Episode 006: Walter Kennedy: The Aspiring Pirate of Wapping

Walter Kennedy grows up at Pelican Stairs in Wapping, the son of an anchor-smith, a boy with every reason to follow his father into honest labour. But something restless burns in him; as Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals tells it, he possesses a 'too aspiring temper' that honest trades can never satisfy.

Serving aboard a man-of-war during Queen Anne's wars against France, Kennedy absorbs every whispered tale of buccaneers and maritime desperadoes, and what begins as fascination hardens into ambition. His is a true crime story shaped not by sudden desperation but by slow, deliberate seduction; the sea offering its own dark curriculum.

The silver oar of Admiralty justice waits somewhere ahead of him, gleaming on a courtroom table he cannot yet imagine.

Dark Lexicon: Old words. Dark meaning.

The past speaks its own dialect; here is what to listen for in this episode.

Petty treason: not a lesser kind of treason in the way we might assume. In English common law, petty treason referred specifically to the killing of a superior by a subordinate: a wife killing a husband, a servant killing a master, or a clergyman killing a prelate. When piracy is described as petty treason at common law, it signals that pirates were seen not merely as thieves but as men who had betrayed the sovereign authority itself.

Silver oar: a literal object, not a metaphor. The Court of Admiralty carried a silver oar into the courtroom as its emblem of jurisdiction over maritime offences. It lay on the table during trials and was carried in procession before the condemned on their way to execution. It was the last thing many pirates ever saw gleaming in the daylight.

Upon the account: sailor's slang for turning pirate. To go 'upon the account' was to abandon lawful service and take up robbery at sea. The phrase carried a grim bookkeeping quality; as if plunder were simply another ledger to be managed.

Ambuscade: the older form of the word ambush, borrowed from the French. It sounds grander, more deliberate; and in this episode it describes exactly that: a carefully laid trap with poisoned arrows and lethal patience.

Dissembled: today we might say 'pretended' or 'concealed.' To dissemble is to hide one's true intentions behind a mask of courtesy. The Portuguese governor who discovers the pirates but invites them to an entertainment is dissembling; and the consequences are devastating.

Tractable: meaning obedient, easily managed. We still use it occasionally, but in eighteenth century character sketches it appears often; a tractable child is one who gives no trouble. Kennedy is described as tractable in his youth, which makes his later transformation all the more striking.

Buccaneers: not simply a romantic synonym for pirate. The buccaneers were a specific group of seventeenth century raiders, originally hunters on Hispaniola who smoked meat on wooden frames called 'boucans.' They evolved into seafaring raiders who operated under loose commissions and sometimes with the tacit approval of colonial governors. By Kennedy's time, their era was passing into legend; the kind of legend that infected young sailors with ambition.

Man-of-war: a warship in the service of a national navy, armed and crewed for battle. It is not a pirate vessel; quite the opposite. That Kennedy learns his piracy while serving aboard one of the Crown's own fighting ships is one of the darker ironies of his story.

About This Series

Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals is one of the earliest works of true crime writing in the English language, nearly 300 years old, covering murderers, thieves, highwaymen, forgers, coiners and worse.

The book is entirely in the public domain and every word of it can be read today for free. But if you would rather listen, this podcast does exactly that: one criminal at a time, every week, read aloud.

True crime was not invented by podcasts or streaming services. Eighteenth century readers were just as fascinated by outlaws and killers as we are today. They just consumed their dark stories by candlelight.

The voice you hear is David Dark: crime researcher, theatre script writer, producer of live immersive experiences, and audiobook narrator and voice artist. This podcast uses an AI voice model trained on David's own voice, built using the maximum available training data to faithfully represent how he actually sounds. To hear David's real voice in human generated form, visit him on Audible, Online Stage, Voices of Today, Spoken Realms, and Internet Archive.

Transcript

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This is a Dark Stories presentation of the lives of the most remarkable criminals who have been condemned and executed for murder, highway robbery, housebreaking, street mugging, forgery, or other offences. Collected from original papers and authentic memoirs and published in 1735, edited by Arthur Hayward. Episode six Walter Kennedy, the Aspiring Pirate of Wapping. Piracy was anciently in this kingdom considered as a petty treason at common law, but in later times offenders of this kind are tried at the sessions house in the Old Bailey, before the judge of the Court of Admiralty, assisted by certain other judges of the common law, the Silver Ore, a peculiar ensign of authority belonging to the Court of Admiralty, lying on the table. On the twenty sixth of july seventeen twenty one at such a sessions, Walter Kennedy and John Bradshaw were tried for piracies committed on the high seas, and both of them convicted. This Walter Kennedy was born at a place called Pelican Stairs in Wapping. His father was an anchorsmith, a man of good reputation, who gave his son Walter the best education he was able, and while a lad he was very tractable, and had no other apparent ill quality than that of a too aspiring temper. When he was grown up big enough to have gone out to a trade, his father bound him apprentice to himself, but died before his son was out of his time. Walter then followed his own roving inclinations and went to sea. He served for a considerable time on board a man of war in the reign of her late Majesty Queen Anne, in the war then carried on against France, during which time he often had occasion to hear of the exploits of the pirates, both in the East and West Indies, and of their having got several islands into their possession, wherein they were settled and in which they exercised a sovereign power. These tales had wonderful effect on Walter's disposition, and created in him a secret ambition of making a figure in the same way. He became more than ordinarily attentive whenever stories of that sort were told, and sought every opportunity of putting his fellow sailors upon such relations, becoming acquainted with the principal expeditions of these maritime desperados from the time of Sir Henry Morgan's commanding the buccaneers to Captain Avery's more modern exploits at Madagascar. It happened that he was sent with Captain Woods Rogers, Governor of Providence in the Bahama Islands, when that gentleman first went to recover that island by reducing the pirates who then had it in possession. Kennedy went out on one of the governor's vessels for trade, in which he had not long been at sea before he joined in a conspiracy of seizing the vessel, putting those to death who refused to come into their measures, and to then to go, as the sailors phrase it, upon the account, that is, to commence pirates. This villainous design succeeded according to their wish. They emptied the other vessel of whatever they thought might be of use, and then turned her adrift. A few days after their entering on this new course of life, they made themselves masters of two pretty large ships, and Kennedy took a particular delight in relating what happened to him in these expeditions. They chose a captain from amongst themselves, who in effect held little more than that title, excepting in an engagement when he commanded absolutely and without control. Most of them having suffered formerly from the ill treatment of their officers, provided carefully against any such evil, now they had the choice in themselves. They constituted officers for the due execution of their agreements, so very industrious were they to avoid putting too much power into the hands of one man. The life they led at sea was rendered equally unhappy from fear and hardship, they never seeing any vessel which reduced them not to the necessity of fighting. In this condition they were when they came to a resolution of going under the command of one Davis to the coast of Brazil. There they fell in with twenty sail of the homeward bound Portuguese fleet, attacked one vessel in the night, and were in the utmost danger of being taken. However, Davis behaved very prudently and they escaped, not so much by the swiftness of their own sailing as by the cowardice of the enemy. Being in great want of water, Davis at the head of about fifty of his men, very well armed, made a descent to fill their casks. The Portuguese governor of the port near which they landed, discovered them to be pirates, but not thinking himself in a condition strong enough to attack them, dissembled that knowledge. Davis and his men were no sooner returned on board than they received an invitation from the governor to an entertainment at his castle the next day. Their commander, who had hitherto behaved himself like a man of conduct, suffered his vanity to overcome him so far as to accept of the proposal, and the next morning with ten of his sailors went on shore. Before they had reached halfway, they were set upon by a party of Indians who lay in ambuscade, and with one flight of their poisoned arrows laid them all upon the ground, except Kennedy and another, who escaped to the top of a mountain, from whence they leaped into the sea and were with much difficulty taken up by a boat. After this they grew tired of the coast of Brazil. However, in their return to the West Indies they took some very considerable prizes. The captain who then commanded them was an Irishman, who endeavoured to bring the ship into Ireland, on the north coast of which a storm arising, the vessel was carried into Scotland and there wrecked. At that time Kennedy had a considerable quantity of gold, which he either squandered away or had stolen from him in the highlands. He afterwards went over into Ireland, where being in a low and poor condition he shipped himself at length for England and came up to London. He had not been long in town before he was observed by some whose vessel had been taken by the crew with whom he sailed. They caused him to be apprehended, and after lying a considerable time in prison, he was tried and convicted. After sentence he showed much less concern for life than is usual for persons in that condition. He was so much tired with the miseries and misfortune which for some years before he had endured, that death appeared to him a thing rather desirable than frightful. When the reprieve came for Bradshaw, who was condemned with him, he expressed great satisfaction, at the same time saying that he was better pleased than if he himself had received mercy. For, continued he, should I be banished into America as he is, it is highly probable I might be tempted to my old way of life, and so instead of reforming, add to the number of my sins. He continued in these sentiments till the time of his death, when, as he went through Cheapside to his execution, the silver ore being carried before him as is usual, he turned about to a person who sat by him in the cart, and said, Though it is a common thing for us when at sea to acquire vast quantities both of that metal which goes before me, and of gold, yet such is the justice of Providence that few or none of us preserve enough to maintain us. But as you see in me, when we go to death we have not wherewith to purchase a coffin to bury us. He died at Execution Dock, the twenty first of july seventeen twenty one, being then about twenty six years of age.