Note note 2 — CASE OF WILLIAM KIDD. (continued 2)

[2] Whether the presence of the French passes at the trial for piracy would have brought about Kidd's acquittal may be doubted, courts of justice being what they were; at all events Kidd, though he clamored for them from the day of his arrival in the Downs (Portland MSS., VIII. 78) till the day he was sentenced, was never able to recover them. The admiralty court refused to consider them. "Where are they?" said the Lord Chief Baron Ward. Kidd's counsel could only reply, "We cannot yet tell whether they are in the Admiralty-Office, or whether Mr. Jodrell [clerk of the House of Commons] hath them". State Trials, V. 290. In point of fact the House of Commons, which had had all the papers before it for examination, had on Apr. 16, on information that Kidd desired the use of his papers at his trial, ordered the clerk to deliver them to the secretary of the Admiralty. Commons Journal, XIII. 379, 380, 496.—A photographic facsimile of the pass of the Cara (Quedah) Merchant is in Paine, Book of Buried Treasure, at p. 104.