Legend and Execution of Captain Kidd

William Kidd spent his last days on earth in Newgate Gaol, where on Sunday 18 May 1701, he heard his final sermon, preached by the prison chaplain on the cheerful text, ‘For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.' Kidd still hoped for a reprieve, and the others who had been condemned with him for piracy received it – all except one, an Irishman named Darby Mullins. On the afternoon of 23 May, they were taken, with two Frenchmen who were also to die, from Newgate in two horse-drawn carts, guarded by marshals and led by the Admiralty Marshal and the silver oar which was the Admiralty's symbol. To the chaplain's shocked disapproval, Kidd was the worse for drink. At five o'clock, low tide, they reached Execution Dock at Wapping, a few yards below Wapping Old Stairs, in the presence of a large and lively crowd. There was a permanent gallows for pirates there and after the hanging the corpses were customarily chained to a post on the foreshore, where they were left until three tides had flowed over them, as an example.