Okay | The Pirate Hunter: The True Story of Captain Kidd

A Tantalizing, Frustrating Re-Evaluation of Captain Kidd | The Pirate Hunter: The True Story of Captain Kidd | Richard Zacks

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	• The Pirate Hunter: The True Story of Captain Kidd Richard Zacks Hyperion, 2003 - 432 pages average customer review:based on 74 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Exceptional book

Most nonfiction works are dry and laborious to read, whereas The Pirate Hunter had me completely enthralled. It is hard to believe that this book is a historical account, because it is written more like a novel. Not only is this a compelling story about Captain Kidd in the age of high seas adventure, but also a gripping tale of fortune and loss, of love and deceipt, and of bravery and corruption. I found myself engrossed from cover to cover, dreaming of great sailing ships, salty sea air, and sandy beaches with fair-eyed maidens. The depth of research required--to build an account this detailed and seamless--must have been exceedingly difficult and should be commended. Most authors break from the story to quote sources or references. Zacks, however, avoids this practice and maintains his rhythm to keep his audience emotionally attached to the gruff, quick-witted Scottish sea captain. This book is the future of historical research, and proves that non-fiction is no longer the venue simply for stodgy university professors and their unfortunate students, but also for the rest of us who love a good sword fight!

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Okay

Well, since about a zillion other people already reviewed this book, I will just say I enjoyed reading it; so if you like reading about pirate stuff, then you will probably enjoy reading it also.

A Tantalizing, Frustrating Re-Evaluation of Captain Kidd

Richard Zacks takes obvious pleasure in challenging the conventional wisdom. The Pirate Hunter: The True Story of Captain Kidd might be called the defense's opening statement in the trial of Captain Kidd for piracy before the tribunal of history. The accepted story says that Kidd was hired to hunt down pirates in the Indian Ocean, but instead turned pirate himself, murdered his gunner, robbed Indian merchants, consorted with pirate Robert Culliford, and tried to bribe the governor of New York, only to find himself turned in and hanged. But Zacks contends that Kidd stayed true to his mission of privateering in the Indian Ocean, that his capture of neutral vessels was entirely legal, that his purported attacks on East India Company convoys and peaceful coast dwellers never happened, that his killing of his gunner was manslaughter rather than capital murder, and that his failure to seize the only pirate he ever encountered was due to his crew's mutiny against his express orders to attack.

The frustrating thing is that this book is only the opening statement; we never hear from the witnesses. The book is full of passages that amount to "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you will hear testimony proving . . . ." And the illustrations, bibliography, and parts of the text suggest that Zacks probably has found the evidence somewhere to back up at least some of his assertions. But in the entire book there is not a single footnote, and almost never does Zacks reveal what source he is relying on for any particular claim.

I come to the book as a biased reader. I have studied the Golden Age of Piracy for almost ten years, and my long-formed conclusion is that Kidd was in fact a pirate, even though his trial was monstrously unfair in many ways. Particularly, I believed that he had piratically attacked the Mughal's pilgrim convoy, and that the presence of French passes aboard (which almost every ship in the Indian Ocean carried) did not legitimize his capture of the Indian vessels Quedagh Merchant and Rouparelle. What doomed Kidd, in my view, was that he did not understand how times had changed; privateers who crossed the line into piracy in the age of Henry Morgan and Edward Mansfield had been routinely winked at, and Kidd never imagined that his own conduct would be subjected to far harsher scrutiny now that party politics and international trade, instead of royal favor, dominated the political scene. I am as attached to my preconceptions as any man, and Zacks has upset my apple cart.

So is Zacks right? I don't know, because of the lack of documentation. Clearly he has reviewed a lot of primary source material; bits of it are reproduced photographically in the book. His intimate description of Kidd's alleged order to attack Culliford, and his crew's refusal, certainly *seems* to be based on some kind of eyewitness testimony. But is it a more reliable eyewitness? Who knows? On the other hand, his conclusory allegation that the French passes made the ransacking of a friendly power's ships all hunky-dory doesn't even have the flavor of authenticity (but again, who knows?)

There are tantalizing suggestions of immensely valuable discoveries in Zacks' work. He hints, for example, that he has read at least some of the articles of Kidd's Adventure Galley. Did he actually find these articles? They would be a treasure, not reproduced in any other history book. At another point, Zacks tells us that when Kidd's papers were taken from him on his arrival at London, the captain struggled like a wildcat, and when he was overcome, declared that he would certainly die without these papers. But Zacks never refers to these papers again. What was in them? Not the French passes; Bellomont had already taken those documents. What else was Kidd relying on to free him?

Despite his prodding me out of my comfortable conclusions, one thing makes me hope that Zacks' research ultimately proves sound. If he is right, then he has rendered pirate historians a great service, not with his portrait of Kidd, but with his portrait of Robert Culliford. This book has the first comprehensive, detailed version of Culliford's pirate career that I have found in any source - and I have read a lot of them. Most books on piracy mention Culliford only at his meeting with Kidd; Zacks follows Culliford from his first piratical exploits in the Caribbean (where he stole Kidd's ship, we are told), to his robberies and eventual imprisonment in India, to his new meeting with Kidd, and finally to his wangling a pardon from the same government that hanged Kidd. If even half of it turns out to be true, it will be a major contribution to the history of piracy.

Unfortunately, there is ample cause to doubt Zacks' research skills. At times, he deviates into the obviously absurd, like his claim that the tailed men of the Nicobar Islands actually existed (p. 48), or that English juries convicted as a matter of course (in fact, the conviction rates in England around 1700 were lower than in modern America). His command of the 17th century sailing world is riddled with errors. At one point he says that sailors "pulled at the crosstrees" to tack (p. 142). You pull braces, tacks, and jib sheets to tack, not crosstrees. On p. 158, Zacks has Kidd worrying if the Portuguese will pile on "top royals," but royal sails were hardly used in Kidd's time. A chase gun in the front of the ship was never a "mortar," as Zacks has it on p. 165; the high arcing trajectory of a mortar would have been useless given the shifting targets and variable ranges a chase gun had to deal with. On p. 216, Zacks has Kidd sailing eastward from St. Thomas to the Mona Passage - which actually lies to the west of St. Thomas. All this does not inspire confidence in Zacks' scholarship.

Zacks' writing is entertaining, but weak. He has incurable italicosis, and wanders frequently and lengthily from the point. The book is well worth reading for pirate enthusiasts like myself; the general reader should stand well to windward.

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Interesting facts about pirate life

The most interesting aspect of this book is the early pre-USA history that it contains. It shows the struggles that English were having with their own government and justice system and why many families would choose to move to an unknown country to get away from it. After they were here for a while and the same struggles started rearing their ugly heads, they chose to revolt. Hence - the Declaration of Independence about 60 years after the setting of this book.

As far as the pirate story goes, I'd have to agree with another reviewer that the facts are given with far more detail than would could possibly glean from reading a few sparse documents. The author tends a little bit towards raw language that I didn't find necessary for the subject. It is a good read, though. I ran through it in less than a week. Captain Kidd must have been an amazing leader!

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The Pirate Hunter

This is a very well researched and detailed book. A good biography of Captain William Kidd which separates truth from myth. This book was very easy to read, however some parts did tend to drag a little.

This book was not only a biography of Captain Kidd but also the story of Robert Culliford, who was a very successful and at times brutal pirate. What was very interesting was how often these two mens lives intersected.

Subjects breached in this book include: life at sea at the end of the 17th century, diplomacy between the English East India Company and the Mughal Empire, the constant state of war between England and France, the filthy conditions of prisons at the time, and the often unfair and corrupt justice system of the 17th and 18th centuries. Also revealed in this book are the shady political dealings, greed, and back-stabbing which conspired to basically screw Captain Kidd. This was a enjoyable and well written book.

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A literary treasure, The Pirate Hunter is a masterpiece of historical detective work, and a rare, authentic pirate story for grown-ups.

Captain Kidd has gone down in history as America's most ruthless buccaneer, fabulously rich, burying dozens of treasure chests up and down the eastern seaboard. But it turns out that most everyone, even many respected scholars, have the story all wrong. Captain William Kidd was no career cut-throat; he was a tough, successful New York sea captain who was hired to chase pirates. His three-year odyssey aboard the aptly named Adventure galley pitted him against arrogant Royal Navy commanders, jealous East India Company captains, storms, starvation, angry natives, and, above all, flesh-and-blood pirates. Superbly written and impeccably researched, The Pirate Hunter is one ripping good yarn.

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