in a contract that would have been very chargeable and 9 Titus Oates, the notorious informer, who revealed an alleged "Papist plot" to massacre the English Protestants in the reign of Charles II. He was later denounced, pilloried, and publicly flogged within an inch of his life. 10 Ms. torn. CAPTAIN KIDD, HIS TREASURE 79 to no manner of purpose. I was advised by the Council to dispatch a Ship of good condition to go and fetch away that ship and cargo. I had agreed for a ship of 300 tons, 22 guns, and I was to man her with 60 men to force (if there had been need of it) the men to yield who were left with the ship. "I was just going to seal the writing, when I be thought myself 'twere best to press Kidd once more to tell me the truth. I therefore sent to him two gentlemen of the Council to the gaol, and he at last own'd that he had left a power (of attorney) with one Henry Bolton, a Merchant of Antigua, to whom he had committed the care of the ship, to sell and dispose of all the cargo. Upon which confession of Kidd's I held my hand from hiring that great ship which would have cost 1700 pounds by computation, and now to-morrow I send the sloop Kidd came in with letters to the Lieut. Govn'r of Antigua, Col. Yoemans, and to the Governors of St. Thomas Is land and Curacoa to seize and secure what effects they can that were late in the possession of Kidd and on board the Quedah Merchant. "There is one Burt, an Englishman, that lives at St. Thomas, who has got a great store of the goods and money for Kidd's account. St. Thomas belongs to the Danes, but I hope to retrieve what Burt has in his hands. The sending this Sloop will cost but about 300 pounds, if she be out three months. I hope your Lordships will take care that immediate orders wUl be sent to Antigua to secure Bolton who must have played the Knave egregiously, for he could not but know that Kidd came knavishly by the ship and goods. " 'Tis reported that the Dutch at Curacoa have loaded three sloops with goods and sent them to 80 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE Holland. Perhaps 'twere not amiss to send and watch their arrival in Holland, if it be practicable to lay claim to 'em there. ' ' Since my commitment of Kidd, I heard that upon his approach to this port, his heart misgave him and he proposed to his men putting out to sea again, and going to Caledonia, the new Scotch settlement near Darien, but they refused. I desire I may have orders what to do with Kidd and all his and Brad ish 's crew, for as the Law stands in this Country, if a Pyrate were convicted, yet he cannot suffer death ; and the Council here refused the bill to pun ish Privateers and Pyrates, which your Lordships sent with me from England with a direction to recommend it at N. York and here, to be passed into a Law. . . . "You will observe by some of the information I now send that Kidd did not only rob the two Moors' ships, but also a Portuguese ship, which he denied absolutely to the Council and me. I send your Lordships 24 several papers and evidences relating to Capt. Kidd. 'Tis impossible for me to animad vert and make remarks on the several matters con tain 'd in the said papers in the weak condition I am at present. . . . " My Lord Bellomont was in the grip of the gout at this time, which misfortune perhaps increased his irritation toward his partner. Captain William Kidd. In a previous letter to the authorities in Lon don, this royal governor had explained quite frankly that he was trying to lure the troublesome pirate into his clutches, and called Emmot, the lawyer, "a cunning Jacobite, a fast friend of Fletcher's" 11 Lieutenant-governor at New York, CAPTAIN KIDD, HIS TREASURE 81 and my avowed enemie." He also made this inter esting statement: "I must not forget to tell your Lordships that CampbeU brought three or four small Jewels to my Wife which I was to know nothing of, but she came quickly and discover 'd them to me and asked me whether she would keep them, which I advised her to do for the present, for I reflected that my show ing an over nicety might do hurt before I had made a full discovery what goods and treasure were in the Sloop. . . . "Mr. Livingston also came to me in a peremptory manner and demanded up his Bond and the articles which he seal'd to me upon ICidd's Expedition, and told me that Kidd swore all the Oaths in the world that unless I did immediately indemnify Mr. Liv ingston by giving up his Securities, he would never bring in that great ship and cargo. I thought this was such an Impertinence in both Kidd and Living ston that it was time for me to look about me, and to secure Kidd. I had noticed that he design 'd my wife a thousand pounds in gold dust and Ingotts last Thursday, but I spoil 'd his compliment by ordering him to be arrested and committed that day, showing the Council's orders from Court for that purpose. . . . "If I had kept Mr. Secretary Vernon's orders for seizing and securing Kidd and his associates with all their effects with less secrecy, I had never got him to come in, for his countrymen, Mr. Graham and Livingston, would have been sure to caution him to shift for himself and would have been well paid for their pains." 82 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE One by one, Kidd's plans for clearing himself were knocked into a cocked hat. His lawyer did him no good, his hope of bribing the Countess of Bellomont with jewels, "gold dust and Ingotts" went wrong, and his buried treasure of Gardiner's Island was dug up and confiscated by officers of the Crown. It is regrettable that history, by one of its curious omissions, tells us no more about this titled lady. Did Kidd have reason to suppose that she would take his gifts and try to befriend him? When he was in high favor she may, perchance, have admired this dashing shipmaster and privateer as he spun his adventurous yarns in the Governor's mansion. He may have jestingly promised to fetch her home jewels and rich silk stuffs of the Indies filched from pirates. At any rate, she was not to be bought over, and Kidd sat in jail anchored by those sixteen-pound irons, and biting his nails in sullen wrath and disappointment, while a messenger was posting to Gardiner's Island with this order from Bellomont to the proprietor : Boston in New England, 8th July, 1699. . , Mr. Gardiner: Having received the King's express Orders for Seizing and Securing the body of Capt. Kidd and all his asso ciates together with all their effects till I should receive his Majesty's Royal pleasure how to dispose of the same, I have accordingly secured Capt. Kidd in the Gaol of this Town and some of his men. He has been examined by myself and the Council and has confessed among other things that he left with you a parcel of gold made up in a box and some other parcels besides, all of which I re quire you in his Majesty's name immediately to fetch hither to me, that I may secure them for bis Majesty's nflicial inventory of the Kidd treasure fmuid on Gardiner's Is lielongins to Captain Kidd. (From the British »\- - «. 4 ^ c ^ .* -- ^ .1 ¦ sS ¦ '*3> ' Is t ^ '^'^1 -^ '~ ¦'¦a ¦¦^.: . , .. > ? ^,£e., Sj.e;:.. ..^iY^.^t- ^^ cn. ^,^„^ ^»A«<-4^.,#?^ CAPTAIN KIDD, HIS TREASURE 85 Received the 17th. instant of Mr. John Gardiner. No. 1. One Bag dust Gold. 2. One Bag Coyned Gold and in it silver. 3. One p'cl dust Gold. 4. One Bag three Silver Rings and Sundry precious stones. One bag of unpolished Stones. One ps. of Cristol and Bazer Stone, Two Cornelion Rings, two small Agats. Two Amathests all in the same Bag. 5. One Bag Silver Buttons and a Lamp. 6. One Bag broken Silver. 7. One Bag Gold Bars. 8. One Bag Gold Barrs. 9. One Bag Dust Gold. 10. One Bag of Silver Bars. 11. One Bag Silver Bars. The whole of the Gold above mentioned is Eleven hun dred, and Eleven ounces, Troy Weight. The silver is Two Thousand, three Hundred, Fifty-three ounces. The Jewels or Precious Stones Weight are seventeen Ounces . . an Ounce, and Six ^* . . . Stone by Tale. The Sugar is Contained in Fifty-Seven Baggs. The Merchandize is Contained in Forty-one Bailes. The Canvis is Seventeen pieces. Sam. Sewall. Nath'l Btfield. Jee. Dummer. Laue. Hammond, Lt. Coll. Andk. Belchee. Endorsed: Inventory of the Gold, Silver, Jewels and Merchandize late in the possession of Capt. Wm. Kidd and Seiz'd and secured by ordr. of the E. of Bellomont, 28th of July 1699. This is an original paper, Bellomont." IS Mb. torn. 86 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE That famous sloop, the San Antonio, was also carefully inventoried but her contents were for the most part sea gear and rough furnishings, barring a picturesque entry of "ye boy Barleycorn," an apprentice seaman who had sailed with Kidd. Rob ert Livingston has something to say about Kidd's property in his statement imder examination, which has been preserved as follows: "Robert Livingston, Esq. being notified to appear before his Excellency and Council this day and sworn to give a true Narrative and Relation of his knowl edge or information of any Goods, Gold, Silver, Bullion, or other Treasure lately imported by Capt. William Kidd, his Company and Accomplices, or any of them, into this Province, or any other of his Majesty's Provinces, Colonies, or Territories in America, and by them or any of them imbezelled, concealed, conveyed away, or any ways disposed of, saith : "That hearing Capt. Kidd was come into these parts to apply himself unto his Excellency the Earl of Bellomont, the said Narrator came directly from Albany ye nearest way through the woods to meet the said Kidd here and to wait upon his Lordship. And at his arrival at Boston Capt. Kidd informed him there was on board his Sloop then in Port forty bales of Goods, and some Sugar, and also said he had about eighty pound weight in Plate. The Nar rator does not remember whether he said this was on board the Sloop or not. And further the sd. Kidd said he had Forty pound weight in Gold which he hid and secured in some place in the Sound betwixt this and New York, not naming any particular place, which nobody could find but himself. And that aU the said Goods, Gold, Plate and Sloop was for ac- CAPTAIN KIDD, HIS TREASURE 87 compt. of the Owners of the Adventure Galley, whereof this Narrator was one. "And upon further discourse, Kidd acknowledged that several Chests and bundles of Goods belonging to the men were taken out of his Sloop betwixt this place and New York, and put into other sloops, saying he was forced thereto, that his men would otherwise have run the Sloop on shore. And he likewise acknowledged that he had given Mr. Dun can Campbell one hundred pieces of eight when he was on board his Sloop at Rhode Island. And he knows no further of any concealment, imbezelment, or disposal made by said Kidd, his Company, or accomplices of any Goods, Gold, money, or Treas ure whatsoever, saving that Kidd did yesterday ac knowledge to this Narrator that ye Gold afore mentioned was hid upon Gardiner's Island. He believed there was about fifty pound weight of it and that in the same box with it there was about three or four hundred pieces of eight and some pieces of Plate belonging to his boy Barleycorn and Ms Negro man which he had gotten by ^* . . . for the men. Also the said Kidd gave this Narrator a negro boy and another to Mr. Duncan Campbell." There is reproduced herewith the original state ment of Kidd touching this Gardiner Island treas ure. The document is badly torn and disfigured, but the gaps can be supplied from a copy made at that time, and here is what he had to say under oath : Boston, Sept. 4th. 1699. Captain William Kidd deelareth and Saith that in his Chest which he left at Gardiner's Island there were three smaU baggs or more of Jasper Antonio, or Stone of Goa, u Ms. torn. 88 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE several pieces of silk stript with Silver and gold Cloth of Silver, about a Bushell of Cloves and Nutmegs mixed together, and strawed up and down, several books of fine white CaUicoa, several pieces of fitne Muzlins, several pieces more of flowered silk. He does not well remember what further was in it. He had an invoice thereof in his other chest. All that was contained in ye said Chest was bought by him and some given him at Madagascar. Nothing thereof was taken in ye ship Quidah Merchant. He es teemed it to be of greater value than all else that he left at Gardiner's Island except ye Gold and Silver. There was neither Gold nor Silver in ye Chest. It was fastened with a Padlock and nailed and corded about. Further saith that he left at said Gardiner's Island a bundle of nine or ten fine Indian quilts, some of ye silk with fringes and Tassels. Wm. Kidd. The Earl of Bellomont was as keen as a blood hound on the scent of treasure and it is improbable that any of the Kidd plunder escaped his search. He lost no time in the quest of that James Gillam whose chest had been landed in Delaware Bay, and a singularly diverting episode is related by Bello mont in one of his written reports to the Council of Trade and Plantations : "I gave you an account, Oct. 24th, of my taking Joseph Bradish and Wetherly, and writ that I hoped in a little time to be able to send News of my taking James Gillam, the Pyrate that killed Capt. Edge- comb, commander of the Mocha Frigate for the East India Co., and that with his own hand, while the captain was asleep. Gillam is supposed to be the man that encouraged the Ship's Company to turn pyrates, and the ship has ever since been robbing in the Red Sea and Seas of India. If I may believe CAPTAIN KIDD, HIS TREASURE 89 the report of men lately come from Madagascar, she has taken above 2,000,000 pounds sterling. "I have been so lucky as to take James Gillam, and he is now in irons in the gaol of this town. And at the same time we seized on Francis Dole, in whose house he was harboured, who proved to be one of Hore's crew. My taking of Gillam was so very accidental one would believe there was a strange fatality in the man's stars. On Saturday, llth inst., late in the evening, I had a letter from Col. Sanford, Judge of the Admiralty Court in Rhode Island, giving me an account that Gillam had been there, but was come towards Boston a fortnight be fore, in order to ship himself for some of the Islands, Jamaica or Barbadoes. "I was in despair of finding the man. However, I sent for an honest Constable I had made use of in apprehending Kidd and his men, and sent him with Col. Sanford's messenger to search all the Inns in town and at the first Inn they found the mare on which Gillam had rode into town, tied up in the yard. The people of the Inn reported that the man who brought her hither had alighted off her about a quarter of an hour before, and went away without saying anything. "I gave orders to the master of the Inn that if anybody came to look after the mare, he should be sure to seize him, but nobody came for her. Next morning I summoned a Council, and we published a Proclamation, wherein I promised a reward of 200 Pieces of Eight for the seizing and securing of GUlam, whereupon there was the strictest search made all that day and the next that was ever made in this part of the world. But we would have 90 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE missed had I not been informed of one Capt. Klnott as an old Pyrate and therefore likely to know where Gillam was conceal'd. I sent for Knott and exam ined him, promising if he would make an ingenious Confession I would not molest him. "He seemed much disturbed but would not confess anything to purpose. I then sent for his wife and examined her on oath apart from her husband, and she confessed that one who went by the name of James Kelly had lodged several nights in her house, but for some nights past he lodged, as she believed, in Charlestown, cross the River. I knew that he (Gillam) went by the name of Kelly. Then I exam ined Captain Knott again, telling him his wife had been more free and ingenious than him, which made him believe she had told all. And then he told me of Francis Dole in Charlestown, and that he believed that Gillam would be found there. "I sent half a dozen men immediately, and Eiiott with 'em. They beset the House and searched it, but found not the man. Two of the men went through a field behind Dole's house and . . . met a man in the dark whom they seized at all ad venture, and it happened as oddly as luckily to be Gillam. He had been treating two young women some few miles off in the Country, and was return ing at night to his landlord Dole's house. "I examined him but he denied everything, even that he came with Kidd from Madagascar, or ever saw him in his life ; but Capt. Davis "who came thence with Kidd's men is positive he is the man and that he went by his true name Gillam all the while he was on the voyage with 'em. And Mr. Campbell, Post master of this town, whom I sent to treat with Kidd, offers to swear this is the man he saw on board CAPTAIN KIDD, HIS TREASURE 91 Kidd's sloop under the name of Gillam. He is the most impudent, hardened Villain I ever saw. . . . "In searching Captain Knott's house a small trunk was found with some remnants of East India Goods and a letter from Kidd's Wife to Capt. Thomas Paine, an old pyrate li'nng on Canonicut Island in Rhode Island Government. He made an affidavit to me when I was in Rhode Island that he had received nothing from Kidd's sloop, when she lay at anchor there, yet by Knott's deposition, he was sent with Mrs. Kidd's letter to Paine for 24 ounces of Gold, which Kidd accordingly brought, and Mrs. Kidd's injunction to Paine to keep all the rest that was left with him till further notice was a plain indication that there was a good deal of treasure stUl left behind in Paine 's Custody. "Therefore I posted away a messenger to Gov. Cranston and Col. Sanford to make a strict search of Paine 's house before he could have notice. It seems nothing was then found, but Paine has since produced 18 ounces and odd weight of Gold, as appears by Gov. Cranston's letter, Nov. 25, and pretends 'twas bestowed on him by Kidd, hoping that may pass as a salve for the oath he has made. I think it is plain he foreswore himself. I am of opinion he has a great deal more of Kidd's goods still in his hands, but he is out of my Power and being in that Government I cannot compel him to deliver up the rest. . . ." That "Edward Davis, Mariner," who came home with Kidd and who made the statement already quoted concerning Gillam 's chest, found himself in trouble with the others of that crew, and the tireless Bellomont refers to him in this fashion : 92 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE "When Capt. Kidd was committed to Gaol, there was also a Pyrate committed who goes by the name of Captain Davis, that came passenger with Kidd from Madagascar. I suppose him to be that Cap tain Davis that Dampier and Wafer speak of, in their printed relations of Voyages, for an extraor dinary stout man ; but let him be as stout as he will, here he is a prisoner, and shall be forthcoming upon the order I receive from England concerning Kidd and his men. "When I was at Rhode Island there was one Palmer, a Pyrate, that was out upon Bail, for they cannot be persuaded there to keep a Pyrate in Gaol, they love 'em too well. He went out with Kidd from London and forsook him at Madagascar to go on board the Mocha Frigate, where he was a con siderable time, committing several Robberies with the rest of the Pyrates in that Ship, and was brought home by Shelly of New York. ' ' I asked Gov. Cranston how he could answer tak ing bail for him, when he had received so strict Orders from Mr. Secretary Vernon to seize and se cure Kidd and his associates with their effects. I desired Col. Sanford to examine Palmer on oath. I enclose his Examination where your Lordships may please to observe that he accuses Kidd of murdering his Gunner, which I never heard before." It may be that the "old Pyrate," Thomas Paine buried a bag of Kidd's gold but it is much more likely that whatever had been stored with him was turned over to that astute helpmeet, Mrs. WiUiam Kidd, for whom it has been left in his keeping. As for that "most impudent, hardened ViUain," James GiUam, it is unreasonable to suppose that his sea '/, :-fcgv.-. Ji^yt*^ ^J?.u.i.?T^^^ra*f" C" rt Im^tna ^l^uffa. /iSs^.Q.., ..„, ... ,„t ,„^,. //C- ^J-iarU ,.,.Ji,iuullen " U' Un [jcaicr Cem% It ,'i-. Jlut. C, lu-a iinxrditii I, ,;uu„/i a ca diK-fCJ .^< 'ft , 111' ircJerili cnitlUc t)u j i'tJb-i Juia/iiLC ¦ininutli.'lii cc Cjlji'ii^n.'JtJ . f,,,mi.:Vt .'¦, U /:w,f.nl,li:iL fill.: i^iliJ .¦nt r.J.'irJtnU cn ¦7,/Li/un ,-i/.'/ujH,u a l^r,uH,an.nl . ,jlu!j .yrcAuiii'iiyit ediu 'ic .'unUc .i.w i'rcU.^tc iHu iciu P.ujc^.^url at Ju, Xlt.Sa .4u.'ii w J.<„„ 'a. ihtii ,11, c 'Wl/ ^, tj)L,LL Lioju. ''acol Urote^jutn' /luuui'dct lilt ihfurtn.f Kailti^rj' marchkh^i^rtnenun a JfzU. a .C^irti/i. du /w/zi/ne. 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