William Kidd captained a privateer ship commissioned to protect the English colonies in the Caribbean against French attacks.Seeking advancement he spent 6 years in New York (then a haven for pirates) doing favors for, and accepting favors from, powerful friends. In 1695 he set sail for England, hoping to obtain a royal commission as a privateer and got involved in a business venture to capture some pirates who had sailed to the Red Sea and to bring their loot to England where the investors (who included King William III and many high ranking government officials) would divide it among themselves. Little did he know that he had made a fatal mistake!