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Gould 0738
 
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Default Captain Kidd, the Prime Meridian, and the British Navy

Here's a bit of trivia:

Wm. Kidd's treasure has a direct relationship to both the prime Meridian and
the British Naval Academy.

Although novelists and romantics have speculated that Kidd's haul from the
Queda Merchant was buried on some tropical island or along the eastern shore of
the US, the facts of the case are more straightforward.

Sixty percent of the prize was distributed to Kidd's men when most of his crew
deserted Kidd to join forces with Robt. Collover at St. Mary's on Madagascar.
The distribution was in accordance with the second set of "articles" Kidd was
forced to accept after leaving New York. Kidd retained just over 40% of the
plate and merchandise (along with the Queda Merchant herself) when he and a
dozen or so remaining crewmen sailed from Madagascar to Hispaniola.

In Hispaniola, Kidd discovered he had been renounced as a pirate by his
partners in the expedition (all close allies to Wm III- and the King had a
scarcely concealed 10% interest in the voyage as well). Kidd used a portion of
the remaining treasure to purchase the sloop "Antonio" for the final leg of his
voyage to meet with Governor Bellomont in Boston. He cached some of the
treasure on Gardiner's Island, and turned most of the remainder over to his
partner Bellomont under the foolish assumption that he would be able to
disprove the ridiculous charges of piracy.

Kidd's betrayal was complete and final, however, and he was sent to England to
be tried for piracy. (Capital crimes could not be tried in the colonies during
those days.....)

After Kidd was hanged, none of the partners dared to risk the scandal of coming
forward to claim their respective shares in his voyage. Eventually, the
monarchy "accepted" the confiscated treasure as payment for the royal estates
at Greenwich- a site now famous for the discovery of methods for calculating
longitude (home of the Prime Meridian) and closely associated with the British
Naval Academy.

The officers who extended the British domination of the sea into the 19th (and
somewhat into the 20th) century were, in many cases, trained in a facility
financed posthumously by the "notorious pirate" Wm. Kidd.