CHAPTER SEVEN
The Plot Thickens
Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved
It was a good thing she ran the place. The newlyweds made their way back to the research center. The duo had developed a boost of childlike marvel for this entire event. They both acknowledged that something was fishy about it all. In addition, the purchase of the PT Cruiser had now become an albatross for them both. Sean hadn’t yet conceded his mistake because it would be an admission of something much larger about him. He was a romantic; he wanted to live in a world of his own—not the one orchestrated and positioned for him by his family.
Although Alexis understood this about him, she held contempt toward her husband because of it. Her father came from a poor, pitiable family and worked his way up, by way of education, through the social barriers set before him. It was his vigilance and care that made her life possible. In a strange manner, she wanted Sean to be more like her father. She would even buy him striped sweatpants—just like the ones her dad loved to wear. But this could never be: Sean came from a world of privilege that couldn’t be denied. His challenge was a different one than Alexis’s father’s was. It’s possible that this bizarre revulsion for Sean’s infantile stance towards his background and upbringing was ill conceived—and she acknowledged that; perhaps that’s why she masked it. On the other hand, she may have masked it because she recognized that her dislike of what was obviously a psychological and developmental issue with her husband could act as a cutting fiend rising from the deep to tear them apart. She wanted to make Sean feel that he could be whatever he needed to be with her—juvenile, mature, frightened, perverse, proud, dark, vicious, e.t.c… She wanted this marriage to work and knew, from past experiences, that in order for a couple to survive, they would have to be willing to intermingle not only each other’s virtues, but each other’s shortcomings as well. The car was going to be a problem though; they couldn’t have this ruin their credit. They didn’t have the money. Captain Kidd had taken over.
Sean recognized the problem he had created by buying a car with money that wasn’t in the bank. Moreover, he was frightened: Not of the phantom man, not from the predicament the car they were driving could become, but from his intense focus on this hunt. He’d never felt this invigorated in his life.
The security system at The Wasson Research Center logged Alexis on at 12:34a.m. It held a very extensive collection of books and periodicals on culture, language, social studies, and anthropology. Its main focus is on Europe, where it was currently establishing an acquisition office in England. Outside of Europe and the Library of Congress, the Wasson Library was generally considered to hold an exceptional and preeminent collection of written documents from the period beginning in the late 14th century and ending with the late 19th century. Its Caribbean collection was also considered to be outstanding.
The cavernous main hall is where Sean and Alexis made camp. She’d called campus security to inform them that they’d be working in the building. She had also asked them to stop by and check in on them every now and then. When the Operator inquired if Alexis was suspicious of anything, she quickly played the watchful, precautious type. After about forty-five minutes of filing through a tome of information by themselves, both electronic and in references and books, they came together to touch base. Sean was bowled over by the quantity of information there existed about his far-flung family member. Alexis was happy to see him again (she was downstairs in the basement) for, although she spent a bulk of her life in this library, being alone in large spaces always gave her the creeps. Sean was keyed up. The two shared the information they worked up:
William Kidd was probably born in Dundee or Greenock, Scotland. The sources differed on this point. Something about it, however, lingered in Sean’s mind. He couldn’t place his finger on it but something rang a bell within him regarding Scotland. The date of his birth was “of obscure origin”, so said the Encyclopedia Britannica. However, he was probably born between 1645 &1654.
Alexis had discovered an equally ambiguous origin in a mysterious person named John Kidd, a Puritan Minister who died in 1679 as a result of torture for his nonconformity. “Could’ve been his father,” she thought. The first recorded information about William Kidd dated back to 1689. He apparently settled in New York State and owned most of what is now Fifth Avenue.
Alexis found a report made by a man named Hewtson who was the Commander of an English expedition against the French. She read aloud the following excerpt:
…The crews of two for Kidd’s ships mutinied and, being well stocked with arms and manned by eighty or ninety men, sailed away and adopted the role of pirates.
Fe. 1700
Mutiny was characteristic of privateers; they were a self-governing private army. Drake and Raleigh were among the most eminent. The Royal Navy, when overburdened, would turn to these freelancers for supplementary aid. The crown, or a conglomerate of wealthy people, would commission a Captain and grant him a ship; but the crew was a different story. They would hire men who were willing to go to sea at no salary from the government—for neither the crew nor the Captain. They were rationed a percentage of the booty captured.
Privateering was considered a respected trade. In general, a group of investors hooped together to finance a privateer undertaking to arrest enemy ships and bring them back to port. These ships would be fated as prizes and sold. The King might obtain a tenth for granting the original opportunity; the Admiralty might siphon off as much as a third for doing the paperwork and applying the stamp of legality. The financiers would be given the rest to dole out to themselves and the band of sailors, according to an arrangement agreed upon ahead of the expedition. Pirates, on the other hand, thumbed their noses at all these particulars; they weren't authorized by any government; they gladly attacked ships of all nations and they didn't share their pickings with anyone. They were ship borne thieves, the enemies of mankind and the trading nations.
Captain Kidd, the privateer, in his crossing over from England to New York in the Adventure had already legally captured a French fishing vessel off the banks of New Foundland containing a squad of four. Kidd's warship had borne down on the fishing vessel and plunked a cannonball in close proximity. The French ship surrendered and Kidd, in a few minutes, had paid for his transatlantic trip. The Vice Admiralty Court in New York sometime in July condemned the ship as worth £350, the price of a couple of Manhattan buildings.
Kidd wanted to provide sailors with a sole and legally recognized opportunity to pilfer from pirates and from the hated French and had so said this many times over many rums at Hawdon's, his favored watering hole in Manhattan. He wasn't offering any remuneration, just a share of the future takings. The sailors back then nicknamed this approach: "No prey, no pay." If they didn't snatch a pirate ship or French boat, they might raze their hands reefing sails for months for utterly nothing. However, it wasn't the "No prey, no pay" that disturbed them; it was the partition of plunder.
Kidd's Help Wanted poster, specified that the 150 crewmen would split up only a quarter of the riches, after operating costs—this after they had repaid all the provisions, medication, and armaments at prices set by the owners. The weapons' charge alone was £6 or three months of representative sailor income. Kidd told them his blueblood owners in London planned the split; he admitted that it followed more the length of the lines favored by the Royal Navy that first pleased admirals, commodores, captains, and lieutenants, prior to finding perchance ten percent for the crew.
“The mutiny could have been caused by a lack of captured booty,” posited Alexis. “If Kidd couldn’t effectively attack other ships, the sailors would get zilch—thus the mutiny.”
“So why would he get arrested and not his crew of mutineers?” asked Sean.
After a moment--“I have no idea,” Alexis sighed, disheartened.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Chapters
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 & 22, 23, 24, 25, Epilogue
The Plot Thickens
Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved
It was a good thing she ran the place. The newlyweds made their way back to the research center. The duo had developed a boost of childlike marvel for this entire event. They both acknowledged that something was fishy about it all. In addition, the purchase of the PT Cruiser had now become an albatross for them both. Sean hadn’t yet conceded his mistake because it would be an admission of something much larger about him. He was a romantic; he wanted to live in a world of his own—not the one orchestrated and positioned for him by his family.
Although Alexis understood this about him, she held contempt toward her husband because of it. Her father came from a poor, pitiable family and worked his way up, by way of education, through the social barriers set before him. It was his vigilance and care that made her life possible. In a strange manner, she wanted Sean to be more like her father. She would even buy him striped sweatpants—just like the ones her dad loved to wear. But this could never be: Sean came from a world of privilege that couldn’t be denied. His challenge was a different one than Alexis’s father’s was. It’s possible that this bizarre revulsion for Sean’s infantile stance towards his background and upbringing was ill conceived—and she acknowledged that; perhaps that’s why she masked it. On the other hand, she may have masked it because she recognized that her dislike of what was obviously a psychological and developmental issue with her husband could act as a cutting fiend rising from the deep to tear them apart. She wanted to make Sean feel that he could be whatever he needed to be with her—juvenile, mature, frightened, perverse, proud, dark, vicious, e.t.c… She wanted this marriage to work and knew, from past experiences, that in order for a couple to survive, they would have to be willing to intermingle not only each other’s virtues, but each other’s shortcomings as well. The car was going to be a problem though; they couldn’t have this ruin their credit. They didn’t have the money. Captain Kidd had taken over.
Sean recognized the problem he had created by buying a car with money that wasn’t in the bank. Moreover, he was frightened: Not of the phantom man, not from the predicament the car they were driving could become, but from his intense focus on this hunt. He’d never felt this invigorated in his life.
The security system at The Wasson Research Center logged Alexis on at 12:34a.m. It held a very extensive collection of books and periodicals on culture, language, social studies, and anthropology. Its main focus is on Europe, where it was currently establishing an acquisition office in England. Outside of Europe and the Library of Congress, the Wasson Library was generally considered to hold an exceptional and preeminent collection of written documents from the period beginning in the late 14th century and ending with the late 19th century. Its Caribbean collection was also considered to be outstanding.
The cavernous main hall is where Sean and Alexis made camp. She’d called campus security to inform them that they’d be working in the building. She had also asked them to stop by and check in on them every now and then. When the Operator inquired if Alexis was suspicious of anything, she quickly played the watchful, precautious type. After about forty-five minutes of filing through a tome of information by themselves, both electronic and in references and books, they came together to touch base. Sean was bowled over by the quantity of information there existed about his far-flung family member. Alexis was happy to see him again (she was downstairs in the basement) for, although she spent a bulk of her life in this library, being alone in large spaces always gave her the creeps. Sean was keyed up. The two shared the information they worked up:
William Kidd was probably born in Dundee or Greenock, Scotland. The sources differed on this point. Something about it, however, lingered in Sean’s mind. He couldn’t place his finger on it but something rang a bell within him regarding Scotland. The date of his birth was “of obscure origin”, so said the Encyclopedia Britannica. However, he was probably born between 1645 &1654.
Alexis had discovered an equally ambiguous origin in a mysterious person named John Kidd, a Puritan Minister who died in 1679 as a result of torture for his nonconformity. “Could’ve been his father,” she thought. The first recorded information about William Kidd dated back to 1689. He apparently settled in New York State and owned most of what is now Fifth Avenue.
Alexis found a report made by a man named Hewtson who was the Commander of an English expedition against the French. She read aloud the following excerpt:
…The crews of two for Kidd’s ships mutinied and, being well stocked with arms and manned by eighty or ninety men, sailed away and adopted the role of pirates.
Fe. 1700
Mutiny was characteristic of privateers; they were a self-governing private army. Drake and Raleigh were among the most eminent. The Royal Navy, when overburdened, would turn to these freelancers for supplementary aid. The crown, or a conglomerate of wealthy people, would commission a Captain and grant him a ship; but the crew was a different story. They would hire men who were willing to go to sea at no salary from the government—for neither the crew nor the Captain. They were rationed a percentage of the booty captured.
Privateering was considered a respected trade. In general, a group of investors hooped together to finance a privateer undertaking to arrest enemy ships and bring them back to port. These ships would be fated as prizes and sold. The King might obtain a tenth for granting the original opportunity; the Admiralty might siphon off as much as a third for doing the paperwork and applying the stamp of legality. The financiers would be given the rest to dole out to themselves and the band of sailors, according to an arrangement agreed upon ahead of the expedition. Pirates, on the other hand, thumbed their noses at all these particulars; they weren't authorized by any government; they gladly attacked ships of all nations and they didn't share their pickings with anyone. They were ship borne thieves, the enemies of mankind and the trading nations.
Captain Kidd, the privateer, in his crossing over from England to New York in the Adventure had already legally captured a French fishing vessel off the banks of New Foundland containing a squad of four. Kidd's warship had borne down on the fishing vessel and plunked a cannonball in close proximity. The French ship surrendered and Kidd, in a few minutes, had paid for his transatlantic trip. The Vice Admiralty Court in New York sometime in July condemned the ship as worth £350, the price of a couple of Manhattan buildings.
Kidd wanted to provide sailors with a sole and legally recognized opportunity to pilfer from pirates and from the hated French and had so said this many times over many rums at Hawdon's, his favored watering hole in Manhattan. He wasn't offering any remuneration, just a share of the future takings. The sailors back then nicknamed this approach: "No prey, no pay." If they didn't snatch a pirate ship or French boat, they might raze their hands reefing sails for months for utterly nothing. However, it wasn't the "No prey, no pay" that disturbed them; it was the partition of plunder.
Kidd's Help Wanted poster, specified that the 150 crewmen would split up only a quarter of the riches, after operating costs—this after they had repaid all the provisions, medication, and armaments at prices set by the owners. The weapons' charge alone was £6 or three months of representative sailor income. Kidd told them his blueblood owners in London planned the split; he admitted that it followed more the length of the lines favored by the Royal Navy that first pleased admirals, commodores, captains, and lieutenants, prior to finding perchance ten percent for the crew.
“The mutiny could have been caused by a lack of captured booty,” posited Alexis. “If Kidd couldn’t effectively attack other ships, the sailors would get zilch—thus the mutiny.”
“So why would he get arrested and not his crew of mutineers?” asked Sean.
After a moment--“I have no idea,” Alexis sighed, disheartened.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Chapters
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 & 22, 23, 24, 25, Epilogue
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