Word: kidde
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Captain Kidd and His Skeleton Island...
With luck, Author Wilkins thinks Kidd might have stayed on the right side of the law. But his luck was out. His crew, a hard lot, was mutinous, more than half piratical from the start. And when he did bump into a pirate he sometimes embarrassingly turned out to be an old friend. At that Kidd managed to capture several apparently legal prizes...
Lord Bellomont wrote Kidd two weasel letters to lure him ashore, then clapped him in jail, sent him to London. At his trial Kidd was not allowed counsel. As evidence that the prizes he had taken were legitimate, he had kept their French "passes" (commissions); but these vital papers had been taken from him and he could not produce them in court. Their evidence would not have affected the verdict, thinks Author Wilkins. The British Admiralty was determined to make an example of him. Reason: India's Great Mogul, tired of English pirates, had threatened to drive...
...sooner had Kidd been laid by the heels than rumors of his buried treasure spread like wildfire, set amateur treasure-seekers (and still does) searching and digging. One reason: the "treasure" captured with Kidd was disappointingly small, indicated to optimists that more must be cached somewhere. Another: in a last attempt to buy his life, Kidd offered to guide a King's ship to hidden treasure worth ?100,000. In the 19th Century nine different companies were formed to look for this legendary hoard. Author Wilkins believes Kidd's treasure is really there-somewhere-thinks he knows...
...recent years a friend of his who collects buccaneering relics has acquired at different times four maps, ostensibly initialled and annotated by Kidd himself, of an island in "a certain remote Far Eastern sea." The first three maps gave no latitude or longitude; the fourth, strangely enough, gave both. Equally luckily for Author Wilkins and his friend, the island in question is not on any modern map or chart. Soon there will be another expedition to have another go at the will-o'-the-wisp of Captain Kidd's treasure. And Author Wilkins will sign...