SOURCES TO SUPPORT THE

On October 30, 1697, Kidd assaulted gunner William Moore aboard the Adventure Galley when Moore and several other crew members plotted to turn pirate and seize an illegal capture. Without addressing the debate on whether or not mutiny was happening, we do know for a fact that William Moore died - but was it manslaughter or murder? The cook, Abel Owens, claimed to hear a conversation between Kidd and Moore where Kidd threatened Moore and other crew men that they would not be able to come back if they left to go pirating. Kidd and Moore engaged in an argument by this point. When Moore insulted Kidd, claiming “You have brought us to ruin”, Kidd reacted angrily by swinging a metal pail at Moore and striking him over the head. Moore was then taken below deck to treat his injuries, but he died the next day due to a fractured skull. Joseph Palmer, a crew member of the Adventure Galley, was one of the eye-witnesses for the prosecution of the trial of this interaction between Moore and Kidd. Palmer claimed multiple times to the jury that there was 'No Mutiny' happening during this exchange between Kidd and Moore, and he claimed all was calm. However, Palmer’s original deposition to Governor Cranston two years earlier states, “Capt. Kid in a passion struck his Gunner, as it was said, with an Iron bound Bucket, w.ch blow he lived not above twenty-four hours after, but I was not upon ye deck when ye blow was struck.” In Kidd’s trial, the judge defines a murder charge, “that Law implies malice, when one man without any reasonable cause or provocation, kills another. If there be a sudden falling out, and fighting, and one is killed in heat of Blood, then our law calls it Manslaughter.”  The above evidence proves Kidd should not have been convicted of murder; it cannot be proven that Kidd intended to murder Moore since the eye-witness testimony of Palmer is unreliable.