Quedagh Merchant

ship

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Last updated

July 13, 2026

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The Quedagh Merchant was a ship captured by the privateer William Kidd in January 1698. Kidd was commissioned to hunt pirates but eventually turned to piracy himself. After taking the Quedagh Merchant, he scuttled his own ship, the Adventure Galley. Later, Kidd learned he had been accused of piracy and left the Quedagh Merchant at Hispaniola, where it disappeared. The term "Q-ship" refers to an armed vessel disguised as a merchant or fishing ship to lure enemy submarines into gun range.12

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William Kidd
…valuable prize, the Armenian ship Quedagh Merchant, in January 1698 and scuttled his own unseaworthy Adventure Galley. When he reached Anguilla, in the West Indies (April 1699), he learned that he had been denounced as a pirate. He left the Quedagh Merchant at the island of Hispaniola (where the ship…
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…valuable prize, the Armenian ship Quedagh Merchant, in January 1698 and scuttled his own unseaworthy Adventure Galley. When he reached Anguilla, in the West Indies (April 1699), he learned that he had been denounced as a pirate. He left the Quedagh Merchant at the island of Hispaniola (where the ship…
Read More