#captain-kidd

I am Captain Kidd, and I have the King's commission.

— William Kidd, defending himself as a privateer. Contemporary documents and agreements (1696).

William Kidd said this because it was true. He had a letter of marque — a royal commission authorizing him to attack French ships and known pirates. His problem was that his crew mutinied into actual piracy, and the ships he took didn't quite fit the authorized categories. Or were made to fit, depending on who was doing the paperwork.

Kidd was tried and hanged in 1701. His backers, who included some of the most powerful men in England, distanced themselves entirely. The commission that was supposed to protect him was suppressed at his trial. He had the paper. The paper didn't save him.

The insight is about the limits of official authorization. Kidd believed the document was the thing — that having the right papers meant having the right protection. What he learned, fatally, is that institutional protection flows upward, not downward. The commission existed to serve the men who issued it. When it stopped serving them, it stopped existing.

🔭 Observatory Note

Source: Contemporary documents and agreements from 1696; trial records from 1701.

Reliability: Well-documented. Kidd's commission and trial are among the best-documented events in Golden Age piracy. The quote is consistent with his known defense.

Caution: The specific wording is attributed; his defense is documented in trial proceedings. The broad facts — commission, backers, suppressed evidence — are historically established.