Henry Hudson: A Brief Statement of His Aims and His Achievements

by Thomas A. Janvier

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.