Quedagh Merchant

Quedagh Merchant (/ˈkwiːdɑː(x)/; Armenian: Քեդահյան վաճառական Qedahyan Waćařakan), also known as the Cara Merchant and the Adventure Prize,^[1] was an Armenian merchant vessel famously captured by Scottish privateer William Kidd on 30 January 1698.

The ship was originally owned by a man named Coirgi, a French corruption of "Kurji", a Khoja name common in Gujarat. After the ship's capture, Kidd attempted to return to New York to share in the treasure with the governor of that colony, then on to England to pay off his backers.

The capture of Quedagh Merchant, as well as Rouparelle, caused a scandal throughout the British Empire, hurting Britain's safe trading status along the African and Indian coasts. Although Kidd felt that both of these captures were legal in accordance with his commission by his Lords, word spread quickly that Captain Kidd was a pirate. Kidd was later imprisoned and ultimately executed for alleged acts of piracy, as well as murder.

The fate of Quedagh Merchant rested in the hands of merchants hired by Captain Kidd to guard the ship and await his return to the Caribbean in three months' time. During Kidd's long imprisonment in New York and later in England, New York Governor Lord Richard Bellomont attempted to extract a confession for the location of the ship, which was left anchored in a lagoon along Santa Catalina. When word reached New York that the merchants had sold off most of the goods, burned the ship, and sailed to Holland, Lord Bellomont sent a ship to verify that it had indeed been burned. The exact location of the remains of Quedagh Merchant were a mystery until December 2007, when they were discovered off the coast of Catalina Island, Dominican Republic.