Part 5

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.

Nerves go to pieces in the Arctic. Captain Back, who commanded the "Terror" on her first northern voyage (1836), has told how there comes, as the icy night drags on, "a weariness of heart, a blank feeling, which gets the better of the whole man"; and Colonel Brainard, of the Greely expedition, wrote: "Take any set of men, however carefully selected, and let them be thrown as intimately together as are the members of an exploring expedition--hearing the same voices, seeing the same faces, day after day--and they will soon become weary of one another's society and impatient of one another's faults."

The Greely expedition--composed of twenty-five men, of whom only seven were found alive by the rescue party--in many ways parallels, and pointedly illustrates, the Hudson expedition. There was dissension in Greely's command almost from the start. Surgeon Pavy's angry protests compelled the sending back in the "Proteus"--paralleling the sending back of Coleburne in the pink--of one member of the company; and Lieutenant Kislingbury--paralleling Juet's insubordination--objected so strongly to Greely's regulations that he gave in his resignation and tried, unsuccessfully, to overtake the "Proteus" and go home in her. Being returned to Fort Conger, he was not restored to his rank, and remained--as Juet remained after being superseded--a malcontent.

One of the commentators on the expedition thus has summarized the conditions of that dreadful winter of 1883-84: "It was now October, and the situation of the explorers was becoming desperate, but the bickerings seem to have increased with their peril. As the weary days of starvation and death wore on, nearly every member of the party developed a grievance. Israel was reprimanded by Greely for falsely accusing Brainard of unfairness in the distribution of articles. Bender annoyed the whole camp by his complaints regarding his bed-clothes; Pavy and Henry accused Fredericks, the cook, of not giving them their fair share of food; and Pavy and Kislingbury had a quarrel that barely stopped short of blows. Then Jewell was accused of selecting the heaviest dishes of those issued.... Bender and Schneider had a fist fight in their sleeping bag; and on one occasion Bender was so violent that a general mutiny was imminent, and Greely says in his written record:

'If I could have got Long's gun I would have killed him.' Bender brutally treated Ellison, who was very weak; and Schneider abused Whistler as he was dying--the second occurrence of the kind.... The thefts of food by Henry, and his execution, formed a culmination to the dissensions, though it did not entirely stop them. Never was there a more terrible example of the demoralizing effects of the conditions of Arctic life and privations upon men who in other circumstances were able to dwell at peace with their fellows."

Out of those conditions came like results aboard Hudson's ship: discontent developing into insubordination; hatred of the commander; hatred of each other; petty squabblings leading on to tragedies--as minor ills were magnified into catastrophes and little injuries into deadly wrongs. Strictly in keeping with the mean traditions of the Arctic is the fact that the point of departure of the final mutiny was a wrangle that arose over the ownership of "a gray cloth gowne."

Prickett records: "About the middle of this moneth of November dyed John Williams our Gunner. God pardon the Masters uncharitable dealing with this man. Now for that I am come to speake of him, out of whose ashes (as it were) that unhappie deed grew which brought a scandall upon all that are returned home, and upon the action itself, the multitude (like the dog) running after the stone, but not at the caster; therefore, not to wronge the living nor slander the dead, I will (by the leave of God) deliver the truth as neere as I can."

Prickett's deliverance of the truth leaves much to be desired. Without giving any information in regard to Hudson's "uncharitable dealing" with the gunner, he takes a fresh departure in these words: "You shall understand that our Master kept (in his house at London) a young man named Henrie Greene, borne in Kent, of worshipfull parents, but by his leud life and conversation hee had lost the good will of all his frinds, and had spent all that hee had. This man our Master would have to sea with him because hee could write well.... This Henrie Greene was not set down in the owners booke, nor any wages for him.... At Island the Surgeon and hee fell out in Dutch, and hee beat him ashoare in English, which set all the Companie in a rage soe that wee had much adoe to get the Surgeon aboord. [This curiously parallels the fight between Surgeon Pavy and Lieutenant Kislingbury] ... Robert Juet, (the Masters Mate) would needs burne his finger in the embers, and tolde the Carpenter a long tale (when hee was drunke) that our Master had brought in Greene to cracke his credit that should displease him: which wordes came to the Masters eares, who when hee understood it, would have gone back to Island, when hee was fortie leagues from thence, to have sent home his Mate Robert Juet in a fisherman. But, being otherwise perswaded, all was well.... Now when our Gunner was dead, and (as the order is in such cases) if the Company stand in neede of any thing that belonged to the man deceased, then it is brought to the mayne mast, and there sold to them that will give moste for the same. This Gunner had a gray cloth gowne, which Greene prayed the Master to friend him so much as to let him have it, paying for it as another would give. The Master saith hee should, and thereupon hee answered some, that sought to have it, that Greene should have it, and none else, and soe it rested.

"Now out of season and time the Master calleth the Carpenter to goe in hand with an house on shoare, which at the beginning our Master would not heare, when it might have been done. The Carpenter told him, that the snow and froste were such, as hee neither could nor would goe in hand with such worke. Which when our Master heard, hee ferreted him out of his cabbin to strike him, calling him by many foule names, and threatening to hang him. The Carpenter told him that hee knew what belonged to his place better than himselfe, and that he was no house carpenter. So this passed, and the house was (after) made with much labour, but to no end. The next day after the Master and the Carpenter fell out, the Carpenter took his peece and Henrie Greene with him, for it was an order that none should goe out alone, but one with a peece and another with a pike. This did move the Master soe much the more against Henrie Greene, that Robert Billot his Mate [who had been promoted to Juet's place] must have the gowne, and had it delivered unto him; which when Henrie Greene saw he challenged the Masters promise [to him]. But the Master did so raile on Greene, with so many words of disgrace, telling him that all his friends would not trust him with twenty shillings, and therefore why should hee. As for wages hee had none, nor none should have if hee did not please him well. Yet the Master had promised him to make his wages as good as any mans in the ship; and to have him one of the Princes guard when we came home. But you shall see how the devil out of this soe wrought with Greene that he did the Master what mischiefe hee could in seeking to discredit him, and to thrust him and many other honest men out of the ship in the end. To speake of all our trouble in this time of Winter (which was so colde, as it lamed the most of our Companie and my selfe doe yet feele it) would bee too tedious."

That is all that Prickett tells about their wintering; but what he leaves untold, as "too tedious," easily may be filled in. Beginning with that brabble over the "gray cloth gowne," there must have gone on in Hudson's party the same bickerings and wranglings that went on in Greely's party, and the same development of small animosities into burning hatreds. And it all, with Hudson's people, must have been rougher and fiercer and deadlier than it was with Greely's people: because Hudson's crew was of a time when sea-men, for cause, were called sea-wolves; while Greely's crew was the better (yet exhibited scant evidence of it) by an additional two centuries and a half of civilization, and was made up (though with little to show for it) of picked men.

XII

The end came in the spring-time. Through the winter the party had "such store of fowle," and later had for a while so good a supply of fish, that starvation was staved off. When the ice broke up, about the middle of June, Hudson sailed from his winter quarters and went out a little way into Hudson's Bay. There they were caught and held in the floating ice--with their stores almost exhausted, and with no more fowl nor fish to be had. Then the nip of hunger came; and with it came openly the mutiny that secretly had been fermenting through those months of cold and gloom.

Prickett writes: "Being thus in the ice on Saturday, the one and twentieth of June, at night, Wilson the boat swayne, and Henry Greene, came to mee lying (in my cabbin) lame, and told mee that they and the rest of their associates would shift the company and turne the Master and all the sicke men into the shallop, and let them shift for themselves. For there was not fourteen daies victuall left for all the company, at that poore allowance they were at, and that there they lay, the Master not caring to goe one way or other: and that they had not eaten any thing these three dayes, and therefore were resolute, either to mend or end, and what they had begun they would goe through with it, or dye."

According to his own account, Prickett made answer to this precious pair of scoundrels that he "marvelled to heare so much from them, considering that they were married men, and had wives and children, and that for their sakes they should not commit so foule a thing in the sight of God and man as that would bee"; to which Greene replied that "he knew the worst, which was, to be hanged when hee came home, and therefore of the two he would rather be hanged at home than starved abroad." With that deliverance "Henry Greene went his way, and presently came Juet, who, because he was an ancient man, I hoped to have found some reason in him. But hee was worse than Henry Greene, for he sware plainly that he would justifie this deed when he came home."

More of the conspirators came to Prickett to urge him to join them in their intended crime. We have his weak word for it that he refused, and that he tried to stay them; to which he weakly adds: "I hoped that some one or other would give some notice, either to the Carpenter [or to] John King or the Master." That he did not try to give "some notice" himself is the blackest count against him. The just inference may be drawn from his narrative, as a whole, that he was a liar; and from this particular section of it the farther inference may be drawn that he was a coward.

In the dawn of the Sunday morning the outbreak came. Prickett tells that it began by clapping the hatch over John King (one of the faithful men), who had gone down into the hold for water; and continues: "In the meane time Henrie Greene and another went to the carpenter [Philip Staffe] and held him with a talke till the Master came out of his cabbin (which hee soone did); then came John Thomas and Bennet before him, while Wilson bound his arms behind him. He asked them what they meant. They told him he should know when he was in the shallop. Now Juet, while this was a-doing, came to John King into the hold, who was provided for him, for he had got a sword of his own, and kept him at a bay, and might have killed him, but others came to helpe him, and so he came up to the Master. The Master called to the Carpenter, and told him that he was bound, but I heard no answer he made. Now Arnold Lodlo and Michael Bute rayled at them, and told them their knaverie would show itselfe. Then was the shallop haled up to the ship side, and the poore sicke and lame men were called upon to get them out of their cabbins into the shallop.

"The Master called to me, who came out of my cabbin as well as I could, to the hatch way to speake with him: where, on my knees, I besought them, for the love of God, to remember themselves, and to doe as they would be done unto. They bade me keepe myselfe well, and get me into my cabbin; not suffering the Master to speake with me. But when I came into my cabbin againe, hee called to me at the horne which gave light into my cabbin, and told me that Juet would overthrow us all; nay (said I) it is that villaine Henrie Greene, and I spake it not softly. Now was the Carpenter at libertie, who asked them if they would bee hanged when they came home: and, as for himselfe, hee said, hee would not stay in the ship unless they would force him. They bade him goe then, for they would not stay him....

"Now were all the poore men in the shallop, whose names are as followeth: Henrie Hudson, John Hudson, Arnold Lodlo, Sidrack Faner, Philip Staffe, Thomas Woodhouse or Wydhouse, Adam Moore, Henrie King, Michael Bute. The Carpenter got of them a peece, and powder, and shot, and some pikes, an iron pot, with some meale, and other things. They stood out of the ice, the shallop being fast to the sterne of the shippe, and so (when they were nigh out, for I cannot say they were cleane out) they cut her head fast from the sterne of our ship, then out with their top sayles, and toward the east they stood in a cleere sea.

"In the end they took in their top sayles, righted their helme, and lay under their fore sayle till they had ransacked and searched all places in the ship. In the hold they found one of the vessels of meale whole, and the other halfe spent, for wee had but two; wee found also two firkins of batter, some twentie seven pieces of porke, halfe a bushell of pease; but in the Masters cabbin we found two hundred of bisket cakes, a pecke of meale, of beere to the quantitie of a butt, one with another. Now it was said that the shallop was come within sight, they let fall the main sayle, and out with their top sayles, and fly as from an enemy. Then I prayed them yet to remember themselves; but William Wilson (more than the rest) would heare of no such matter. Comming nigh the east shore they cast about, and stood to the west and came to an iland and anchored.... Heere we lay that night, and the best part of the next day, in all which time we saw not the shallop, or ever after."

That is the story of Hudson's murder as we get it from his murderers; and even from Prickett's biased narrative so complete a case is made out against the mutineers that there is comfort in knowing that some of them, and the worst of them, came quickly to their just reward.

XIII

A month later, July 28, a halt was made in the mouth of Hudson's Strait to search for "fowle" for food on the homeward voyage. There "savages" were encountered, seemingly of so friendly a nature that on the day following the first meeting with them a boat's crew--of which Prickett was one--went ashore unarmed. Then came a sudden attack. Prickett himself was set upon in the boat--of which, "being lame," he had been left keeper--by a savage whom he managed to kill. What happened to the others he thus tells:

"Whiles I was thus assaulted in the boat, our men were set upon on the shoare. John Thomas and William Wilson had their bowels cut, and Michael Perse and Henry Greene, being mortally wounded, came tumbling into the boat together. When Andrew Moter saw this medley, hee came running downe the rockes and leaped into the sea, and so swamme to the boat, hanging on the sterne thereof, till Michael Perse took him in, who manfully made good the head of the boat against the savages, that pressed sore upon us. Now Michael Perse had got an hatchet, wherewith I saw him strike one of them, that he lay sprawling in the sea. Henry Greene crieth Coragio, and layeth about him with his truncheon. I cryed to them to cleere the boat, and Andrew Moter cryed to bee taken in. The savages betooke them to their bowes and arrowes, which they sent amongst us, wherewith Henry Greene was slaine out-right, and Michael Perse received many wounds, and so did the rest. Michael Perse cleereth [unfastened] the boate, and puts it from the shoare, and helpeth Andrew Moter in; but in turning of the boat I received a cruell wound in my backe with an arrow. Michael Perse and Andrew Moter rowed the boate away, which, when the savages saw, they ranne to their boats, and I feared they would have launched them to have followed us, but they did not, and our ship was in the middle of the channel and could not see us.

"Now, when they had rowed a good way from the shoare, Michael Perse fainted, and could row no more. Then was Andrew Moter driven to stand in the boat head, and waft to the ship, which at first saw us not, and when they did they could not tell what to make of us, but in the end they stood for us, and so tooke us up. Henry Greene was throwne out of the boat into the sea, and the rest were had aboard, the savage [with whom Prickett had fought] being yet alive, yet without sense. But they died all there that day, William Wilson swearing and cursing in most fearefull manner. Michael Perse lived two dayes after, and then died. Thus you have heard the tragicall end of Henry Greene and his mates, whom they called captaine, these four being the only lustie men in all the ship."

I am glad that Prickett got "a cruell wound in the backe." Were it not that by the killing of him we should have lost his narrative, I should wish that that weak villain had been killed along with the stronger ones. They were strong. It was a brave fight that they made; and Henry Greene's last recorded word, "Coragio!" was worthy of the lips of a better man. But he and the others eminently deserved the death that the savages gave them, and it is good to know that Hudson's murder so soon was avenged. Juet's equally exemplary punishment, equally deserved, came a little later. On the homeward voyage the whole company got to the very edge, and Juet passed beyond the edge, of starvation. When the ship was only sixty or seventy leagues from Ireland, where she made her landfall, Prickett tells that he "dyed for meere want."

What befell the survivors of the "Discovery's" crew, on the ship's return to England, has remained until now unknown; and even now the account of them is inconclusive. In the Latin edition of the year 1613 of his "Detectio Freti" Hessel Gerritz wrote: "They exposed Hudson and the other officers in a boat on the open sea, and returned into their country. There they have been thrown into prison for their crime, and will be kept in prison until their captain shall be safely brought home. For that purpose some ships have been sent out last year by the late Prince of Wales and by the Directors of the Moscovia Company, about the return of which nothing as yet has been heard."