SAINT ETHELBURGA'S CHURCH, INTERIOR
HENRY HUDSON
A BRIEF STATEMENT OF
HIS AIMS AND HIS ACHIEVEMENTS
THOMAS A JANVIER
TO WHICH IS ADDED
A NEWLY-DISCOVERED PARTIAL RECORD
NOW FIKST PUBLISHED
OF
THE TRIAL, OF THE MUTINEERS
BY WHOM HE AND OTHERS
WERE ABANDONED TO THEIK DEATH
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1 9 O 9
Copyright, 1909, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
All rights reserved,
Published August, 1909.
TO
C A. J*
CONTENTS
PART I
PAGE
A Brief Life of Henry Hudson \
PART II
Newly-discovered Documents . . * U7
PREFA CE
Eis with great pleasure that I include in
.his volume contemporary Hudson docu-
ments which have remained neglected for
three centuries, and here are published for
the first time* As I explain more fully else-
where, their discovery is due to the pains-
taking research of Mr* R. G. Marsden, M.A.
My humble share in the matter has been
to recognize the importance of Mr. Mars-
den's discovery; and to direct the particular
search in the Record Office, in London,
that has resulted in their present repro-
duction. I regret that they are inconclu-
sive. We still are ignorant of what punish-
ment was inflicted upon the mutineers of
PREFA CE
the "Discovery"; or even if they were pun-
ished at all.
The primary importance of these docu-
ments, however, is not that they establish
the fact until now not established that
the mutineers were brought to trial; it is
that they embody the sworn testimony,
hitherto tmproduced, of six members of
Hudson's crew concerning the mutiny*
Asher, the most authoritative of Hudson's
modern historians, wrote: " 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/' We now have the accounts of
five additional eye-witnesses (Prickett him-
self is one of the six whose testimony has
been recovered), and all of them, so far as
they go, substantially are in accord with
Prickett's account. Such agreement is not
proof of truth. The newly adduced wit-
vxii
PREFACE
nesses and the earlier single witness equally
were interested in making out a case in
their own favor that would save them from
being hanged* But this new evidence does
entitle Prickett's " Larger Discourse " to a
more respectful consideration than that
dubious document heretofore has received.
Save in matters affected by this fresh ma-
terial, the following narrative is a conden-
sation of what has been recorded by Hud-
son's authoritative biographers, of whom
the more important are: Samuel Purchas,
Hessel Gerritz, Emanuel Van Meteren, G.
M. Asher, Henry C Murphy, John Romeyn
Brodhead, and John Meredith Read.
T. A. J.
New York,/a/3> 16, J909.
THE ILLUSTRATIONS
'R TO portrait of Hudson is known to be in
1 N existence* What has passed with the
uncritical for his portrait a dapper-look-
ing man wearing a raffed collar frequently
has been, and continues to be, reproduced.
Who that man was is unknown* That he
was not Hudson is certain.
Lacking Hudson's portrait, I have used
for a frontispiece a photograph, especially
taken for this purpose, of the interior of the
Church of Saint Ethelburga: the sole re-
maining material link, of which we have
sure knowledge, between Hudson and our-
selves. The drawing on the cover represents
what is very near to being another material
link the replica, lately built in Holland,
xi
THE ILLUSTRATIONS
of the "Half Moon/' the ship in which Hud-
son made his most famous voyage*
The other illustrations have been selected
with a strict regard to the meaning of that
word* In order to throw light on the text,
I have preferred to the ventures of fancy
reproductions of title-pages of works
on navigation that Hudson probably used;
pictures of the few and crude instruments of
navigation that he certainly used; and pict-
ures of ships virtually identical with those
in which he sailed.
The copy of Wright's famous work on
navigation that Hudson may have had. and
probably did have, with him was of an
earlier date than that (16JO) of which the
title-page here is reproduced. This repro-
duction is of interest in that it shows at a
glance all of the nautical instruments that
Hudson had at his command; and of a still
greater interest in that the map which is a
xii
THE ILLUSTRATIONS
part of it exhibits what at that time, by ex-
ploration or by conjecture, was the known
world. To the making of that map Hudson
himself contributed: on it, with a previous-
ly unknown assurance, his River clearly is
marked* The inadequate indication of his
Bay probably is taken from Weymouth's
chart the chart that Hudson had with him
on his voyage. A curious feature of this
map is its marking in defiance of known
facts of two straits, to the north and to the
south of a large island, where should be the
Isthmus of Panama.
The one seemingly fanciful picture, that
of the mermaids, is not fanciful a point
that I have enlarged upon elsewhere by
the standard of Hudson's times. Hudson
himself believed in the existence of mer-
maids: as is proved by his matter-of-fact
entry in his log that a mermaid had been
seen by two of his crew.
xiii
A BRIEF LIFE
OF HENRY HUDSON
HENRY HUDSON
F ever a compelling Fate set its
grip upon a man and drove him
to an accomplishment beside his
purpose and outside his thought,
it was when Henry Hudson
having headed his ship upon an ordered
course northeastward directly traversed
his orders by fetching that compass to the
southwestward which ended by bringing
him into what now is Hudson's River, and
which led on quickly to the founding of
what now is New York.
I
HENRY HUDSON
Indeed, the late Thomas Aquinas, and
the later Calvin, could have made out from
the few known facts in the life of this
navigator so pretty a case in favor of Pre-
destination that the blessed St Augustine
and the worthy Arminius supposing the
four come together for a friendly dish of
theological talk would have had their
work cut out for them to formulate a
countercase in favor of Free Will* It is
a curious truth that every important move
in Hudson's life of which we have record
seems to haveJbegnLa forcect-move: some-
times with a look of chance about it as
when the directors of the Dutch East
India Company called him back and hastily
renewed with him their suspended agree-
ment that he should search for a passage
to Cathay on a northeast course past Nova
Zembla, and so sent him off on the voyage
that brought the " Half Moon " into Hud-
2
HENRY HUDSON
son's River; sometimes with the -fatalism
very^ muchjn evidence as when his own
government seized him out of the Dutch
service, and so put him in the way to go
sailing to his death on that voyage through
Hudson's Strait that ended, for him, in his
mutineering crew casting him adrift to starve
with cold and hunger in Hudson's Bay.
And, being dead, the same inconsequent
Fate that harried him while alive has pre-
served his name, and very nobly, by an-
choring it fast to that River_and Strait and
Bay forever: and this notwithstanding the
fact that all three of them were discovered
by other navigators before his time*
Hudson sought, as from the time of Colum-
bus downward other navigators had sought
before him, a short cut to the Indies; but
his search was made, because of what those
others had accomplished, within narrowed
lines. In the century and more that had
3
HENRY HUDSON
passed between the great Admiral's death
and the beginning of Hudson's explorations
one important geographical fact had been
established: that there was no water-way
across America between, roughly, the lati-
tudes of 40 South and 40 North. Of neces-
sity, therefore since to round America
south of 40 South would make a longer
voyage than by the known route around the
Cape of Good Hope exploration that might
produce practical results had to be made
north of 40 North, either westward from
the Atlantic or eastward from the North
Sea.
Even within those lessened limits much
had been determined before Hudson's time*
To the eastward, both Dutch and English
searchers had gone far along the coast of
Russia; passing between that coast and Nova
Zembla and entering the Ka^a Sea. To the
westward, in the year J524, Verazzano had
4
NAVIGATION
T>etedfd anj. Corm&d
FAC-SIMILE OF TITLE-PAGE OF A SEA HAND-
BOOK OF HUDSON'S TIME
HENRY HUDSON
sailed along the American coast from 34
to 50 North; and in the course of that
voyage had entered what now is New York
Bay. In the year J598, Sebastian Cabot
had coasted America from 38 North to the
mouth of what now is Hudson's Strait.
Frobisher had entered that Strait in the year
1 577; Weymouth had sailed into it nearly
one hundred leagues in the year 1602; and
Portuguese navigators, in the years 1558 and
1569, probably had passed through it and
had entered what now is Hudson's Bay.
As the result of all this exploration, Hud-
son had at his command a mass of informa-
tion positive as well as negative that at
once narrowed his search and directed it;
and there is very good reason for believing
that he actually carried with him charts of
a crude sort on which, more or less clearly,
were indicated the Strait and the Bay and
the River which popularly are regarded as
HENRY HUDSON
of his discovery and to which have been
given his name. But I hold that his just
fame is not lessened by the fact that his
discoveries, nominally, were,. rediscoveries.
Within the proper meaning of the word they
truly were his dis-coveries: in that he did
tm-cover them so effectually that they be-
came known clearly, and thereafter remained
known clearly, to the world*
ICAUSE of his full accomplish-
ment of what others essayed and
only partially accomplished, Hud-
son's name is the best known
excepting only that of Columbus
of all the names of explorers by land and
sea* From Purchases time downward it has
headed the list of Arctic discoverers; in
every history of America it has a leading
place; on every map of North America it
thrice is written large; here in New York,
which owes its founding to his exploring
voyage, it is uttered as we refer to the
river, the county, the city, the street, the
railroad, bearing it a thousand times a day*
HENRY HUDSON
And yet, in despite of this familiarity with
his name, our certain knowledge of Hudson's
life is limited to a period (April J9, J607-
June 22, J6U) of little more than four years*
Of that period, during which he dicTlhe
work that has made him famous, we have a
partial record much of it tinder his own
hand that certainly is authentic in its
general outlines until it reaches the culmi-
nating tragedy* At the very last, where we
most want the clear truth, we have only the
one-sided accpunt presented by his mur-
derers: and murderers, being at odds with
moral conventions generally, are not, as a
rule, models of veracity* And so it has
fallen out that what we know about the end
of Hudson's life, save that it ended foully,
is as uncertain as the facts of the earlier and
larger part of his life are obscure*
An American investigator, the late Gen.
John Meredith Read, has gone farthest in
8
HENRY HUDSON
unearthing facts which enlighten this ob-
scurity; but with no better result than to
establish certain strong probabilities as to
Hudson's ancestry and antecedents* By
General Read's showing, the Henry Hudson
mentioned by Hakluyt as one of the charter
members (February 6, 1554-5) of the MUSCCH
vy Company, possibly was our navigator's
grandfather* He was a freeman of London,
. .--s.
a member of the Skinners Company, and
sometime an alderman* He died in Decem-
ber, 1555, according to Stow, "of .the late]
hote burning feuers, whereof died many!
olde persons, so that in London died seven
Aldermen in the space of tenne monthes*"
They gave that departed worthy a very
noble funeral ! Henry Machyn, who had
charge of it, describes it in his delightful
" Diary " in these terms: " The xx day of
December was bered at Sant Donstones in
the Est master Hare Herdson, altherman of
HENRY HUDSON
London and Skynner, and on of the masters
of the gray frere in London with men and
xxiiij women in mantyl fresse [frieze?]
gownes, a herse [catafalque] of wax and
hong with blake; and there was my lord
mare and the swordberer in blake, and
dyvers oder althermen in blake, and the
resedew of the althermen, atys berying; and
all the masters, boyth althermen and odur,
with ther gren staf f es in ther hands, and all
the chylders of the gray frersse, and iiij in
blake gownes bayring iiij gret stayffes-
torchys bornying, and then xxiiij men with
torchys bornying; and the morrow iij masses
songe; and after to ys plasse to dener; and
ther was ij goodly whyt branches, and mony
prestes and clarkes syngying." Stow adds
that the dead alderman's widow, Barbara,
caused to be set up in St. Dunstan's to his
memory and also to that of her second
husband, Sir Richard Champion, and pro-
10
HENRY HUDSON
spectively to her own a monument in keep-
ing with their worldly condition and with
the somewhat mixed facts of their triangu-
lar case. This was a " very faire Alabaster
Tombe, richly and curiously gilded, and two
ancient figures of Aldermen in scarlet kneel-
ing, the one at the one end of the tombe
in a goodly arch, the other at the other
end in like manner, and a comely figure of
a lady between them, who was wife to them
both/'
The names have been preserved in legal
records of three of the sons Thomas, John
and Edward of this eminent Londoner:
who flourished so greatly in life; who was
given so handsome a send-off into eternity;
and who, presumably, retains in that final
state an undivided one-half interest in the
lady whose comely figure was sculptured
upon his tomb. General Read found record
of a Henry Hudson, mentioned by Stow as
n
HENRY HUDSON
a citizen, of London in the year 1558, who
may also have been a son of the alderman;
of a Captain Thomas Hudson, of Limehouse,
who had a leading part in an expedition set
forth " into the parts of Persia and Media "
by the Muscovy Company in the years 1577-
81; of a Thomas Hudson, of Mortlake, who
was a friend of Dr. John Dee, and to whom
references frequently are made in the fa-
mous " Diary " such as the following:
44 March 6 [1583]. I, and Mr. Adrian Gilbert
and John Davis did mete with Mr. Alder-
man Barnes, Mr. Townson, and Mr. Young,
and Mr. Hudson abowt the N.W. voyage/'
Concerning a Christopher Hudson who was
in the service of the Muscovy Company as
its agent and factor at Moscow from about
the year 1553 until about the year 1576
the only certainty is that he was not a son
of the Alderman* There is a record of the
year 1560 that " Christopher Hudson hath
12
104
^^ fyj ure ^
APPARATUS FOR CORRECTING ERRORS OF
THE COMPASS
FROM "CERTAINE ERRORS IN NAVIGATION." LONDON. 161O
HENRY HUDSON
written to come home * * . considering the
death of his father and mother "; and, as the
Alderman died in the year 1555, and as his
remarried widow was alive in the year J560,
this is conclusive. Being come back to
England, this Christopher rose to be a person
of importance in the Company; as appears
from the fact that he was one of a commit-
tee (circa J583) appointed to confer with
44 Captain Chris* Carlile * . * upon his in-
tended discoveries and attempt into the
hithermost parts of America/'
General Read thus summarized the re-
sult of his investigations: " We have learned
that London was the residence of Henry
Hudson the elder, of Henry Hudson his son,
and of Christopher Hudson, and that Captain
Thomas Hudson lived at Limehouse, now a
part of the Metropolis; while Thomas Hud-
son, the friend of Dr. John Dee, resided at
Mortlake, then only six or seven miles from
J3
HENRY HUDSON
the City * * By reference to a statement
made by Abakuk Prickett, in his 'Larger
Discourse/ it will be found that Henry Hud-
son the discoverer also was a citizen of Lon-
don and had a house there/' From all of
which, together with various minor corrobo-
rative facts, he draws these conclusions :
That Henry Hudson the discoverer was the
descendant, probably the grandson^of the
Henry Hudson who died while, jiplding the
office of Alderman of the City of London in
the year 1555; that he " received his early
training, and imbibed the ideas which con-
trolled the purposes of his after life, under
the fostering care of the great Corporation
[the Muscovy Company] which his relatives
had helped to found and afterwards to main-
tain "; that he entered the service of that
Company as an apprentice, in accordance
with the then custom, and in due course
was advanced to command rank*
J4
HENRY HUDSON
That is the net result of General Read's
most laboriously painstaking investigations.
The facts for which he searched so diligently,
and so longed to find, he did not find. In a
foot-note he added: " The place and date of
Hudson's birth will doubtless be accurately
ascertained in the course of the examinations
now being made in England under my di-
rections. The result of these researches I
hope to be able to present to the public at
no distant day/' That note was written
nearly fifty years ago, and its writer died
long since with his hope unrealized.
But while General Read failed to accom-
plish his main purpose, he did, as I have said,
more than any other investigator has done
to throw light on Hudson's ancestry, and
on his connection with the Muscovy Com-
pany in whose service he sailed. Our navi-
gator may or may not have been a grandson
of the alderman who cut so fine a figure in
15
HENRY HUDSON
the City three centuries and a half ago; but
beyond a reasonable doubt he was of the
family so eminently distinguished in the
annals of discovery to which that alder-
man, one of the founders of the Muscovy
Company, and Christopher Hudson, one of
its later governors, and Captain Thomas
Hudson, who sailed in its service, all be-
longed* And, being akin to such folk, the
natural disposition to adventure was so
strong within him that it led him on to
accomplishments which have made him the
most illustrious bearer of his name.
Ill
NNO, J607, Aprill the nineteenth,
at Saint Ethelburge, in Bishops
Gate street, did communicate with
the rest of the parishioners, these
persons, seamen, purposing to goe
to sea foure days after, for to discover a
passage by the North Pole to Japan and
China. First, Henry Hudson, master.
Secondly, William Colines, his mate. Third-
ly, James Young. Fourthly, John Colman.
Fiftly, John Cooke. Sixtly, James Beu-
bery. Seventhly, James Skrutton. Eight-
ly, John Pleyce. Ninthly, Thomas Barter.
Tenthly, Richard Day. Eleventhly, James
Knight. Twelfthly, John, Hudson, a boy/'
J7
HENRY HUDSON
With those words Purchas prefaced his ac-
count of what is known because we have
no record of earlier voyages as Hudson's
first voyage; and with those words our cer-
tain knowledge of Hudson's life begins*
St. Ethelburga's, a restful pause in the
bustle of BishopsgateJStreet, still stands
the worse, to be sure, for the clutter of little
shops that has been built in front of it, and
for incongruous interior renovation and I
am very grateful to Purchas for having pre-
served the scrap of information that links
Hudson's living body with that church
which still is alive: into which may pass by
the very doorway that he passed through
those who venerate his memory; and there
may stand within the very walls and beneath
the very roof that sheltered him when he
and his ship's company partook of the Sacra-
ment together three hundred years ago*
Purchas* no doubt, could have told all that
18
HENRY HUDSON
we so gladly would know of Hudson's early
history. But he did not tell it and we
must rest content, I think well content, with
that poetic beginning at the chancel rail of
St. Ethelburga's of the strong life that less
than four years later came to its epic ending.
The voyage made in the year J607, for
which Hudson and his crew prepared by
making their peace with God in St. Ethel-
burga's, had nothing to do with America;
nor did his voyage of the year following have
anything to do with this continent. Both
of those adventures were set forth by the
Muscovy Company in search of a northeast
passage to the Indies; and, while they failed
in their main purpose, they added important
facts concerning the coasts of Spitsbergen
and of Nova Zembla to the existing stock
of geographical knowledge, and yielded
practical results in that they extended Eng-
land's Russian trade.
* 19
l
HENRY HUDSON
The most notable scientific accomplish-
ment of the first voyage was the high north-
ing made. By observation (July 23, J607)
] Hudson was in_80 23\ By reckoning, two
days later, he was in 81. His reckoning,
because of his ignorance of the currents,
always has been considered doubtful. His
observed position recently has been
questioned by Sir Martin Conway, who
has arrived at the conclusion : " It is de-
monstrably probable that for 80 23' we
should read 79 23V' 1 But even with this
reduction accepted, the fact remains that
until the year J773, when Captain Phipps
reached 80 48', Hudson held the record for
44 farthest north/'
To the second jvoyage belongs the often-
quoted incident of the mermaid. The log of
1 " Hudson's Voyage to Spitsbergen in J 607," by
Sir Martin Conway. The Geographical Journal,
February, J900.
20
HENRY HUDSON
that voyage that has come down to us was
kept by Hudson himself; and this is what
he wrote in it (June J5 t J608) with his own
hand: " All day and night cleere sunshine.
The wind at east* The latitude at noone
75 degrees 7 minutes* We held westward
by our account J3 leagues* In the after-
noon* the sea was asswaged, and the wind
being at east we set sayle* and stood south
and by east* and south southeast as we could.
This morning one of our companie looking
over boord saw a mermaid* and calling up
some of the companie to see her* one more
came up and by that time shee was come
close to the ships side, looking earnestly on
the men* A little after a sea came and
overturned her. From the navill upward
her backe and breasts were like a womans,
as they say that saw her* but her body as
big as one of us* Her skin very white,
and long haire hanging downe behinde of
21
HENRY HUDSON
colour blacke. In her going downe they
saw her tayle, which was like the tayle of
a porposse, and speckled like a macrell.
Their names that saw her were Thomas
Hiiles and Robert Rayner."
I am sorry to say that the too-conscien-
tious Doctor Asher, in editing this log, felt
called upon to add, in a foot-note: " Prob-
ably a seal"; and to quote, in support of
his prosaic suggestion, various unnecessary
facts about seals observed a few centuries
later in the same waters by Doctor Kane.
For my own part, I much prefer to believe
in the mermaid and, by so believing, to
create in my own heart somewhat of the
feeling which was in the hearts of those old
seafarers in a time when sea-prodigies and
sea-mysteries were to be counted with as
among the perils of every ocean voyage*
This belief of mine is not a mere whimsical
fancy. Unless we take as real what the
22
HENRY HUDSON
shipmen of Hudson's time took as real, we
not only miss the strong romance which was
so large a part of their life, but we go wide
of understanding the brave spirit in which
their exploring work was done* Adventur-
ing into tempests in their cockle-shell ships
they took as a matter of course and were
brave in that way without any thought of
their bravery* As a part of the day's work,
also, they took their wretched quarters
aboard ship and their wretched, and usually
insufficient, food* Their highest courage
was reserved for facing the fearsome dangers
which existed only in their imaginations
but which were as real to them as were the
dangers of wreck and of starvation and of
battlings with wild beasts, brute or human,
in strange new-found lands* It followed of
necessity that men leading lives so full of
physical hardship, and so beset by wonder-
ing dread, were moody and-discontented
' 23 . ""
HENRY HUDSON
and so easily went on from sullen anger into
open mutiny* And equally did it follow
that the shipmasters who held those surly
brutes to the collar driving them to their
work with blows, and now and then killing
one of them by way of encouraging the
others to obedience were as absolutely
fearless and as absolutely strong of will as
men could be. All of these conditions we
must recognize, and must try to realize, if
we would understand the work that was
cut out for Hudson, and for every master
navigator, in that cruel and harsh and yet
ardently romantic time.
IV
T is Hudson's third voyage the
one that brought him into our own
river, and that led on directly to
the founding of our own city
that has the deepest interest to us
of New York. He made it in the service of
the Dutch East India Company: but how he
came to enter that service is one of the un-
solved problems in his career.
In itself, there was nothing out of the com-
mon in those days in an English shipmaster
going captain in a Dutch vessel. But Hud-
son by General Read's showing was so
strongly backed by family influence in the
Muscovy Company that it is not easy to
25
HENRY HUDSON
understand why he took service with a cor-
poration that in a way was the Muscovy
Company's trade rival.. Lacking any ex-
planation of the matter, I am inclined to
link it with the action of the English Govern-
ment when he returned from his voyage
and made harbor at Dartmouth in detain-
ing him in England and in ordering him to
serve only under the English flag; and to
infer that his going to Holland was the re-
sult of a falling out with the directors of the
Muscovy Company; and that at their re-
quest, when the chances of the sea brought
him within English jurisdiction, he was de-
tained in his own country and so was put
in the way to take up with the adventure
that led him straight onward to his death.
In all of which may be seen the working-out
of that fatalism which to my mind is so ap-
parent in Hudson's doings, and which is
most apparent in his third voyage: that
26
HENRY HUDSON
evidently had its origin in a series of curious
mischances, and that ended in his doing
precisely what those who sent him on it
were resolved that he should not do.
All that we know certainly about his tak-
ing service with the Dutch Company is told
in a letter from President Jeannin the
French envoy who was engaged in the years
J 608-9, with representatives of other nations,
in trying to patch up a truce or a peace be-
tween the Netherlands and Spain to his
master, Henry IV. Along with his open
instructions, Jeannin seems to have had
private instructions in keeping with the
customs and principles of the time to do
what he could do in the way of stealingjrom
Holland for the benefit of France a share of
the East India trade. IrT~regard to this
amiable phase of his mission, under date of
January 21, 1609, he wrote :
44 Some time ago I made, by your Majesty's
27
HENRY HUDSON
orders, overtures to an Amsterdam merchant
named Isaac Le Maire, a wealthy man of a
considerable experience in the East India
trade* He offered to make himself useful
to your Majesty in matters of this kind.
* . . A few days ago he sent to me his brother,
to inform me that an English pilot who has
twice sailed in search of a northern passage
has been called to Amsterdam by the East
India Company to tell them what he had
found, and whether he hoped to discover
that passage. They had been well satisfied
with his answer, and had thought they might
succeed in the scheme. They had, however,
been unwilling to undertake at once the said
expedition; and they had only remunerated
the Englishman for his trouble, and had dis-
missed him with the promise of employing
him next year, J6JO. The Englishman, hav-
ing thus obtained his leave, Le Maire, who
knows him well, has since conferred with him
28
the Arte of Nauigation. FoL 6
15ut here fome ma? mooue a doubfe, teeing, fhaton fbe
eartbtoema?f man?m0unta?ne* , andeonfequentl?mam> UJthJ
jjreaf Cl alters an) playnes , toithmarnpiuuerfitiesof ftmDj?
other teepe andbnequallplatefl, b? reafon thereof , the eartli
cannot trutl? be called rounae .JTo this J fa? , that in t too man
mre,tbeeartb.isallcDandt)nderffotdetoberounde . j3 after
onemannev,fpeakmap:cciff I? , it t? calleDrounOe, asa Circle
o? a ^ptjere, tnljiclje toe call rounte, becaufe t ijat all rigljt ijneji
5;atotn from ttje center thereof to tlje nrcumferentf ,arf equal 1.
Efteotljerroununeffc, wronfiDcreo toit^out (10 p?ecOeneJTe:
and 10 fuc^,ajs not bv all Ijvs partes (0 equally Dtftant from fj^s
m?ooefto: center, Whatt) feme partes^gber, ano fomeloto*
e r , vc t not in (uct) quantitie as m a IP Btffr o? t^e rotmQnede of ttye
toljole. S\isjf tnaHSotole ttiere totre cerfayne cl^fteisojljoles,
it ftjoulOf not tljcreby leaur to berounDe, alfljoujjlj not perfect!?
0} p:e ctfel^ rountre . lnD fo: this caufe fat t b Auerrois, t Fiat a I -
tljougb botli tb e he aiienl? botnes ano the lements are of round
fburme,?etoiflferthe; in tbt8, t^at tbe beauenl? fcpberes bauc
perftct rouninelTe,and the CElementesinot.5l8 the Cartb,b?rea*
fon of bis a&ounta^nes f taa leg, ttje Jsca b? b?2 encreaftug, anl
Oecreafing:tbe 3v;e alfo fo; hi neareneCfe to tbe fv: c,an D b? t)vs
contrarietie uoetji ftmet?me doo,aad ftmttpne fuffer ( that is to ne
fa?) Ur fomet?me actiue and fomethne patfiu e.feo that follotuing am e & V-
tbeone,itfleethtbeother,bsrfafontobcreof, it alfo lacfeet|i per
feaerounone(&. )i5uttljef^e,fo^aj(mticbea8itijfnearetotbe
concaut of the Circle oftbespoone, tnbtcb ujfepbericall, ma?
tyereftye becalleo ^pbericall ojrounde.
25 4 The
"HOW THE EARTH IS ROUND"
FAG-SIMILE OF PAGE "THE ARTE OF NAVIGATION"
LONDON. EDITION 1596
HENRY HUDSON
and has learnt his opinions on these subjects;
with regard to which the Englishman had
also intercourse with Plancius, a great geog-
rapher and clever^ mathematician* Plan-
cius maintains, according to the reasons of
his science, and from the information given
him, * * * that there mast be in the northern
parts a passage corresponding to the^one )
found near the south pole by Magellan* * *
The Englishman also reports that, having
been to the north as far as 80 degrees, he has f
found that the more northwards he went,
the less cold it became/'
Hudson's name is not mentioned by Jean-
nin, but as no other navigator had been so
far north as 80, there can be no doubt as
to who " the Englishman " was. The letter
goes on to urge that the French king should
undertake the "glorious enterprise " of
searching for a northerly passage to the
Indies, and that he should undertake it open-
29
HENRY HUDSON
ly: as " the East India Company will not
have even a right to complain, because the
charter granted to them by the States Gener-
al authorizes them to sail only around the
Cape of Good Hope, and not by the north/'
But Jeannin adds that Le Maire "does not
dare to speak about it to any one, because
the East India Company fears above every-
thing to be forestalled in this design/'
Precisely that fear on the part of the East
India Company did undercut the French
envoy's plans* In a postscript to his letter
he adds: " This letter having been termi-
nated, and I being ready to send it to your
Majesty, Le Maire has again written to
me. * * Some members of the East India
Company, who had been informed that the
Englishman had secretly treated with him,
had become afraid that I might wish to em-
ploy him for the discovery of the passage*
For this reason they have again treated with
30
HENRY HUDSON
him about his undertaking such an expedi-
tion in the course of the present year. The
directors of the Amsterdam Chamber have
written to the other chambers of the same
Company to request their approval; and
should the others refuse, the Amsterdam
Chamber will undertake the expedition at
their own risk/'
In point of fact, the other chambers did
refuse (although, before Hudson actually
sailed, they seem to have ratified the
agreement made with him); and the Am-
sterdam Chamber, single-handed, did set
forth the voyage.
In view of the fact that the French project
in a way was realized, a curiously subtle
interest attaches to Jeannin's showing of
how narrow were the chances by which Hud-
son missed being taken into the French
service, and was taken into that of the
Dutch. A French ship, under the command
4 31
HENRY HUDSON
of a captain whose name has not been pre-
served, did sail for the North almost pre-
cisely a month later than Hudson's sailing
on May 5, J609. Beyond the bare fact that
such a voyage was made, nothing is known
about it: whence the inference is a reason-
able one that it produced no new discoveries.
But suppose that Hudson had commanded;
and, so commanding, had not sailed that
unknown captain's useless course but had
brought his French ship into what now are
our bay and our river; and that the French,
not the Dutch, had founded the city here
that now is but by those hair-wide chances
might not have been New York?
R* HENRY C MURPHY to
whose searchings in the archives
of Holland we owe so much
found at The Hague a manuscript
history of the East India Com-
pany, written by P. van Dam in the seven-
teenth century, in which a copy of Hudson's
contract with the Company is preserved.
The contract reads as follows:
" On this eighth of January, in the year
of our Lord one thousand six hundred and
nine, the Directors of the East India Com-
pany of the Chamber of Amsterdam of the
ten years reckoning of the one part, and
Master Henry Hudson, Englishman, assisted
33
HENRY HUDSON
by Jodocus Hondius 1 , of the other part, have
agreed in manner following, to wit: That
the said Directors shall in the first place
equip a small vessel or yacht of about thirty
lasts [60 tons] burden, well provided with
men, provisions and other necessaries, with
which the above named Hudson shall, about
the first of April, sail in order to search for
a passage by the north, around the north
side of Nova Zembla, and shall continue
thus along that parallel until he shall be able
to sail southward to the latitude of sixty
degrees. He shall obtain as much knowl-
edge of the lands as can be done without
any considerable loss of time, and if it is
possible return immediately in order to make
a faithful report and relation of his voyage
1 Hondius, an eminent map-engraver of the time,
was a Fleming, who, being driven from Flanders by
the Spanish cruelties, made his home in Amsterdam,
where he died in the year J6U.
34
THE
ARTE OF NAVI
CATION.
Contayning a breife defer iption of
the Spheare, with the panes and Circles
ot the fame : as alfo the making and vfe of
certaine Inftrumenrs. Verynecefsa-
rie for all fortes of Sea-men to
' vndei Hand.
Firft written inSpanifh by Martin ('urtij, and tranflatedinto
Englifh by Richard EJtn: and laflly correfted and aug-
mented, with a Regiment or Table of declina-
tion, and dmers other necefl" ry tables
and rules of common Naui-
gation.
Calculated (thisyeare i ; 9 6\ being leap yeare) by J. T-
Imprinted at London by Edw, AlldehrHugh Aft ley, by the
afsignes of Richard Waikins, and are to DC (bide at
Sjinu Magnus comer. I J ^ 6.
FAC-SIMILE OF TITLE-PAGE OF A SEA HAND-
BOOK OF HUDSON'S TIME
HENRY HUDSON
to the Directors, and to deliver over his
journals, log-books, and charts, together
with an account of everything whatsoever
which shall happen to him during the voyage
without keeping anything back.
44 For which said voyage the Directors
shall pay the said Hudson, as well for his
outfit for the said voyage as for the support
of his wife and children, the sum of eight
hundred guilders [say $336] And in case
(which God prevent) he does not come back
or arrive hereabouts within a year, the
Directors shall farther pay to_Jiis_wifeJtwo
hundred guilders in cash; and thereupon
they shall not be farther liable to him or
his heirs, unless he shall either afterward
or within the year arrive and have found the
passage good and suitable for the Company to
use; in which case the Directors will reward
the before named Hudson for his dangers,
trouble, and knowledge, in their discretion.
35
HENRY HUDSON
44 Anfl in case the Directors think proper to
prosectrte and continue the same voyage, it
is stipulated and agreed with the before
named Hudson that he shall make his resi-
dence in this country with his wife and chil-
dren, and shall enter into the employment
of no other than the Company, and this at
the discretion of the Directors, who also
promise to make him satisfied and content
for such farther service in all justice and
equity* All without fraud or evil intent*
In witness of the truth, two contracts are
made hereof * * * and are subscribed by both
parties and also by Jodocus Hondius as in-
terpreter and witness*"
Of Hudson's sailing orders no copy has
been found; but an abstract of them has
been preserved by Van Dam in these words:
" This Company, in the year 1609, fitted
out a yacht of about thirty lasts burden
and engaged a Mr* Henry Hudson* an Eng-
36
HENRY HUDSON
lishman, and a skilful pilot, as master there-
of: with orders to search for the aforesaid
passage by the north and north-east above
Nova Zembla toward the lands or straits
of Amian, and then to sail at least as far
as the sixtieth degree of north latitude, when
if the time permitted he was to return from
the straits of Amian again to this country.
But he was farther ordered by his instruc-
tions to think of discovering no other route
or passages except the route around the
north and north-east above Nova Zembla;
with this additional proviso that, if it could
not be accomplished at that time, another
route would be the subject of consideration
for another voyage/'
It is evident from the foregoing that never
did a shipmaster get away to sea with more
explicit orders than those which were given
to Hudson as to how his voyage was, and
as to how it was not, to be made* On his
37
HENRY HUDSON
obedience to those orders, which essentially
were a part of his contract, depended the
obligation of the directors to pay him for his
services; and farther depended a considera-
tion that reasonably might be expected to
touch him still more closely their obliga-
tion to bestow a solatium upon his wife and
children in the event of his death* And
yet, with those facts clearly before him, he
did precisely what he had contracted, and
what in most express terms he was ordered,
not to do*
VI
nsvli iJUDSON sailed from the Texel In
the "Half Moon" (possibly accom-
panied by a small vessel, the
Good Hope/' that did not pur-
sue the voyage) on March 27-
April 6, J609; and for more than a month
until he had doubled the North Cape and
was well on toward Nova Zembla went
duly on his way* Then came the mutiny
that made him change, or that gave him
an excuse for changing, his ordered course.
The log that has been preserved of this
voyage was kept by Robert Juet? who was
Hudson's mate on his second voyage, and
who was mate again on Hudson's fourth
39
HENRY HUDSON
voyage until his mutinous conduct caused
him to be deposed. What rating he had
on board the " Half Moon " is not known;
nor do we know whether he had, or had
not, a share in the mutiny that changed
the ship's course from east to west* With
a suspicious frankness, he wrote in his log:
44 Because it is a journey usually^ knowne
I omit to put downe what passed till we
came to the height of the North Cape of
Finmarke, which we did performe by the
fift of May (stilo novo), being Tuesday/'
To this he adds the observed position on
May 5th, 7J 46' North, and the course,
44 east, and by south and east/' and con-
tinues: " After much trouble, with fogges
sometimes, and more dangerous ice* The
nineteenth, being Tuesday, was close stormie
weather, with much wind and snow, and
very cold. The wind variable between the
north north - west and north - east. We
40
o
2
s g
Z D
' U)
> O
2 Z
m
HENRY HUDSON
made our way west and by north till
noone."
His abrupt transition from the fifth to the
nineteenth of May covers the time in which
the mutiny occurred* Practically, his log
begins almost on the day that the ship's
course was changed* In the smooth ~cpn-
cluding paragraph of this same log, to be
cited later, he passes over unmentioned the
mutiny that occurred on the homeward
voyage. Judging him by the facts recorded
in the accounts of the voyage into Hud-
son's Bay, it is a fair assumption that in
both of these earlier mutinies Juet had a
hand.
I wish that we could find the bond that
held Hudson and Juet together. That Juet
could write, and that he understood the
science of navigation although those were
rare accomplishments among seamen in his
time fail sufficiently to account for Hud-
41
HENRY HUDSON
son's persistent employment of him. For
my own part, I revert to my theory of fatal-
ism, It is my fancy that this " ancient
man/' as he is styled by one of his~com-
ffinions was Hudson's evil jjenius; and I
class him with the most finely conceived
character in Marryat's most finely con-
ceived romance: the pilot Schriften, in
PhantonLShip/' Just as Schriften citing to
the younger Van der Decken to thwart him,
so Juet seems to have clung to Hudson to
thwart him; and to take in the last round
between them a leading part in compassing
Hudson's death*
One authority, and a very good authority,
for the facts which Juet suppressed con-
cerning the third voyage is the historian
Van Meteren: who obtained them, there is
good reason for believing, directly from Hud-
son himself. In his " Historie der Nieder-
landen " (J6H) Van Meteren wrote: " This
42
HENRY HUDSON
Henry Hudson left the Texel the 6th of
April, 1609, and having doubled the Cape
of Norway the 5th of May, directed his course
along the northern coasts toward Nova
Zembla. But he there found the sea as full
of ice as he had found it In the preceding
year, so that he lost the hope of effecting
anything during the season. This circum-
stance, and the cold which some of his men
who had been in the East Indies could not
bear, caused quarrels among the crew, they
being partly English, partly Dutch; upon
which the captain, Henry Hudson, kid. be-
fore them two propositions* The first of these
was, to go to the coast of America to the lat-
itude of forty degrees. This idea had been
suggested to him by some letters and maps
which his friend Captain Smith had sent him
from Virginia, and by which he informed
him that there was a sea leading into the
western ocean to the north of the southern
5 43
HENRY HUDSON
English colony [Virginia]. Had this in-
formation been true (experience goes as yet
to the contrary), it would have been of great
advantage, as indicating a short way to
India* The other proposition was tojirect
their search to Dajvis^Straits* This meet-
ing with general approval, they sailed on the
J4th of May, and arrived, with a good wind,
at the Faroe Islands, where they stopped
but twenty-four hows to supply themselves
with fresh water* After leaving these
islands they sailed on till, on the J8th of
July, they reached the coast of Nova Francia
under 44 degrees* * * * They left that place
on the 26th of July, and kept out at sea till
the 3d of August, when they were again near
the coast in 42 degrees of latitude. Thence
they sailed on till, on the J2th of August,
they reached the shore under 37 45'.
Thence they sailed along the shore until we
[sic] reached 40 45', where they found a
44
HENRY HUDSON
good entrance, between two headlands, and
thtis entered on the J2th of September
into as fine a river as can be jound, with
good anchoring ground drfboth sides/'
That river, " as fine as can be found,"
was oar own Hudson,
Van Meteren's account of the voyage,
although not published until the year J6J4,
was written very soon after Hudson's re-
turn the slip that he makes in using " we "
points to the probability that he copied
directly from Hudson's log and in it we
have all that we ever are likely to know
about the causes which led to the change
in the " Half Moon's " course* For my own
part, I believe that Hudson did ^precisely
what he had wanted to do from the^ jstart.
The prohibitory clause in his instructions,
v ^^^^ _s
forbidding him to go upon other ffian the
course laid down for him, pointedly suggests
that he had expressed the desire natural
45
HENRY HUDSON
enough, since he twice had searched vainly
for a passage by Nova Zembla to search
westward instead of eastward for a water-
way to the Indies, As Van Meteren states,
authoritatively, he was encouraged to search
in that direction by the information given
him by Captain John Smith concerning a
passage north of Virginia across the Ameri-
can continent a notion that Smith probably
derived in the first instance from Michael
Lok's planisphere, which shows the con-
tinent reduced to a mere strip in about the
latitude of the river that Hudson found;
and that he very well might have conceived
to be confirmed by stories about a great sea
not far westward (the great lakes) which he
heard from the Indians.
But the starting point of this geographical
error is immaterial. The important fact is
that Hudson entertained it: and so was led
to offer for first choice to his mutinous crew
46
HENRY HUDSON
that they should " go to the coast of America
in the latitude of forty degrees*" His readi-
ness withjbhat^ropositioii, when the chance
to make it came, confirms my belief that his
own desire was to sail westward, and that he
made the most of his opportunity* And
the essential point, after all, is not whether
the mutiny forced him to change, or merely
gave him an excuse for changing, his ordered
course: it is that he was equal to the emer-
gency when the mutiny came, and so con-
trolled it that instead of going back, de-
feated of his purpose, to Holland he
deliberately took the risk of personal loss
that attended breaking his contract and
traversing his orders, and continued on new
lines his exploring voyage* It is indicative
of Hudson's character that he met that cast
of fate against him most resolutely; and
most resolutely played up to it with a strong
hand*
47
vn
the direct result of breaking his
orders, Hudson was the discoverer
of our river to which, therefore,
his name properly has been given
and also was the first navigator
by whom oar harbor effectively was found.
I use advisedly these precisely differentia-
ting terms* On the distinctions which they
make rests Hudson's claim to take practical
precedence of Verrazano and of Gomez, who
sailed in past Sandy Hook nearly a hundred
years ahead of him; and of those shadowy
nameless shipmen who in the intervening
time, until his coming, may have made our
harbor one of their stations for refitting
48
HENRY HUDSON
and watering on their voyages from and to
Portugal and Spain*
The exploring work of John and of Sebas-
tian Cabot, who sailed along our coast, but
who missed our harbor, does not come with-
in my range: save to note that Sebastian
Cabot pretty certainly was one of the several
navigators, including Frobisher and Davis,
who entered Hudson's Strait before Hud-
son's time,
Verrazano was an Italian, sailing in the
French service* Gomez was a Portuguese,
sailing in the Spanish service. Both sought
a westerly way to the Indies, and both sought
it in the same year \ 524. Verrazano has
left a report of his voyage, written immedi-
ately upon his return to France; and with it
a vaguely drawn chart of the coasts which he
explored, (It is my duty to add that certain
zealous historians have denounced his report
as a forgery, and his chart as a " fake " a
49
HENRY HUDSON
matter so much too large for discussion here
that I content myself with expressing the
opinion that these charges have not been
sustained*) Gomez has left no report of his
voyage* but a partial account of it may be
pieced together from the maritime chronicles
of his time* He also charted, with an ap-
proximate accuracy, the lands which he
coasted? and while his chart has not been
preserved in its original shape, there is good
reason for believing that we have it embodied
in the planisphere drawn by Juan Ribero,
geographer to Charles V* t in the year 1529.
On that planisphere the seaboard of the
present states of Maryland, New Jersey,
New York, and Rhode Island is called " the
land of Estevan Gomez."
Lacking the full report that Gomez pre-
sumably made of his voyage, and lacking
the original of his chart, it is impossible to
decide whether he did or did not pass through
50
HENRY HUDSON
the Narrows and enter the Upper Bay.
Doctor Asher holds that he did make that
passage; and adds: "It is certain that the
later Spanish seamen who followed in his
track in after years were familiar with the
[Hudson] river t and called it the Rio de
Gamas*" In support of this strong asser-
tion he cites the still-extant " Rutters," or
" Routiers," of the period the ocean guide-
books showing the distances from place to
place, marking convenient stations for water-
ing and refitting, and describing the en-
trances to rivers and to harbors " from
which we learn," he declares, " that the Rio
de Gamas, the name then regularly applied
to the Hudson on the charts of the time,
was one of these stages between New Found-
land and the colonies of Central America/' 1
1 Asher mentions, in this connection, that " Nan-
tucket Island also figures in some of these ratters
under the name of the island of Juan Luis, or Juan
51
HENRY HUDSON
In regard to Verrazano admitting his
report to be genuine the fact that he did
pass through the Narrows into the Upper
Bay is not open to dispute* He therefore
must have seen as, a little later, Gomez
may have seen the true mouth of Hudson's
river eighty-five years before Hudson, by
actual exploration of it, made himself its
discoverer* But Verrazano, by his own
showing, came but a little way into the
Upper Bay which he called a lake
and he made no exploration of a prac-
tical sort of the harbor that he had
found*
It is but simple justice to Verrazano and
to Gomez to put on record here, along with
the story of Hudson's effective discovery,
Fernandez, and is recommended as a most con-
venient stage for those who, coming from Europe,
wish to proceed to the West Indies by way of the
Bermudas/*
52
A Regiment for the Sea,comaining
verie neceflarie matters for all forts of men and
trauailers.whcrvnto is added an Hidrographicall difcourfe
touching the fiat ftucrall paffages into Cattay, written by
$etotj eojrectrt ana ameneeft by Thomas Hood,D.in pbifitbe.totjo baf [) ao-
dcd a new Regiment, and Table of declination.
W!)eret)ntaia alfo a6io?nti t\>t Manners guidc,toitb a perfetf
Sea Carde by the faid Thomas Hood.
FAC-SIMILE OF TITLE-PAGE OF THE MOST FAMOUS
SEA HANDBOOK OF HUDSON'S TIME
HENRY HUDSON
the story of their ineffective finding. Fate
was against them as distinctly as it was with
Hudson* They came under adverse con-
ditions, and they came too soon. Back of
the explorer in the French service there was
not an alert power eager for colonial ex-
pansion. Back of the explorer in the Span-
ish service there was a power so busied with
colonial expansion on a huge scale in that
very year. 1524. Cortes was completing his
conquest of Mexico t and Pizarro was be-
ginning his conquest of Peru that a farther
enlargement of the colonization contract was
impossible.
Therefore we may fall back upon the as-
sured fact in which I see again Jhejouch
of fatalism that not until Hudson came at
the right moment, and at the right moment
gave an accurate account of his explorations
to a power that was ready immediately to
colonize the land that he had found, were
53
HENRY HUDSON
our port and oar river, notwithstanding their
earlier technical discovery, truly discovered
to the world* As for the river, it assuredly
is Hudson's very own.
VIII
ROM Juet's log I make the follow-
ing extracts, telling of the " Half
Moon's " approach to Sandy Hook
and of her passage into the Lower
Bay:
u The first of September, faire weather,
the wind variable betweene east and south;
we steered away north north west* At
noone we found our height [a little north of
Cape May] to bee 39 degrees 3 minutes.
. . . The second, in the morning close weather,
the winde at south in the morning. From
twelve untill two of the clocke we steered
north north west, and had sounding one and
twentie fathoms; and in running one glasse
55
HENRY HUDSON
we had but sixteene fathoms, then seven-
teene, and so shoalder and shoalder untill
it came to twelve fathoms* We saw a great
fire but could not see the land. Then we
came to ten fathoms, whereupon we brought
our tacks aboord, and stood to the eastward
east south east, foure glasses. Then the
sunne arose, and we steered away north
againe, and saw the land [the low region about
Sandy Hook] from the west by north to
the north west by north, all like broken
islands, and our soundings were eleven and
ten fathoms* Then we looft in for the
shoare, and faire by the shoare we had seven
fathoms. The course along the land we
found to be north east by north. From the
land which we had first sight of, untill we
came to a great lake of water [the Lower
Bay] as we could judge it to be, being
drowned land, which made it to rise like
islands, which was in length ten leagues.
56
HENRY HUDSON
The mouth of that land hath many shoalds,
and the sea breaketh on them as it is cast out
of the mouth of it* And from that lake or
bay the land lyeth north by east, and we had
a great streame out of the bay; and from
thence our sounding was ten fathoms two
leagues from the land* At five of the clocke
we anchored, being little winde, and rode in
eight fathoms water* * * . This night I found
the land to hall the compasse 8 degrees.
For to the northward off us we saw high hils
[Staten Island and the Highlands]* For the
day before we found not above two degrees
of variation. This is a very good land to fall
with, and a pleasant land to see*
" The third, the morning mystie, untill
ten of the clocke. Then it cleered, and the
wind came to the south south east, so wee
weighed and stood to the northward* The
land is very pleasant and high, and bold
to fall withal. At three of the clocke in
6 57
HENRY HUDSON
the after noone, we came to three great
rivers [the Raritan, the Arthur Kill and the
Narrows]* So we stood along to the north-
ermost [the Narrows] , thinking to have gone
into it, but we found it to have a very shoald
barre before it, for we had but ten foot water.
Then we cast about to the southward, and
found two fathoms, three fathoms, and three
and a quarter, till we came to the souther
side of them; then we had five and sixe
fathoms, and anchored. So wee sent in our
boate to sound, and they found no lesse
water than foure, five, sixe, and seven fath-
oms, and returned in an houre and a halfe.
So -we weighed and went in, and rode in five
fathoms, oze ground, and saw many salmons,
and mullets, and rayes, very great. The
height is 40 degrees 30 minutes/'
That is the authoritative account of Hud-
son's great finding. I have quoted it in
full partly because of the thrilling interest
58
HENRY HUDSON
that it has for us; but more to show that
the record of his explorations the " Half
Moon's " log being written throughout with
the same definiteness and accuracy gave
what neither Gomez nor Verrazano gave:
clear directions for finding with certainty
the haven that he t and those earlier navi-
gators, had found by chance. On that fact,
and on the other fact that his directions
promptly were utilized, rests his claim to
be the practical discoverer of the harbor of
New York.
For more than a week the " Half Moon "
lay in the Lower Bay and in the Narrows.
Then, on the eleventh of September, she
passed fairly beyond Staten Island and came
out into the Upper Bay: and Hudson saw
the great river which on that day became
his river stretching broadly to the north.
I can imagine that when -he found that wide
waterway, leading from the ocean into the
59
HENRY HUDSON
heart of the continent and found it pre-
cisely where his friend Captain John Smith
had told him he would find it, " under 40
degrees " his hopes were very high. The
first part of the story being confirmed, it
was a fair inference that the second part
would be confirmed; that presently, sailing
through the " strait " that he had entered,
he would come out, as Magellan had come
out from the other strait, upon the Pacific
with clear water before him to the coasts of
Cathay*
That glad hope must have filled his heart
during the ensuing fortnight; and even then
it must have died out slowly through another
week while the " Half Moon " worked her
way northward as far as where Albany now
stands* Twice in the course cf his voyage
inland on September J4th, when his run
was from Yonkers to Peekskill he reason-
ably may have believed that he was on the
60
HENRY HUDSON
very edge of his great discovery* As the
river widened hugely into the Tappan Sea,
and again widened hugely into Haverstraw
Bay t it well may have seemed to him that he
was come to the ocean outlet and that in a
few hours more he would have the waters
of the Pacific beneath his keel* Then, as
he passed through the Southern Gate of the
Highlands, and thence onward, his hope
must have waned until on September 22d
it vanished utterly away. Under that date
Juet wrote in his log: " This night, at ten
of the clocke, our boat returned in a showre
of raine from sounding the river; and found
it to bee at an end for shipping to goe
in/'
That was the end of the adventure inland*
Juet wrote on the 23d: " At twelve of the
clocke we weighed, and went downe two
leagues "; and thereafter his log records
their movements and their doings some-
61
HENRY HUDSON
times meeting with " Joying people " with
whom they had friendly dealings; sometimes
meeting and having fights with people who
were anything but loving as the "Half
Moon " dawdled_j^wly_down the^ stream,
By the 2d of October they were come abreast
of about where Fort Lee now stands* There
they had their last-bmsK-with the savages,
killing ten or twelve of them without loss
on their own side.
After telling about the fight, Juet adds:
" Within a while after wee got downe two
leagues beyond that place and anchored in
a bay [north of Hoboken], cleere from all
danger of them on the other side of the river,
where we saw a very good piece of ground
[for anchorage]* And hard by it there was
a cliffe [Wiehawken] that looked of the
colour of a white greene, as though it were
either copper or silver myne* And I thinke
it to be one of them, by the trees that grow
62
HENRY HUDSON
upon it* For they be all burned, and the
other places are greene as grasse* It is on
that side of the river that is called Manna-
hata. There we saw no people to trouble
us, and rode quietly all night, but had much
wind and raine*"
In that entry the name Mannajiata was
written for the first time, and was applied,
not to our island but to the opposite Jersey
shore* The explanation of Juet's record
seems to be that the Indians known as the
Mannahattes dwelt or that Juet thought
that they dwelt on both sides of the river*
That they did dwell on, and that they did
give their name to, our island of Manhattan
are facts absolutely established by the
records of the ensuing three or four
years*
During October 3d the " Half Moon " was
storm-bound* On the 4th, Juet records
44 Faire weather, and the wind at north north
63
HENRY HUDSON
west, wee weighed and came out of the river
into which we had runne so farre*" Thence,
through the Upper Bay and the Narrows,
and across the Lower Bay with a boat out
ahead to sound they went onward into the
Sandy Hook channel* " And by twelve of
the clocke we were cleere of all the inlet.
Then we took in our boat, and set our
mayne sayle and sprit sayle and our top
sayles, and steered away east south east,
and south east by east, off into the mayne
sea/'
Juet's log continues and_concludes pass-
ing over unmentionedj;he mutiny that oc-
curred before the ship's course definitely was
set eastward in these words: " We con-
tinued our course toward England, without
seeing any land by the way, all the rest of
this moneth of October* And on the sev-
enth day of November (stilo novo), being
Saturday, by the grace of God we safely ar-
64
HENRY HUDSON
rived in the range of Dartmouth, in Devon-
shire, in the yeere I609/' 1
From the standpoint of the East India
Company, Hudson's quest upon our coast
and into our river the most fruitful of all
his adventurings, since the planting of our
city was the outcome of it was a failure.
Hessel Gerritz (J6J3) wrote: " All that he I
did in the west in 1609 was to exchange his '
merchandise for fursjnjfewjjrance*" And
Hudson himself, no doubt, rated his great
1 From Mr, Brodhead's " History of the State of
New York " I reproduce the following note, that tells
of the little "Half Moon's" dismal ending:. "The sub-
sequent career of the 'Half Moon* may, perhaps, in-
terest the curious. The small ' ship book/ before
referred to, which I found, in 1 84 1, in the Company's
archives at Amsterdam, besides recording the return
of the yacht on the 1 5th of July, J6JO, states that on
the 2d of May, J61J, she sailed, in company with
other vessels, to the East Indies, under the command
of Laurens Reael; and that on the 6th of March, 16 15,
she was ' wrecked and lost ' on the island of Mauri-
tius."
65
HENRY HUDSON
accomplishment on which so large a part
of his fame rests endttringly as a mere
waste of energy and of time* I hope that he
knows about, and takes a comforting pride
in over there in the Shades the great city
which owes its founding to that seemingly
bootless voyage!
IX
T 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:
44 A long time elapsed, through contrary
winds, before the Company could be in-
formed of the arrival of the ship [the 44 Half
Moon "] in England* Then they ordered
the ship and crew to return [to Holland] as
soon as possible. But when they were go-
ing to do so, Henry Hudson and the other
67
HENRY HUDSON
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 in-
terested 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 MuscoAqLfio^npaii^^but those
chiefly concerned in promoting it were mem-
bers of that Companyrand two of them were
members of the first importance in the direc-
tion of its affairs* The adventure was set
forth, mainly, by Sir Dudley Digges, Sir
Thomas Smith, and Master John Wolsten-
63
\
HENRY HUDSON
holme 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,
J6IO.
Purchas wrote a nearly contemporary
history of this voyage that included three
strictly contemporary documents: two of
them certainly written aboard the "Dis-
covery"; 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 Ab-
stract of the Journal of Master Henry Hud-
son/' This is Hudson's own log, but badly
mutilated* It begins on the day of sailing,
April J7th, and ends on the ensuing August
3d. There are many gaps in it, and the
block of more than ten months is gone. The
" 69
HENRY HUDSON
missing portions, presumably, were destroy-
ed by the mutineers*
The second document is styled by Pur-
chas: " A Note Found in the Deske of
Thomas Wydowse, Student in the Mathe-
matickes, hee being one of them who was
put into the Shallop/' Concerning this poor
"student in the mathematickes" Prickett
testified before the court: " Thomas Wid-
owes 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 " Dis-
covery/' nor who he was* Possibly he may
70
HENRY HUDSON
have been a son of the " Richard Widowes,
goldsmith," who is named in the second
charter (J 609) of the Virginia Company.
His " Note "cited in full later on ex-
hibits clearly the evil conditions that ob-
tained aboard the " Discovery "; and
especially makes clear that Juet's muti-
nous 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 com-
plete 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 V
Saved in hope to procure his Master to worke
their Pardon." Purchas wrote that " this
report of Prickett may happely bee suspect-
ed by some as not so friendly to Hudson."
Being essentially a bit of special ^leading,
7J
HENRY HUDSON
p & intended to save his own neck and the necks
of his companions, it has rested always un-
der 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 excep-
tion of Byleth told substantially the same
story; and as they all equally were in
danger of hanging that story most natural-
ly was in jtheir own favor and in much the
same words* From the Trinity House
record it appears that Prickett was " a Jand
man put in by the Adventurers "; and in
the court recordsTie is described, most in-
\J\^7 congruously, as a " haberdasher "^ facts
which place him, as his own very remarkable
72
HENRY HUDSON
narrative places him, on a level much above
that of the ordinary seamen of Hudson's
time*
Dr* Asher's comment upon Prickett's
44 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 apolo-
getic essay, the ' Larger Discourse ' is ex-
tremely clever* It manages to cast some,
not too much, shadowupon 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 ac-
7 73
HENRY HUDSON
count 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 ac-
count 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.
N the ruling of that, his last, ad-
venture 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 ggodrwilt-apparently, he took
along with him in the " Discovery'' another
villainous personage, one Henry Greene
who showed his gratitude for benefits con-
ferred 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
75
HENRY HUDSON
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 brutesf-andjthe 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; 1
1 Captain Luke 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
76
HENRY HUDSON
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
way held to be a better man than himselfe, being pot I
in by the_ad venturers as his assistant, who envying
the same (he having the command in his own hands)
devised this cotMTsg, jto_jendjbimselfe the same way,
though in ajarre worse place, as hereafter followeth."
Prickett tells only: " Thwart of Sheppey, our Master
sent Master Colbert back to the owners with his
letter."
77
HENRY HUDSON
some period in July, at which time the " Dis-
covery" 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 tempo-
rarily 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 com-
pany 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
73
HENRY HUDSON
who then spake words which were remember-
ed a great while after/' This record shows
that Hudson had witkhim^a^phart of the
strait presumably based on Weymouth's
earlier (J602) 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
44 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 show-
ing that Hudson's eager desire to press on
prevailed: " After many words to no purpose,
to worke we must on all hands, to get our-
selves out and to cleere our ship/'
79
HENRY HUDSON
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, where-
in he sayled above a hundred leagues South,
confidently proud that _jie had wop the
passage"! It was his resolve to push on
"*.
until he could be sure that he truly " had
won the passage " thai 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-iowk." 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
50
HENRY HUDSON
on which Hudson's log ends* Prickett adds,
significantly: " So we left the fowle, and lost C-
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 show-
ing, 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 out-
come was that "our Master took occasion to
revive old matters, and to displace Robert V
Juet from being his mate, and the boat-
swaine 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 pre-
81
HENRY HUDSON
vailed increasingly as the voyage went on*
As the only contemporary document giving
Hudson's side of the matter it is of first im-
portance 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:
44 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 ex-
amined 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 suf-
fered them longer: and it was fit time to
82
HENRY HUDSON
punish and cut off farther occasions of the
like mutinies.
44 It was proved to his face t first with
Bennet Mathew, our Trumpet, upon our Z^
first sight of Island [Iceland] , and he con-
fest, that he supposed that in the action /x
would be man slaughter, and protiejbloodie
to some*
44 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 ,pacifiedj_hoping of amend-
ment.
" Thirdly, it was deposed by Philip Staf fe,
our Carpenter, and Ladlie Arnold [Arnold
Ludlow] to his face upon the holy Bible, that ^/
hee perswaded them to keepe Muskets charg-
ed, and Swords readie in their Cabbins, for t /
they should be charged with shot ere the
Voyage was over*
83
HENRY HUDSON
44 Fourthly, wee being pesteredjnjhe^Ice,
hee had used words tending to mutinie, dis-
couragement, and slander of the action,
which easily took effect in those that were
timorous; and had not the Master in time
presented, 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 Com-
panie into a fray [fear] of extremitie, by
wintering in cold: Jesting at our Master's
hope to see Bantam by Candlemas.
44 For these and diuers other base slanders
against the Master, hee was deposed, and
I/ Robert JBvlpt [Bileth, or Byleth], who had
showed himself honestly respecting the good
of the action, was placed in his stead the
Masters Mate*
44 Also Francis Clement the Boatson, at
this time was put from his Office, and
84
HENRY HUDSON
William Wilson, a man thought more fit,
preferred to his place* This man had basely
carried himself e to oar Master and the action*
44 Also Adrian Mooter was appointed Boat-
sons 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*
44 Also the Master promised, if the Of-
fenders yet behaued themselves henceforth
honestly, hee would be a means for their good,
and that hee would forget iniuries, with
>ther admonitions*"
Hudson's fame is the brighter for this
testament of the poor " Student in the
Mathematickes^ whose loyalty to his com-
mander cost him his life* At times, Hudson
85
HENRY HUDSON
seems to have temporized with his mutinous
crews* In this grave crisis he did not tem-
porize* For cause, he disrated his chief
officers: and so asserted in that desolate
place t 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 be-
longeth thereto"; and in all that he writes
there is a perceptible note of resentment of
the Master's doings that reflects the mu-
tinous feeling on board. Especially does this
feeling show in his account of their settling
into winter quarters: "Having spent three
86
HENRY HUDSON
moneths in a labyrinthjgithout 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, where-
unto we brought our ship and haled her
aground* And this was the first of Novem-
ber. 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.
XI
ERVES 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,
44 a weariness of heart, a blank feeling, which
gets the better of the whole man"; and
Colonel Brainard, of the Greely expedition,
wrote: 44 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 Jmpatient of one an-
other's faults."
88
HENRY HUDSON
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 Lieu-
tenant Kislingbury paralleling Juet's in-
subordination 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 mal-
content.
One of the commentators on the expedi-
tion thus has summarized the conditions of
s 89
HENRY HUDSON
that dreadful winter of J883-84: " It was
now October, and the situation of the ex-
plorers 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 sleep-
ing bag; and on one occasion Bender was
so violent that a general mutiny was immi-
nent, and Greely says in his written record:
90
HENRY HUDSON
4 If I could have got Long's gtm I would have
killed him/ Bender brutally treated Elli-
son, 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 cul-
mination 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 circum-
stances were able to dwell at peace with
their fellows/'
Out of those conditions came like results
aboard Hudson's ship: discontent develop-
ing into insubordination; hatred of the com-
mander; hatred of each other; petty sqoab-
blings leading on to tragedies as minor ills
were magnifiedTmto catastrophes and little
injuries into deadly wrongs. Strictly in
keeping with the mean traditions of the
9J
HENRY HUDSON
Arctic is the fact that the point jaf -departure
of the final mutiny was a wrangle that arose
^ over the ownership of ^gray^doth gowne."
Prickett records: " About the middle of
this moneth of November dyed John Will-
iams 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 it-
self, the multitude (like the jfog) running
after the stone, but^not at the caster; there-
fore, 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 44 un-
charitable dealing " with the gunner, he
takes a fresh departure in these words:
92
HENRY HUDSON
:< You shall understand that our Master
kept (in his house at London) a yotmg man
named Henrie Greene, borne in Kent, of
worshipfull parents, but by hisjgudjife 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 t nqr any wages for him.
... At Island the Surgeon and hee fell out
in Dutch, and hee beat him ashoare in L ^
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 Lieu-
tenant 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
93
HENRY HUDSON
that should displease him: which wordes
came to the Masters eares, who when hee
/ understood it, would have gone back to
I 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
[xgowne, 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
94
HENRY HUDSON
calleth the Carpenter to goe in hand with an
house on shoare t which at the beginning our
Master would not heare t 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 threat-
ening 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 Car-
penter 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
95
HENRY HUDSON
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
96
HENRY HUDSON
colde, as it lamedjthe 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
44 too tedious," easily may be filled in* Be-
ginning 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 ani-
mosities 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 f fpr catisg, yrer g /
called jea-wolvjs ; jwhile 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.
97
XII
pj-Tl HE end came in the spring-time.
Through the winter the party had
44 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 mid-
dle of June, Hudson sailed from his winter
quarters and went out a little way into Hud-
son'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.
98
HENRY HUDSON
Prickctt writes: " Being thus in the ice
on Saturday, the one and twentieth of Jane,
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 them-
selves. 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 jcaring^ jt<L_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 scoun-
drels that he " marvelled to heare so much
f _
from them, considering that they were
99
HENRY HUDSON
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
JOO
HENRY HUDSON
to the Carpenter [or to] John King or the
Master/' That he did not try to give ."some I ^
notice " himself is the blackest count against /
him* The just inference may be drawn
from his narrative, as a whole, that he was
a liarj^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 Staf fe] and held
him with a talke till the Master came out of n
hiscabbin (which hee soonedid); 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
101
HENRY HUDSON
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
102
HENRY HUDSON
my self e 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 home 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 himself e,
hee said, hee would not stay in the ship un-
less 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 Staf f e, Thomas Wood-
house or Wydhouse, Adam Moore, Henrie
[sic] King, Michael Bute. The Carpenter got
of them a peece, and powder, and shot, and
some pikes, an iron pot, with some meale,
9 J03
HENRY HUDSON
and other things. They stood otit of the ice,
the shallop being fast to the sterne of the
shippe, and so (when they were nigh otit,
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*
44 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 butter, 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
104
HENRY HUDSON
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.
xm
MONTH later, July 28, a halt
was made in the mouth of Hud-
son's Strait to search for "fowle "
for food on the homeward voyage.
There " savages " were encounter-
ed, 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:
44 Whiles I was thus assaulted in the boat,
106
HENRY HUDSON
our men were set upon on the shoare. John
Thomas and William Wilson had their
bowels cat, 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, hang-
ing 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-
J07
HENRY HUDSON
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.
44 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
108
Thethyrdepartof
Co take ffce altitude of tfce ^tmne^attg tiptoe &ffrolabie b?
Se Si? *& e ^B* anl) fe * ^ e A1 hida<la ajjavnft t^e &tmm,am) ra^ft it,
" oj put it DoUmc in tbe quarter t^at is graouate.tintiU t t}C beam w
of t&e S>unne enter in b? t^e little ^ole of tye ot^er tablet o; ra^
ftDplate,sn&pjecifel?bp ttjeotl^rlitle ijoleof tlje ot^ertablft,
HZtytn looke tpon tlje l^ne of confidence : ann ijotti man^ Degrees
ttdjeteettjm t^e quarter tf)at is graouatel beginning from t!)t
^o^ijontall Itnt) fomauROcarceiB of tytgfjt fjaflj tl)C Jbunnc.
3lttUkemaher ftall ^OUQOO to taket^e altitude of an? otijer
The
AN ASTROLAB1E, 1596
THE ARTE OF NAVIGATION." LONDON. EDITION 1595
HENRY HUDSON
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 trag-
icall end of Henry Greene and his mates,
whom they called captaine, these four being
the only Ittstiejn^jn^an^be^hip/'
I am glad that Prickett got "a cruell
wotmd 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, "Coragiol "
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
J09
HENRY HUDSON
is good to know that Hudson's murder so
soon was avenged. Juet's equally exem-
plary 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 " Dis-
covery's " crew, on the ship's return to
England, has remained until now unknown;
and even now the account of them is incon-
clusive. In the Latin edition of the year
1613 of his " Detectio Freti " Hessel Ger-
ritz 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
no
HENRY HUDSON
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/'
For three hundred years that statement
of fact has ended Hudson's story. The
fragmentary documents which I have been
so fortunate as to obtain from the Record
Office carry it a little, only a little, farther.
Unhappily they stop short giving no as-
surance that the mutineers got to the gal-
lows that they deserved. All that they
prove is that the few survivors were brought
to trial: charged with having put the master
of their ship, and others, " into a shallop,
without food, drink, fire, clothing, or any
necessaries, and then maliciously abandon-
ing them: so that they came thereby to their
death, and miserably perished."
\\\
HENRY HUDSON
There, tinf inished, the record ends. What
penalty, or that any penalty, was exacted of
those who survived to be tried for Hudson's
murder remains unknown* Their ignoble
fate is hidden in a sordid darkness: fitly in
contrast with his noble fate that lies re-
tired within a glorious mystery*
XIV
\
UDSON has no cause to quarrel
with the rating that has been fixed
for him in the eternal balances.
All that he lost (or seemed to lose)
in life has been more than made
good to him in the flowing of the years
since he fought out with Fate his last losing
round.
In his River and Strait and Bay he has
such monuments^set^up before the whole
world as have been awarded to only one
other navigator. And they are his justly.
Before his time, those great waterways, and
that great inland sea, were mere hazy geo-
graphical_cpncepts. After his time they
H3
HENRY HUDSON
were clearly defined geographical facts* He
did and those who had seen them before
him did not make them effectively known.
Here, in this city of New York which owes
to him its being he has a monument of a
different and of a nobler sort* Here, as-
suredly, down through the coming ages his
memory will be honored actively, his name
will be in men's mouths ceaselessly, so long
as the city shall endure*
And I hold that Hudson's fame, as a most
brave explorer and as a great discoverer, is
not dimmed by the fact that up to a certain
point he followed in other men's footsteps;
nor do I think that his glory is lessened by
his seeming predestination to go on fixed
lines to a fixed end* On the contrary, I
think that his fame is brightened by his
willingness to follow, that he might as he
did surpass his predecessors; and that his
glory is increased by the resolute firmness
114
HENRY HUDSON
with which he played up to his destiny.
Holding fast to his great purpose to find a
passage to the East by the North, he com-
pelled every one of Fate's deals against him
until that last deal to tarn in his favor;
and even in that last deal he won a death
so heroically woful that exalted pity for him,
almost as much as admiration for his great
achievements, has kept his fame through
the centuries very splendidly alive*
NEWL Y- DISCO VERED
DOCUMENTS
CONCERNING THE DOCUMENTS
N an article entitled " English
Ships in the Time of James I.,"
by R. G. Marsden t M.A., in Volume
XIX of the Transactions of the
Royal Historical Society, I came
upon this entry: * * Discovery ' (or * Hope-
well/ or * Good Hope ') Hudson's ship on
his last voyage; Baffin also sailed in her/'
A list of references to manuscript records
followed; and one of the entries, relating to
the High Court of Admiralty, read: " Exam.
42. 25 Jan. I6U. trial of some of the crew
for the murder of Hudson."
Note The varying spelling, most obvious in
proper names, follows that of the documents.
119
HENRY HUDSON
As I have stated elsewhere, none of the
historians who has dealt with matters relat-
ing to Hudson has told what became of his
murderers when they returned to England*
Hessel Gerritz alone has given the informa-
tion (J6J3, two years after the event) that
they " were to be " put on trial* Whether
they were, or were not. put on trial has re-
mained unknown. Any one who has en-
gaged in the fascinating pursuit of elusive
historical truth will understand, therefore,
my warm delight, and my warm gratitude
to Mr. Marsden, when this clew to hitherto
unpublished facts concerning Hudson was
placed in my hands.
Following it has not led me so far as, in
my first enthusiasm, I hoped that it would
lead me. The search that I have caused to
be made in the Record Office, in London,
has not brought to light even all of the doc-
uments referred to by Mr. Marsden. The
J20
HENRY HUDSON
record of the trial is incomplete; and, most
regrettably, the most essential of all the
documents is lacking: the judgment of the
Court* So far as the mutineers are concern-
ed, all that these documents prove is that
they actually were brought to trial: what
penalty was put upon them, or if any penalty
was put upon them, still remains unknown.
But in another way these documents do
possess a high value, and are of an exception-
al interest, in that they exhibit the sworn
testimony of six eye-witnesses to the fact
as to the circumstances of Hudson's out-
casting. Five of these witnesses now are
produced (in print) for the first time. The
sixth, Abacuck Prickett, was the author of
the " Larger Discourse " that hitherto has
been the sole source of information con-
cerning the final mutiny on board the " Dis-
covery/' That Prickett's sworn testimony
and unsworn narrative substantially are in
J2J
HENRY HUDSON
agreement, as they are, is not surprising;
nor does such agreement appreciably affect
the truth of either of them* Sworn or un-
sworn, Prickett was not a person from
whom pure truth could be expected when,
as in this case, he was trying to tell a story
that would save him from being hanged.
Neither is the corroboration of Prickett's
story by the five newly produced witnesses
they equally being in danger of hanging
in itself convincing* But certain of the
details (e. g., the door between Hudson's
cabin and the hold) brought out in this new
testimony, together with the way in which
it all hangs together, does raise the proba-
bility that the crew of the " Discovery "
had more than a colorable grievance against
Hudson, and does imply that Prickett 's ob-
viously biased narrative may be less far
from the truth than heretofore it has been
held to be*
122
HENRY HUDSON
The summing up of the Trinity House
examination gives the crux of the matter:
" They all charge the Master with wasting /
[i* e.j JftlchingHhe victuals by a scuttle made j
out of his cabin into the hold*, and it appears
that he fed his favorites, as the surgeon,
etc*, and kept others at ordinary allowance.
All say that, to save some from starving,
they were content to put away [abandon] so
many/' It was from this presentment that
the Elder Brethren drew the just conclusion
as we know from Prickett's characteristic
denial under oath that he " ever knew or
heard " such expression of their opinion
that " they deserved to be hanged for the
same/'
In the testimony of Edward Wilson, the
surgeon one of the " favorites " the point
is made, credited to Staffe, that " the reason P ^
why the Master should soe favourjto give
meate to some of the companie and not the
123
HENRY HUDSON
rest " was because " it was necessary that
some of them should be kepte upp " in
other words, that some members of the crew,
without regard to the needs of the remainder,
should receive food enough to give them
strength to work the ship. This is an agree-
ment, substantially, with the charge pre-
ferred against Hudson in the " Larger Dis-
course "; upon which Dr. Asher made the
exculpating comment: " But even if this
charge be a true one, Hudson's motives were
certainly honorable; with such men as he
had under his orders it was dangerous to
deal openly. Their crime had no other
cause than the fear that he would continue
his search and expose them to new priva-
tions: and it seems that in providing for
this emergency, he had even increased his
dangers/' Dr. Asher's excuse, I should add,
refers more to concealment of food than to
unfair apportionment.
J24
HENRY HUDSON
I have no desire to play the part of devil's
advocate; but in the guise of that person-
age under his more respectable title of Pro-
motor Fidei it is my duty to point out that
if Hudson deliberately did " keep up " him-
self and a favored few by putting the re-
mainder on starvation rations no matter
what may have been his motives he ex-
ceeded his ship-master's L f *ght J5Yef...his. crew
of life and death. His doing so, if he did
do so, did not justify mutiny* Mutiny is
a sea -crime that no provocation justifies.
But if the point at issue was who should
die pf hunger that the others should have
food enough to keep them alive, then the
mutineers could claim and this is what
virtually they did claim in making their
defence that they did by the Master in
a swift and bold way precisely what in
a slow and underhand way he was doing
by them.
125
HENRY HUDSON
In the more agreeable role of Postulator,
I may add that this charge against Hudson
while not disproved is not sustained*
The one witness* Robert Byleth* of whom
reputable record survives the only witness,
indeed* of whom we have any record what-
ever beyond that of the case in hand did
not even refer to it* In his Admiralty Court
examination he is not included in the
record of those examined at the Trinity
House he said no more than that the " dis-
content " of the crew was " by occasion of
the want of victualls." Neither in his state-
ment in chief nor in his cross-examination
did he charge Hudson with wrong-doing of
any kind* Byleth himself does not seem
to have been looked upon as a criminal: as
is implied by his being sent with Captain
Button (J6J2) on the exploring expedition
toward the northwest that was directed to
search for Hudson; by his sailing two voy-
126
HENRY HUDSON
ages (1615-1616) with Baffin; and, still
more strongly, by the fact that he was em-
ployed on each of these occasions by the
very persons members of the Muscovy
Company and others who most would have
desired to punish him had they believed that
punishment was his j ust desert. That he did
not testify against Hudson must count, there-
fore, as a strong point in Hudson's favor; so
strong his credibility and theirs being con-
sidered comparatively that it goes far tow-
ard offsetting the testimony of thejiaber-
dasher and the jbarber^ surgeon and the
common sailors by whom Hudson was
accused.
But it is useless to try to draw substantial
conclusions from these fragmentary records.
The most that can be deduced from them
and even that, because of Byleth's silence,
hesitantly is that in a general way they do
tend to confirm Prickett's narrative. They
HENRY HUDSON
would be more to my liking if this were not
the case.
A carious feature of the trial of the mu-
tineers is its long delay more .,than_five
years. The Trinity House authorities acted
promptly. Almost immediately upon the
return to London of the eight survivors of
the "Discovery" five of them (Prickett,
Wilson, Clemens, Motter and Mathews no
mention is made in the record of Byleth,
Bond, and the boy Syms) were brought be-
fore the Masters (October 24, I6U) for ex-
amination* In a single day their examina-
tion was concluded: with the resulting ver-
dict of the Masters upon their actions that !
they "deserved to be hanged for the same/'
Three months later, 25 January, J6U (O. S.),
the matter was before the Instance and
Prize Records division of the High Court of
Admiralty; of which hearing the only record-
ed result is the examination of the barber-
J28
HENRY HUDSON
surgeon, Edward Wilson. Then, apparently,
the mutineers were left to their own devices
for five fall years*
So far as the records show, no action was
taken until the trial began in Oyer and Ter-
miner. The date of that beginning cannot
be fixed precisely there being no date at-
tached to the True Bill found against Bileth,
Prickett, Wilson, Motter, Bond, and Sims.
(For some unknown reason Mathews and
Clemens were not included in the indict-
ment; although Qemens, certainly, was with-
in the jurisdiction of the Court.) The date
may be fixed very closely, however, by the
fact that the two most important witnesses,
Prickett and Byleth, were examined on 7
February, 16 16 (O. S.). Three months
later, 13 May, 1617 (O. S.), Clemens was ex-
amined* And that is all! There, in the
very middle of the trial leaving in the air
the examinations of the other witnesses and
J29
HENRY HUDSON
the judgments of the Court the records
end*
Had document No* 2 of the Oyer and Ter-
miner series been found, some explanation of
the five years' delay of the trial might have
been forthcoming; and the exact date of its
beginning probably would have been fixed.
As the records stand* they leave us so far
as the trial is concerned with a series of in-
creasingly disappointing negatives: We do
not know why two of the crew one of them
certainly within reach of the Court were
not included in the indictment; nor why the
trial was postponed for so long a time; nor
certainly when it ended; nor. worst of all*
what was its result*
I should be glad to believe thai the muti-
neers even including Byleth* who was the
best of them came to the hanging that the
Elder Brethren of the Trinity, in their off-
hand just judgment* declared that they
J30
HENRY HUDSON
deserved. If they did, there is no known
record of their hanging. A curiously sug-
gestive interest, however, attaches to the
fact that at just about the time when the
trial ended one of them, and the only con-
spicuous one of them, seems permanently to
have disappeared. That most careful in-
vestigator the late Mr. Alexander Brown
was unable to find any sure trace of Byleth
after his second voyage with Baffin, which
was made in March- August, 1616. Seven
months later, as the subjoined records prove,
he was on trial for his life. It seems to me
to be at least a possibility that the result of
that trial may have led directly to his per-
manent disappearance. If it did, and if
Prickett and the others in a like way dis-
appeared with him, then was justice done
on Hudson's murderers.
THE DOCUMENTS
Trinity House MS, Transactions* J609-
J625.
(24 October J6JJ)
The 9 men turned out of the ship:
Henry Hudson, master.
John Hudson, his son.
Arnold Ladley.
John King, quarter master.
Michael Butt, married.
Thomas Woodhouse, a mathematician, put
away in great distress.
Adame Moore.
Philip Staff, carpenter.
Syracke Fanner, married.
John Williams, died on 9 October.
Ivet [Juet], died coming home.
Skin:
Henry Greene.
J32
HENRY HUDSON
William Wilson.
John Thomas.
Michell Peerce.
Men that came home:
Robart Billet, master.
Abecocke Prickett, a land man put in by
the Adventurers.
Edward Wilson, surgeon.
Francis Clemens, boteson.
Adrian Motter.
Bennet Mathues, a land man.
Nicholas Syms, boy.
Silvanus Bond, couper.
After Hudson was put out, the company
elected Billet as master.
Abacuck Pricket, sworn, says the ship began
to return about J2th June, and about the 22d
or 23d, they put away the master. Greene
and Wilson were employed to fish for the com-
pany, and being at sea combined to steal away
the shallope, but at last resolved to take away
the ship, and put the master and other im-
portant men into the shallope.
He clears the now master of any f oreknowl-
133
HENRY HUDSON
edge of this complot, but they relied on Ivett's
judgment and skill.
Edward Wilson, surgeon, knew nothing of
the putting of the master out of the ship, till
he saw him pinioned down before his cabin
door.
Francis Clemens, Adrian Motter and Bennet
Mathues say the master was put out of the ship
by the consent of all that were in health, in
regard that their victualls were much wasted
by him; some of those that were put away were
directly against the master, and yet for safety
of the rest put away with him, and all by
those men that were slain principally.
They all charge the master with wasting the
victuals by a scuttle made out of his cabin into
the hold, and it appears that he fed his f avour-
ites, as the surgeon, etc., and kept others at
only ordinary allowance. All say that, to
save some from starving, they were content to
put away so many, and that to most of them
it was utterly unknown who should go, or
who tarry, but as affection or rage did guide
them in that fury that were authors and
executors of that plot.
J34
HENRY HUDSON
Instance & Prize Records. (High Court of
Admiralty)* Examinations. &c. Series I.
Vol.42. 1611-12 to J6H.
Die Sabbto XXV to January J6JJ.
EDWARD WILLSON, of Portesmouth
Surgion aged xxij yeares sworne and examined
before the Right Wor 11 M r [Master] Doctor
Trevor Judge of His Matyes High Court of the
Admiltye concerninge his late beinge at sea in
the Discovery of London whereof Henry Hud-
son was M r for the Northwest discovery sayth
as followeth.
Being demaunded whether he was one of the
companie of the Discovery wherof Henry Hud-
son was M r for the Northwest passage saythe
by vertue of his oathe that he was Surgion of
the said Shipp the said voyadge.
Beinge asked further whether there was not a
mutynie in the said Shipp the said voyadge by
some of the companie of the said Shipp against
the M% and of the manner and occasion thereof
and by whome saythe that their victualls were
soe scante that they had but two quartes of
meale allowed to serve xxij men for a day,
and that the M r had bread and cheese and
aquavite in his. cabon and called-some of the
J35
HENRY HUDSON
companie whome he favoured to eate and
drinke with him in his cabon whereuppon those
that had nothinge did grudge and mutynye
both against the M r and those that he gave
bread and drinke unto, the begynning whereof
was thus viz 4 - One William Willson then
Boateswayne of the said shipp but since slayne
by the salvages went up to Phillipp Staf fe the
M re Mate and asked him the reason why the
M r should soe favour to give meate to some of
the companie, and not the rest whoe aunswer-
ed that it was necessary that some of them
should be kepte upp Whereuppon Willson
went downTagayne~and told one Henry Greene
what the said Phillipp Staffe had said to the
said Willson Whereuppon they with others
consented together and agreed to pynion him
the said M r and one John Kinge whoe was
Quarter M r and put them into a shallopp and
Phillipp Staffe mighte have stayed still in the
shipp but he would voluntarilie goe into the
said shallopp for love of the M r uppon condi-
tion that they would give him his -clothes
(which he had) there was allso six more besides
the other three putt into the said shallopp
whoe thinkeinge that they were onely put into
the shallopp to keepe the said Hudson the M r
136
HENRY HUDSON
and Kinge till the victuals were a sharinge went
out willinglie but afterwards findinge that the
companie in the shipp would not suffer them
to come agayne into the shipp they desyred
that they mighte have their cloathes and soe
pte of them was delivered them, and the rest of
their apparell was^oulde at the maynejnast
to them fHaTwouId give" most for them and an
inventory of every mans pticuler goodes was
made and their money was paid by Mr Allin
Gary to their friendes heere in England and
deducted out of their wages that soe boughte
them when they came into England*
Beinge asked whoe were the pties that con-
sented to this mutynie saythe he knoweth not
otherwise then before he hath deposed savinge
he saythe by vertue of his oathe that this exact
never knewe thereof till the M r was brought
downe pynioned and sett downe before this
eaxtes cabon and then this examinate looked
out and asked him what he ayled and he said
that he was pynioned and then this exate
would havT~c67n^~ou~oThis cabon to have
gotten some victualls amongest them and they
that had bounde the M r said to this exate that .
yf he were well he should keepe himselfe soe
and further saythe that neither did Silvanus
J37
HENRY HUDSON
Bond Nicholas Simmes and Frances Qements
consente to this practize against the M r of this
exates knowledge.
Beinge demaimded whether he knoweth that
the Hollanders have an intent to goe forthe
uppon a discovery to the said Northwest pas-
sadge and whether they have anie card [chart]
delivered them concerninge the said discovery
saythe that this exate for his parte never gave
them anie card or knowledge of the said dis-
covery but he hath heard saye that they in-
tend such a voyadge and more he cannot saye
savinge that some gentlemen and merchants
of London that are interessed in this discovery
have shewed divers cardes abroad w * 1 happelie
might come to some of their knowledge.
Beinge asked farther whither there bee a
passadge throughe there he saythe that by all
likeliehood there is by reason of the tyde of
flood came_ot|t_ol_the westerne ptes and the
tyde of ebbe otrt of the_easterne which may bee
easely discovered yf such may bee imployed
as have beene acquainted with the voyadge
and knoweth the manner of the ice but in com-
inge backe agayne they keepinge the northerne
most land aboard found little or noe ice in the
passadge.
J38
HENRY HUDSON
Beinge asked what became of the said Hud-
son the M r and the rest of the companie that
were put into the shallopp saythe that they
put ottt sayle and followed after them that
Were in the sfr*pjjig gp?r.g pf h^fcjinjinfirg
and when they sawe the shipp put one [on] more
sayle and that they could not f ollowe them then
they puttjn for the_sjiQafg~-and soe they Jfost
'sighte of them and never heard of thegusince
And more" he cannot depose.
Rich: Trevor, Edw: Willsonn,
I certify that the foregoing is a true and
authentic copy,
J, F, Handcock,
Assistant-Keeper of the Public Records
London, 9th June, J909.
Admiralty Court. Over and Terminer. 6.
No. 2 cannot be found. The bundle com-
mences at present with No. 8.
No. 77. True Bill found for the trial of
Robert Bileth alias Blythe, late of the precinct
of St. Katherine next the Tower of London,
co. Middlesex, mariner, Abacucke Prickett,
late of the city of London, haberdasher, Ed-
J39
HENRY HUDSON
ward Wilson of the same, barber-surgeon,
Adrian Matter, late of Ratcliffe, Middlesex,
mariner; Silvanus Bonde, of London, cooper,
and Nicholas Sims, late of Wapping, sailor, to
be indicted for having, on 22 June 9 James I,
in a certain ship called The Discovery of the
port of London, then being on the high sea near
Hudson's Straits in the parts of America, pin-
ioned the arms of Henry Hudson, late of the
said precinct of St. Katherine, mariner, then
master of the said ship The Discovery, and
putting him thus bound, together with John
Hudson, his son, Arnold Ladley, John Kinge,
Michael Butt, Thomas .Woodhouse, Philip
Staffe, Adam Moore and Sidrach Fanner,
mariners of the said ship, into a shallop, wjth-
out food^ drink, fire, clothins^o^afly-aeces-
saries7 and then maliciously abandoning them,
so that they came thereby to their death and
miserably perished. [Latin. "Not dated!.]
Admiralty. Oyer and Terminer. 4f.
[<Abstr*cf\
Friday 7 February, 16J6 [O.S.]
Abacucke Prickett, of London, haberdasher,
examined, says that Henry Hudson, John Hud-
J40
HENRY HUDSON
son, Thomas Widowes, Philip Staffe, John
Kinge, Michael Burte, Sidrach Fanner, Adrian
Moore and John Ladley, mariners of the Dis-
covery in the voyage for finding out the N. W*
passage, about 6 years past, were put out of
the ship by force intp. the Shallop in the strait
called Hudson's Strait in America, by Henry
Grene, John Thomas, John Wilson, Michael
Pearce, and others, by reason they wejce^ sick <--
and victuals wanted, " under account " [i* e,,
if rations Trom the existing scant store were
served out equally] they should starve for ^
want of food if all the company should return
home in the ship* Philip Staffe went out of
the ship of his own accord, for the loyejie bare
to the^aid Hudson, who was thrust out of the
ship* Grene, with \\ or 12 more of the com-
pany, sailed away with the Discovery, leaving
Hudson and the rest in the shallop in the
month of June in the ice* What became of
them he knows not. He was lame in his jggs
at the time, and unable to stand* He greatly
lamented the deed, and had no hand in it* P
Hudson and Staffe were the best friends he /
had in the ship.
About five^ceeks after the said ship came
to Sir Dudley Digges Island* Here Grene,
141
/i
HENRY HUDSON
Wilson, Thomas, Pearse and Adrian Mouter
would needs go ashore to trade with the
savages, and were betrayed and set upon by the
savages, and all of them sore wounded, yet
recovered the boat before they died. Grene,
coming into the boat, died presently, Wilson,
Thomas and Pearse were taken into the ship,
and died a few hours afterwards, two of them ^
having had their bowej[s__cuJjP t rt : . The blood
upon the clothes brought home was the blood
of these persons so wounded and slain by the
savages, and no other.
There was falling out between Grene and
Hudson the master, and between Wilson the
surgeon and Hudson, and between Staffe and
Hudson, but no mutiny was in question, until
of a sudden the said Grene and his consorts
forced the said Hudson and the rest into the
shallop, and left them in the ice.
The chests of Hudson and the rest were
opened, and their clothes, and such things as
they had, inventoried and soidby Grene and
the others, and some of the clothes were worn.
Thomas Widowes was thrust out of the ship
into the shallop, but whether he willed them
take his keys^Jid-sharejiisgoods, to save his
life t this examinate knoweth not.
142
HENRY HUDSON
At the putting out of the men, the ship's
carpenter [Staffe] asked the company if they
would be [wished to be] hanged, when they
came to England.
He does not know whether the carpenter is
dead or alive, for he never saw him since he
was put out into the shallop.
No shot was made at Hudson or any of them
nor any hurt done them, that he knows.
He did not see Hudson bound, but heard
that Wilson pinionedjhis^arnis, when he was
put into the shallop. But, when he was in the
shallop, this examinate saw him in a motley
gown at_Jiberty, and they spoke together,
Hudson saying: It is that villain Ivott [Juet],
that hath undone us; and he answered: No,
it is Grene that hath done all this^villainy.
It is true that Grene, Wilson and Thomas
had consultation togetherjtp^ turn pirates, and
so he thinks they would have done, had they
not been slain.
There was no watchword given, but Grene,
Wilson, Thomas and Bennett watched the
master, when he came out of his cabin, and
forced him over board into the shallop, and
then they put out the rest, being sick
men.
143
HENRY HUDSON
He told Sir Thomas Smith the truth, as to
how Hudson and the rest were turned out of
the ship.
He told the masters of the Trinity-house
the truth of the business, but never knew or
heard that the masters said they deserved to
be hanged for the same.
They were not victualled with rabbits or
partridges before Hudson and the rest were
turned into the shallop, nor after.
There was no mutiny otherwise than as
aforesaid, they were turned out only for want
of victuals, as far as he knows.
He does not know the handwriting of
Thomas "Widowes. He, for his part,jtnadejio
means to hjnder-_ajny^ might
have been taken against them.
(Signed) ABACOOKE PERIKET.
[On the same day.}
Robert Bilett, of St. Katherine's, mariner,
examined, saith that, upon a discontent
amongst the company of the ship the Discov-
ery in the finding out of the N. W. passage,
by occasion of the want_of_jzictualls, Henry
Grene, being the principal, together with John
144
HENRY HUDSON
Thomas, William Wilson, Robert Ivett [Juet]
and Michael Pearse, determined to shift the
company, and thereupon Henry Hudson, the
master, was by force put into the shallop, and
8 or 9 more were commanded to go into the
shallop to the master, which they did, this
examinate thinking this coarse was taken only
to search the master's cabin and the ship for
victualls, which the said Grene and others
thought the master concealed from the com-
pany to serve his own turn. But, when they
were in the shallop, Grene and the rest would
not suffer them to come any more on board
the ship, so Hudson and the rest in the shallop
went away to the southward* and the ship
came to the eastward, and the one never saw
the other since. What is otherwise become
of them be knoweth not*
He says that the men went ashore (as above)
to get victuals; and from their wounds the
cabins, beds and clothes were made bloody.
There was discontent amongst the company,
but no mutiny to his knowledge, until the said
Grene and his associates turned the master
and the rest into the shallop.
He heard of no mutiny " till overnight that
Hudson and the rest were [to bej put into the
145
HENRY HUDSON
shallop the next day/' and this examinate and
M r . Prickett persuaded the crew to the contrary,
and Grene answered the master was resolved
to overtrowe all t and therefore he and his
friends would shift for themselves.
Such clothes as were left behind in the ship by I/
Hudson and his associates were sold t and worn
by some of the company that wanted clothes.
The ship's carpenter never used such
speeches, to his knowledge. [This seems to
refer to Staffers question, "Would they be
hanged when they came to England?"]
Philip Staffe, the carpenter, went into the
shallop of his-owa^cc^rj^withQut any__com-
pulsion; whether he be dead or alive, or what
has become of him, he knoweth not.
No man, either drunk or sober, can report
that Hudson and his associates were shot at
after they were in the shallop, for there was no
such thing done.
He was under the deck, when Henry Hud-
son was put out of the ship, so that he saw it
not, nor knoweth whether he were bound or
not, but saith he heard he was pinioned.
Henry Grene, and two or three others, made //
a motion to turn pirates^nd he believes they
would have done, if they had lived.
146
HENRY HUDSON
He dcnieth that he took
Hudson's pocket, neither ever saw it except .
on his finger, nor knoweth what became of it.
Such beds and clothes as were left in the
ship, and not taken by Hudson and the rest
into the shallop, were brought into England,
because they left them behind in the ship.
There was no watchword given, but Grene
and the others commanded the said Hudson
and the rest into the shallop, and upon that
command they went.
He told Sir Thomas Smith the manner how
Hudson and the rest went from them, but what
Sir Thomas said to their wives he knoweth not.
There was no mutiny, but some Discontent,
amongst the company; they were not victual-
led with any abundance of rabbits and part-
ridges all the voyage. He doth not know the
handwriting of Widowes, nor hath he seen
what he put down in writing.
(Signed) ROBERT BYLETH.
Admiralty. Oyer and Terminer. 4J.
J3 May, 1617.
Frances Clemence, of Wapping, mariner,
aged 40, says that Henry Hudson, the master,
147
HENRY HUDSON
and 8 persons more were put out of the Dis-
covery into the shallop about 20 leagues from
the place where they wintered, about 22d of
June shall be 6 years in June next, as he heard
from the rest of the company, for this examin-
ate had his nails frozen off, and was very sick
at the time,
Henry Grene, William Wilson, John Thomas
and Michael Pearse were slain on shore by
the savages at Sir Dudley Digges Island, and
Robert Ivett f Juet] died at sea after they were
slain,
Philip Staffe, the ship's carpenter, was one
of them who were put into the shallop with the
master and the rest; whether he is dead or not,
he knows not.
The master displaced some of the crew, and
put others in their room, but there was no
mutiny that he knew of,
Henry Hudson was pinioned, when he was
put into the shallop. (With other answers as
in the previous examinations.)
THE END
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