IX
What happened to Hudson when he reached Dartmouth has been recorded; and, broadly, why it happened. Hessel Gerritz wrote that "he ... returned safely to England, where he was accused of having undertaken a voyage to the detriment of his own country." Van Meteren wrote: "A long time elapsed, through contrary winds, before the Company could be informed of the arrival of the ship [the "Half Moon">[ in England. Then they ordered the ship and crew to return [to Holland] as soon as possible. But when they were going to do so, Henry Hudson and the other Englishmen of the ship were commanded by government there not to leave England but to serve their own country." Obviously, international trade jealousies were at the root of the matter. Conceivably, as I have stated, the Muscovy Company, a much interested party, was the prime mover in the seizure of Hudson out of the Dutch service. But we only know certainly that he was seized out of that service: with the result that he and Fate came to grips again; and that Fate's hold on him did not loosen until Death cast it off.
Hudson's fourth, and last, voyage was not made for the Muscovy Company; but those chiefly concerned in promoting it were members of that Company, and two of them were members of the first importance in the direction of its affairs. The adventure was set forth, mainly, by Sir Dudley Digges, Sir Thomas Smith, and Master John Wolstenholme—who severally are commemorated in the Arctic by Smith's Sound, Cape Digges, and Cape Wolstenholme—and the expedition got away from London in "the barke 'Discovery'" on April 17, 1610.
Purchas wrote a nearly contemporary history of this voyage that included three strictly contemporary documents: two of them certainly written aboard the "Discovery"; and the third either written aboard the ship on the voyage home, as is possible, or not long after the ship had arrived in England.
The first of these documents is "An Abstract of the Journal of Master Henry Hudson." This is Hudson's own log, but badly mutilated. It begins on the day of sailing, April 17th, and ends on the ensuing August 3d. There are many gaps in it, and the block of more than ten months is gone. The missing portions, presumably, were destroyed by the mutineers.
The second document is styled by Purchas: "A Note Found in the Deske of Thomas Wydowse, Student in the Mathematickes, hee being one of them who was put into the Shallop." Concerning this poor "student in the mathematickes" Prickett testified before the court: "Thomas Widowes was thrust out of the ship into the shallop, but whether he willed them take his keys and share his goods, to save his life, this examinate knoweth not." Practically, this is an assurance that he did make such an offer; and his despairing resistance to being outcast is implied also in the pathetic note following his name in the Trinity House list of the abandoned ones: "put away in great distress." There is nothing to show how he happened to be aboard the "Discovery," nor who he was. Possibly he may have been a son of the "Richard Widowes, goldsmith," who is named in the second charter (1609) of the Virginia Company. His "Note"—cited in full later on—exhibits clearly the evil conditions that obtained aboard the "Discovery"; and especially makes clear that Juet's mutinous disposition began to be manifested at a very early stage of the voyage.
The third document is the most important, in that it gives—or professes to give—a complete history of the whole voyage. Purchas styles it: "A Larger Discourse of the Same Voyage, and the Successe Thereof, written by Abacucks Prickett, a servant of Sir Dudley Digges, whom the Mutineers had Saved in hope to procure his Master to worke their Pardon." Purchas wrote that "this report of Prickett may happely bee suspected by some as not so friendly to Hudson." Being essentially a bit of special pleading, intended to save his own neck and the necks of his companions, it has rested always under the suspicion that Purchas cast upon it. Nor is it relieved from suspicion by the fact that it is in accord with his sworn testimony, and with the sworn testimony of his fellows, before the High Court of Admiralty when he and they were on trial for their lives as mutineers. The imperfect record of this trial merely shows that Prickett and all of the other witnesses—with the partial exception of Byleth—told substantially the same story; and—as they all equally were in danger of hanging—that story most naturally was in their own favor and in much the same words. From the Trinity House record it appears that Prickett was "a land man put in by the Adventurers"; and in the court records he is described, most incongruously, as a "haberdasher"—facts which place him, as his own very remarkable narrative places him, on a level much above that of the ordinary seamen of Hudson's time.
Dr. Asher's comment upon Prickett's "Discourse," is a just determination of its value: "Though the paper he has left us is in form a narrative, the author's real intention was much more to defend the mutineers than to describe the voyage. As an apologetic essay, the 'Larger Discourse' is extremely clever. It manages to cast some, not too much, shadow upon Hudson himself. The main fault of the mutiny is thrown upon some men who had ceased to live when the ship reached home. Those who were then still alive are presented as guiltless, some as highly deserving. Prickett's account of the mutiny and of its cause has often been suspected. Even Purchas himself and Fox speak of it with distrust. But Prickett is the only eye-witness that has left us an account of these events; and we can therefore not correct his statements, whether they be true or false."
My fortunate finding of contemporary documents, unknown to Hudson's most authoritative historian, has produced other "eye-witnesses" who have "left us an account of these events"; but, obviously, their accounts—so harmoniously in agreement—do not affect the soundness of Dr. Asher's conclusions. The net result of it all being, as I have written, that our whole knowledge of Hudson's murder is only so much of the truth as his murderers were agreed upon to tell.