“All in all he appears to have handled himself on that infamous journey, honorably and showed great leadership and courage in returning those crew members who remained loyal to him, to safety. But he lost the PR war.”
I read a book called “Pirate Hunter - the true story of Captain Kidd.” Lots of research, etc. I forget the entire story, but he was hired by the English to go after pirate ships. But he wasn’t having any luck. Finally his crew came upon a British ship that was flying the flag of a country that was fair game. (Often done as a ruse.)
Even though the ship was English, Kidd was legally allowed to blunder it as it was flying under a enemy flag. And with his crew upset over the lack of luck they took the cargo and the ship. Kidd released the officers and seamen that wanted to leave.
After that they were disowned by the English King and others that had commissioned him. I don’t recall if they ever attacked another ship. Mostly being chased iirc. The blunder was textiles from India, and was probably rotted out by the time they were able to get to a safe port iirc!
His imprisonment and “trial” at the end of the book was terrifying at the lack of justice. Guilty until proven innocent, and his court-provided lawyer was not going to show the documents signed by the King commissioning him in the first place!
Interesting! I wasn’t aware of that. It’s interesting to see how many of the ‘good guys’ from history were really ‘bad guys’ and how many ‘bad guys’ were not all that bad, or were even sometimes good guys.