In May 1701, Captain William Kidd stood trial at the Old Bailey in London, accused of piracy and murder. Commissioned by high-ranking English nobles to hunt French enemy ships and pirate vessels in the Indian Ocean, Kidd's defense hinged on two French passes captured aboard the targeted ships, the Quedagh Merchant and the Cara Merchant. Under maritime law, holding enemy passes legally justified his seizures as legitimate privateering actions.
However, when Kidd requested these vital documents in court, the prosecution and the Admiralty claimed they had vanished. Unable to prove he was acting under royal authority, Kidd was swiftly convicted and executed, his body left hanging in an iron cage above the Thames as a warning. The mystery was solved in 1910 when archival researchers stumbled upon the missing French passes buried in the British Public Record Office.
They had been intentionally withheld by political patrons who sought to distance themselves from Kidd when public sentiment turned against piracy, effectively framing him to protect their own reputations.