X
In the ruling of that, his last, adventure all of Hudson's malign stars seem to have been in the ascendant. His evil genius, Juet, again sailed with him as mate; and out of sheer good-will, apparently, he took along with him in the "Discovery" another villainous personage, one Henry Greene—who showed his gratitude for benefits conferred by joining eagerly with Juet in the mutiny that resulted in the murder of their common benefactor.
Hudson, therefore, started on that dismal voyage with two firebrands in his ship's company—and ship's companies of those days, without help from firebrands, were like enough to explode into mutiny of their own accord. I must repeat that the sailor-men of Hudson's time—and until long after Hudson's time—were little better than dangerous brutes; and the savage ferocity that was in them was kept in check only by meeting it with a more savage ferocity on the part of their superiors.
At the very outset of the voyage trouble began. Hudson wrote on April 22, when he was in the mouth of the Thames, off the Isle of Sheppey: "I caused Master Coleburne to bee put into a pinke bound for London, with my letter to the Adventurars imparting the reason why I put him out of the ship." He does not add what that reason was;[5] nor is there any reference in what remains of his log to farther difficulties with his crew. The newly discovered testimony of the mutineers, cited later, refers only to the final mutiny. Prickett, therefore—in part borne out by the "Note" of poor Widowes—is our authority for the several mutinous outbreaks which occurred during the voyage; and Prickett wrote with a vagueness—using such phrases as "this day" and "this time," without adding a date—that helped him to muddle his narrative in the parts which we want to have, but which he did not want to have, most clear.
Prickett's first record of trouble refers to some period in July, at which time the "Discovery" was within the mouth of Hudson's Strait and was beset with ice. It reads: "Some of our men this day fell sicke, I will not say it was for feare, although I saw small signe of other griefe." His next entry seems to date a fortnight or so later, when the ship was farther within the strait and temporarily ice-bound: "Here our Master was in despaire, and (as he told me after) he thought he should never have got out of this ice, but there have perished. Therefore he brought forth his card [chart] and showed all the company that hee was entered above an hundred leagues farther than ever any English was: and left it to their choice whether they should proceed any farther—yea or nay. Whereupon some were of one minde and some of another, some wishing themselves at home, and some not caring where so they were out of the ice. But there were some who then spake words which were remembered a great while after." This record shows that Hudson had with him a chart of the strait—presumably based on Weymouth's earlier (1602) exploration of it—with the discovery of which he popularly is credited; and, as Weymouth sailed into the strait a hundred leagues, his assertion that he had "entered a hundred leagues farther than ever any English was" obviously is an error. But the more important matter made clear by Prickett (admitting that Prickett told the truth) is that a dangerously ugly feeling was abroad among the crew nearly a year before that feeling culminated in the final tragedy.
Prickett concludes this episode by showing that Hudson's eager desire to press on prevailed: "After many words to no purpose, to worke we must on all hands, to get ourselves out and to cleere our ship."
And so the "Discovery" went onward—sometimes working her way through the ice, sometimes sailing freely in clear water—until Hudson triumphantly brought her, as Purchas puts it, into "a spacious sea, wherein he sayled above a hundred leagues South, confidently proud that he had won the passage"! It was his resolve to push on until he could be sure that he truly "had won the passage" that won him to his death.
When they had entered that spacious sea—rounding the cape which then received its name of Cape Wolstenholme—they came to where sorrel and scurvy-grass grew plentifully, and where there was "great store of fowle." Prickett records that the crew urged Hudson "to stay a daye or two in this place, telling him what refreshment might there bee had. But by no means would he stay, who was not pleased with the motion." This refers to August 3d, the day on which Hudson's log ends. Prickett adds, significantly: "So we left the fowle, and lost our way downe to the South West."
By September, the "Discovery" was come into James Bay, at the southern extremity of Hudson's Bay; and then it was that the serious trouble began. By Prickett's showing, there seems to have been a clash of opinions in regard to the ship's course; and of so violent a sort that strong measures were required to maintain discipline. The outcome was that "our Master took occasion to revive old matters, and to displace Robert Juet from being his mate, and the boatswaine from his place, for the words spoken in the first great bay of ice."
For what happened at that time we have a better authority than Prickett. The "Note" of Thomas Widowes covers this episode; and, in covering it, throws light upon the mutinous conditions which prevailed increasingly as the voyage went on. As the only contemporary document giving Hudson's side of the matter it is of first importance—we may be very sure that it would not have come down to us had it been discovered by the mutineers—and I cite it here in full as Purchas prints it:
"The tenth day of September, 1610, after dinner, our Master called all the Companie together, to heare and beare witnesse of the abuse of some of the Companie (it having beene the request of Robert Juet), that the Master should redresse some abuses and slanders, as hee called them, against this Juet: which thing after the Master had examined and heard with equitie what hee could say for himselfe, there were proued so many and great abuses, and mutinous matters against the Master, and [the] action by Juet, that there was danger to have suffered them longer: and it was fit time to punish and cut off farther occasions of the like mutinies.
"It was proved to his face, first with Bennet Mathew, our Trumpet, upon our first sight of Island [Iceland], and he confest, that he supposed that in the action would be man slaughter, and proue bloodie to some.
"Secondly, at our coming from Island, in hearing of the Companie, hee did threaten to turne the head of the Ship home from the action, which at that time was by our Master wisely pacified, hoping of amendment.
"Thirdly, it was deposed by Philip Staffe, our Carpenter, and Ladlie Arnold [Arnold Ludlow] to his face upon the holy Bible, that hee perswaded them to keepe Muskets charged, and Swords readie in their Cabbins, for they should be charged with shot ere the Voyage was over.
"Fourthly, wee being pestered in the Ice, hee had used words tending to mutinie, discouragement, and slander of the action, which easily took effect in those that were timorous; and had not the Master in time preuented, it might easily have overthrowne the Voyage: and now lately being imbayed in a deepe Bay, which the Master had desire to see, for some reasons to himselfe knowne, his word tended altogether to put the Companie into a fray [fear] of extremitie, by wintering in cold: Jesting at our Master's hope to see Bantam by Candlemas.
"For these and diuers other base slanders against the Master, hee was deposed, and Robert Bylot [Bileth, or Byleth], who had showed himself honestly respecting the good of the action, was placed in his stead the Masters Mate.
"Also Francis Clement the Boatson, at this time was put from his Office, and William Wilson, a man thought more fit, preferred to his place. This man had basely carried himselfe to our Master and the action.
"Also Adrian Mooter was appointed Boatsons mate: and a promise by the Master, that from this day Juats wages should remain to Bylot, and the Boatsons overplus of wages should bee equally diuided betweene Wilson and one John King, to the owners good liking, one of the Quarter Masters, who had very well carryed themselves to the furtherance of the businesse.
"Also the Master promised, if the Offenders yet behaued themselves henceforth honestly, hee would be a means for their good, and that hee would forget injuries, with other admonitions."
Hudson's fame is the brighter for this testament of the poor "Student in the Mathematickes" whose loyalty to his commander cost him his life. At times, Hudson seems to have temporized with his mutinous crews. In this grave crisis he did not temporize. For cause, he disrated his chief officers: and so asserted in that desolate place, as fearlessly as he would have asserted it in an English harbor, that aboard his ship his will was law.
But his strong action only scotched the mutiny. Prickett's narrative of the doings of the ensuing seven weeks deals with what he implies was purposeless sailing up and down James Bay. He casts reflections upon Hudson's seamanship in such phrases as "our Master would have the anchor up, against the mind of all who knew what belongeth thereto"; and in all that he writes there is a perceptible note of resentment of the Master's doings that reflects the mutinous feeling on board. Especially does this feeling show in his account of their settling into winter quarters: "Having spent three moneths in a labyrinth without end, being now the last of October, we went downe to the East, to the bottome of the Bay; but returned without speeding of that we went for. The next day we went to the South and South West, and found a place, whereunto we brought our ship and haled her aground. And this was the first of November. By the tenth thereof we were frozen in."
And then the Arctic night closed down upon them: and with it the certainty that they were prisoners in that desolate freezing darkness until the sun should come again and set them free.
[5] Captain Lake Fox has the following: "In the road of Lee, in the river Thames, he [Hudson] caused Master Coalbrand to be set in a pinke to be carried back againe to London. This Coalbrand was in every way held to be a better man than himselfe, being put in by the adventurers as his assistant, who envying the same (he having the command in his own hands) devised this course, to send himselfe the same way, though in a farre worse place, as hereafter followeth." Prickett tells only: "Thwart of Sheppey, our Master sent Master Colbert back to the owners with his letter."