By 1690, Kidd had become a highly successful privateer, commissioned to protect English interests in North America and the West Indies.

In 1695, Kidd received a royal commission from the Earl of Bellomont, the governor of New York, Massachusetts Bay and New Hampshire, to hunt down pirates and enemy French ships in the Indian Ocean.

While claims have been made of alternative birthplaces, including Greenock and Belfast, he said himself he came from Dundee in a testimony given by Kidd to the High Court of Admiralty in 1695.

[8] Some accounts suggest that he served as a seaman's apprentice on a pirate ship during this time, before beginning his more famous seagoing exploits as a privateer.

[11] Kidd was an experienced leader and sailor by that time, and the Blessed William became part of Codrington's small fleet assembled to defend Nevis from the French, with whom the English were at war.

Kidd and his men attacked the French island of Marie-Galante, destroying its only town and looting the area, and gathering around 2,000 pounds sterling.

Later, during the War of the Grand Alliance, on commissions from the provinces of New York and Massachusetts Bay, Kidd captured an enemy privateer off the New England coast.

One year later, Captain Robert Culliford, a notorious pirate, stole Kidd's ship while he was ashore at Antigua in the West Indies.

Four-fifths of the cost for the 1696 venture was paid by noble lords, who were among the most powerful men in England: the Earl of Orford, the Baron of Romney, the Duke of Shrewsbury, and Sir John Somers.

Kidd was presented with a letter of marque, signed personally by King William III of England, which authorized him as a privateer.

This letter reserved 10% of the loot for the Crown, and Henry Gilbert's The Book of Pirates suggests that the King fronted some of the money for the voyage himself.

Kidd and his acquaintance Colonel Robert Livingston orchestrated the whole plan; they sought additional funding from merchant Sir Richard Blackham.

The new ship, Adventure Galley,[21] was well suited to the task of catching pirates, weighing over 284 tons burthen and equipped with 34 cannon, oars, and 150 men.

The oars were a key advantage, as they enabled Adventure Galley to manoeuvre in a battle when the winds had calmed and other ships were dead in the water.

As the Adventure Galley sailed down the Thames, Kidd unaccountably failed to salute a Navy yacht at Greenwich, as custom dictated.

The Navy yacht then fired a shot to make him show respect, and Kidd's crew responded with an astounding display of impudence – by turning and slapping their backsides in [disdain].

Short-handed, Kidd sailed for New York City, capturing a French vessel en route (which was legal under the terms of his commission).

To make up for the lack of officers, Kidd picked up replacement crew in New York, the vast majority of whom were known and hardened criminals, some likely former pirates.

A third of his crew died on the Comoros[citation needed] due to an outbreak of cholera, the brand-new ship developed many leaks, and he failed to find the pirates whom he expected to encounter off Madagascar.

Moore urged Kidd to attack the Dutchman, an act that would have been considered piratical, since the nation was not at war with England, but also certain to anger Dutch-born King William.

[36] Kidd became aware both that he was wanted and that he could not make use of the Act of Grace upon his arrival in Anguilla, his first port of call since St. Augustine's Bay.

Realizing that Adventure Prize was a marked vessel, he cached it in the Caribbean Sea, sold off his remaining plundered goods through pirate and fence William Burke,[37] and continued towards New York aboard a sloop.

A broadside song, "Captain Kidd's Farewell to the Seas, or, the Famous Pirate's Lament", was printed shortly after his execution.

The 1701 broadside song "Captain Kid's Farewell to the Seas, or, the Famous Pirate's Lament" lists "Two hundred bars of gold, and rix dollars manifold, we seized uncontrolled".

After her husband Joshua Raymond died, Mercy moved with her family to northern New London, Connecticut (later Montville), where she purchased much land.

[51] On Grand Manan in the Bay of Fundy, as early as 1875, there were searches on the west side of the island for treasure allegedly buried by Kidd during his time as a privateer.

In 1983, Cork Graham and Richard Knight searched for Captain Kidd's buried treasure off the Vietnamese island of Phú Quốc.

[54] It was reported on 13 December 2007 that "wreckage of a pirate ship abandoned by Captain Kidd in the 17th century has been found by divers in shallow waters off the Dominican Republic".

[58] In May 2015, a 50-kilogram (110 lb) ingot expected to be silver was found in a wreck off the coast of Île Sainte-Marie in Madagascar by a team led by marine archaeologist Barry Clifford.

[62][63] But, in July 2015, a UNESCO scientific and technical advisory body reported that testing showed the ingot consisted of 95% lead, and speculated that the wreck in question was a broken part of the Sainte-Marie port constructions.