In their progress westward along the strait’s southern coast, Hudson periodically halted for quick explorations of the countryside. At one stop, vast flocks of partridges, ducks, and other birds were found, as well as grasses such as sorrel. The crew was especially pleased to discover an abundance of so-called “scurvy-grass.”[3] A herd of sixteen “deere” was spotted — probably caribou — but the animals were out of musket range. The party was surprised to come across a cluster of man-made structures resembling haystacks — the first indication that they were not alone in those parts. Inside the curious huts they found “great stores of fowls hanging by the neck.”[4] These they unashamedly pilfered. It was exhilarating to roam on solid ground amid such plenty, to be free for a spell of their close-quartered ship. The men pleaded with Hudson for an additional day or two “so that we might refresh ourselves with sorrel grass and fowl.” But he would have none of that — time was passing rapidly and they were on a mission.
The Discovery continued following the treeless, barren coastline, with the drifting ice building up. The coastline began to veer south, which Hudson continued to follow. They had left Frobisher’s Straite and were passing along another, narrower channel when suddenly they broke onto “a spacious Sea,” a vast expanse of water reaching out well over the horizon, a bay of sorts. This gave every promise of being the long-sought gateway to the East. Could this be it? After years of dreaming and three arduous journeys of exploration, Hudson appeared to have triumphed. Days earlier, there had been disgruntlement and harsh words with some declaring that Hudson was lost and on a fool’s mission. Now, the hardships and discomforts suffered along the way seemed not to have been entirely in vain.
They entered the bay on September 29, and very soon the weather began to change appreciably. It was becoming colder with an unpleasant damp chill, and the days were growing shorter — an unexpectedly rapid shifting of season. During one spell of contrary winds, the Discovery was forced to lie at anchor for eight tedious days during which time the restless men grew ever more agitated. How much farther did Hudson plan to sail? Did the master really know what he was doing? What were the chances of becoming icebound and having to winter in these barren wilds? Would they survive to see home again?
Hudson, however, was either oblivious to the state of the crew’s morale or he simply chose to disregard it. He order a continued passage south, convinced perhaps that a more temperate climate awaited them once they had cleared the bay and found themselves on open ocean waters on their way to the Indies.
By the end of October the Discovery had reached the southern limit of James Bay, a sub-bay, as it were, of Hudson Bay, and by continuing to hug the coastline they found themselves slowly moving north with no sign of a passage. Within days the weather turned dramatically — ice formed all about them and heavy snowfalls blanketed the land. By November 10, the ship was firmly frozen in. Having spent three months travelling “in a Labyrinth without end,” the crew realized that they would have to spend winter in the bleakness of where they were. “Our master sent out our boat,” writes Pricket, “with myselfe and the carpenter to seeke a place to winter in; and it was time, for the nights were long and cold, and the earth covered in snow.”
On board they carried nearly a half-year’s worth “of that which was good” by way of food. In addition, there had been promise of hunting and fishing (but these results generally proved disappointing). Seven months were to pass before the ice loosened its grip on the imprisoned vessel, and in that time the crew suffered within cloistered quarters from cold and boredom. Few details are known of the conditions under which they lived out their daily lives — Pricket’s account offers only scant glimpses. He does, however, give vivid observations of the tensions and discord that prevailed among the men during those dark, grim months, tensions that eventually burgeoned into the mutiny that sealed Hudson’s fate.
“About the middle of this month of November died John Williams, our gunner,” Pricket wrote. And then he added a gratuitous comment, “God pardon the master’s uncharitable dealing with this man.” A pointed remark, indeed. What the nature was of Hudson’s “uncharitable” behaviour toward the deceased Williams is not known. It is obvious, however, that some sort of falling out had taken place between the two men, just as had previously happened with Juet. (One harks back to Hudson’s 1608 voyage, when he felt compelled to issue certificates to every man, an exoneration from possible accusations of mutinous behaviour.)
The Juet demotion was a serious enough affair that created bitterness among some of the crew, but now a fresh fracas caused further divide, one with lasting consequences. And of all things, it began about the dead man’s overcoat. It was customary in those days that when a death occurred at sea the belongings of the deceased were distributed by the captain among the crew members as he saw fit. Travelling with Hudson was a certain Henry Greene, not a member of the crew, but a one-time servant in the Hudson household and now a supernumerary who came on board the Discovery at the final moment of departure from England, as if an afterthought. We are informed by Pricket that “the young man [was] born in Kent, of worshipful parents, but by his lewd life and conversation he had lost the goodwill of all his friends, and had spent all he had.” An unsavoury character, it might seem. The reason Hudson brought him along was that “he could write well” and being literate, he would serve as a back-up chronicler. When time came to dispose of the dead gunner’s warm “gray cloth gown” Hudson awarded it to Greene. The garment was coveted by many and having it fall into the hands of a supernumerary was unwarrantable and deeply resented.
On the following day the carpenter decided on a hunting excursion. Since this was polar bear country, Hudson had issued strict orders that every person venturing out must be armed with a musket or pike and that nobody should go out alone. The carpenter accordingly invited Greene to join him which he did, but the man neglected to take along the required weapon; between the two there was but one musket. When the couple returned to the vessel they were met by a furious Hudson who vented his rage on Greene for having openly disobeyed orders. So overwrought was he that he not only withdrew the promise of a wage at the journey’s conclusion, but he demanded the return of the overcoat, which he then presented to Robert Bylot, a senior member of the crew. From that moment on the aggrieved Greene took every opportunity to do “the master every mischief he could in seeking to discredit him.” Hudson, who had brought Greene into his household and who for years looked after him, had now become a mortal enemy to the supernumerary. In large measure it was he who had Hudson “thrust out of the ship in the end.” Pricket concludes this vignette by saying that it “would be too tedious” to go on with it, given the company’s uncertain and terrifying circumstances, and he drops the subject. Conditions on board the Discovery at the time were indeed appalling: the ship was being squeezed terrifyingly on all sides by ice floes; gusting snow blanketed everything; cold “lamed most of the men”; restlessness and discord permeated the vessel, and cabin fever set in.
Yet in all the misery surrounding them, “mercifully God dealt with us at this time” for the hunting proved excellent, at first. During the first three months over a thousand partridges and ptarmigans were brought to the table, as well as copious quantities of fish. Once “they went, caught five hundred fish, as big as good herrings and some trout,” but birds became scarce. With the passing of time, the fishing and hunting became less rewarding. On one three-day expedition, for example, “the men brought back only four score small fish, a poore reliefe for so many hungry bellies.” By early spring the ship’s larder had become alarmingly reduced and food had to be rationed. The nearly depleted supply of bread and cheese was particularly strong-felt, both important daily staples. There finally came a point when Hudson ordered all the remaining bread be brought to the upper deck. With the entire crew assembled about him, he distributed equally what there was among the men, a pound per man, “and he wept when he gave it to them.”
By early June the warm s
un had loosened the Discovery appreciably from its prolonged confinement and finally with concerted effort by all on board the vessel was freed. Seven idle months had passed and at long last the ship’s sails were unfurled and it “stood out of our wintering place.” They found themselves once more “in the sea,” re-entering Hudson Bay from James Bay. “Our bread being gone,” Pricket wrote, “the store of cheese was to stop a gap.” The divided bread of a few days earlier had been rapidly consumed — the boatswain eagerly consumed his entire ration within the day, becoming violently ill as a result. Faced with a crew of starving men, Hudson ordered the remaining cheeses be brought up. To the dismay of the men, only five cheeses were produced when they had reckoned nine remained in stock. Hudson carved the five rounds into portions, judiciously presenting each man with equal parts of the best-preserved sections and of the moldy parts, three and a half pounds per man, the equivalent of a seven-day ration under normal circumstance.
Four days later the drama of the mutiny began to unfold. On the night of the 21st, Pricket was awoken in his cabin by Henry Greene and Boatswain Wilson who came to inform him that they, with others, planned to get rid of Hudson, together with those who were sick. They intended to place them aboard the shallop and “let them shift for themselves.”[5] Even under strictest rationing, they argued, there remained but fourteen days of food for the entire complement. The sick ones wouldn’t survive in any case. As for the master, they understood that he intended to resume the search for the passage, and had no plans of an early return home. Here they were in these ice-filled waters, with him “not caring to go one way or other,” and threatened with having to pass another winter in this godforsaken land. It was beyond the pale and enough was enough. They had “not eaten anything these three days, and were resolute … what they had begun they would go through with or die.”
The shocked Pricket tried to persuade the two that what they were planning was sheer madness. By committing “so foul a thing in the sight of God and man as this would be,” they were embracing the hangman, to which Greene retorted “he would rather be hanged at home than starve abroad.” Greene tried unsuccessfully to convince Pricket to join their group, but he would have none of that. “I came into the ship not to forsake her,” he rejoined, “nor yet to hurt myself and others by any such deed.” Greene then, having threatened Pricket that he might well find himself sharing Hudson’s fate, went off in “a rage, swearing to cut the throat of any who tried to thwart him.” Wilson remained behind and Pricket tried in vain to persuade him in abandoning the outrageous scheme, but the sailor was determined “to go on with the action while it was hot.”
Juet then came to Pricket, but he too could not be dissuaded — “he was worse than Henry Greene for he swore plainly that he would justifie this deed when he came home.” Four others, “birds of a feather,” also visited with Pricket, who in the course of discussion finally demanded whether they were truly “well advised what they had taken in hand. They answered, they were, and therefore came to take their oath.”
What unfolded next is told simply, without flourish or editorial comment. Close to daybreak, Pricket went below to fill a teakettle and as he did so someone slammed shut the hatch behind him. On the deck above Henry Greene, the carpenter Staffe, and one other chatted idly in anticipation of Hudson appearing on deck. When Hudson exited his cabin, Wilson jumped him from behind, pinioned him, and bound his arms with rope. Hudson demanded what this was all about, and was informed that “he should know when he was in the shallop.”
The smaller vessel was brought to the ship’s side and “sicke and lame were hauled” from their quarters, gathered together and placed within it. Staffe at this point demurred and challenged the mutineers by demanding whether they realized that they might be hanged on returning home. He then declared that he would have no part of the appalling affair, to which he was invited to take a place in the shallop. The carpenter agreed on the condition that his chest of instruments be placed with him, and this being done he boarded the little boat. As the sick were being brought from their cabins, a squabble broke out among the rebels, two of whom suddenly realized that each had a close friend among those appearing on deck. They objected to the selections, insisting that their pals be spared. Greene overruled the protest, heated words were exchanged, but finally the two men had their way and their friends were spared.
Henry Hudson, one-time commander of the Hopewell, the Half Moon, and the Discovery, now found himself in command of his ship’s tiny open boat of not more than twenty-six feet, accompanied by his young son, the carpenter, and six semi-invalids. In addition to his carpentry tools, Staffe was successful in persuading the mutineers to provide a musket with powder and shot, some pikes, an iron pot, a quantity of meal, and a few other items. With the shallop in tow, the Discovery stood out of the ice and when it came to clear waters the towline was severed and course set for the East.
With the shallop adrift and fading farther and farther away, those remaining set about searching and ransacking the Discovery — “they acted as though the Ship had been entered by force, and they had free leave to pillage it.” In the course of the looting they uncovered in the main hold a surprising store of secreted food: a container of meal, two casks of butter, twenty-seven pieces of pork, and a half bushel of peas. In Hudson’s cabin they discovered two hundred biscuit cakes, a goodly quantity of meal, and “beere to the quantitie of a butt [approx. 110 gallons].”
While this frenzy was unfolding, Hudson’s shallop, under a jerry-rigged sail, had steadily closed in on the mother ship. As soon as the lookout spotted this, they “let fall the main sail and broke out the topsails, and then let fly as from an enemy.” It wasn’t long that the little vessel was once more falling back, eventually becoming a speck on the horizon. It then disappeared from sight, and with that Hudson and his companions vanished from the pages of history.
What fate these individuals met is a matter of conjecture; nothing was heard of them again. Some have it that their boat may have reached one of the islands of lower James Bay or perhaps even the mainland, but there is no hard evidence of such. The suffering these men endured can only be imagined — their physical deprivations and hardships and equally their mental agonies. Perched on a thwart with young John at his feet, Hudson coped as well as he could with the inadequate sails, all the while observing the Discovery drawing farther and farther away and finally dipping beneath the horizon. What might have gone through his mind? Anger at the turn of events, particularly at the traitorous Greene? Despair at their impossible situation? Or visions perhaps of his family back home, of his younger sons, Richard and Oliver? Possibly regrets over his obsession regarding a quick route to the East?
It had all come to naught. Four arduous years had been given over to the quest and Hudson had failed, succumbing, if you will, to his own ego. Through his carelessness he and the rest found themselves in the fatal embrace of the Arctic. One wonders how it was that Greene, the supernumerary unlisted in the roster of crew, commanded such a leading role in the developing event. The authenticity of Pricket’s account is also open to question. He was the “star witness” to the drama and it is entirely possible that embellishments crept into his narrative in order to exculpate himself. On the return of the Discovery to Britain, the survivors were questioned by the authorities, but only one mutineer’s disposition taken. The Admiralty, it seemed, was in no hurry to deal with the matter, and five years passed before the recording of other dispositions, by which time some of those involved had died and memories of others had become clouded. In 1618. the surviving mutineers were brought before the High Court of the Admiralty on the charge of murder — all were acquitted. Had the charge of mutiny been laid, most certainly the accused would have been convicted and hanged. Closure was thus clumsily brought to one of the Arctic’s most poignant chapters in her history.
Notes
1. Henry S. Burrage, Rosier’s Relation of Waymouth’s Voyage to the Coast of Main (Portland: Gorges Society, 1887), 1
7.
2. G.M. Asher, ed., Henry Hudson the Navigator. The Original Documents in which his Career is Recorded (London: The Haklyut Society, 1860), 152.
3. The correct name for this seasonal plant is spoonwart, a flowering green containing large quantities of vitamin C. The vitamin is essential for battling scurvy, the dreaded disease that strikes those who do not regularly consume fruit or green plants.
4. It was a Northern custom to create food caches in strategic places as emergency stores for hunters travelling far from home.
5. A shallop was a ship’s single-mast boat, twenty to thirty feet in length, six feet in breadth, for use in navigating within shallow waters. It was frequently carried in pieces on the deck and assembled when required.
5
A Dane at Hudson Bay
HENRY HUDSON’S APPALLING end brought a premature close to his career and one wonders where the winds might have carried this venturesome, single-minded sailor had he survived the mutiny. The crowning pieces of his legacy are the exploration of the lower reaches of New York and the claiming of “Manna-hata” for the Dutch, who in short order established a colony at the island’s southern tip. The other noteworthy achievement, of course, was the penetration of Hudson Strait and the discovery and exploration of the vast bay that bears his name.
Hudson Bay is considered part of the Arctic Ocean and its shores, in terms of climate and vegetation, are sub-Arctic. It is the world’s second-largest bay (Bengal is the first), stretching north–south over eight hundred miles and over six hundred miles east–west. In reality it is an inland sea, one that penetrates deeply into Canada and provides the country with its east–west divide. Sixty major rivers flow into it, emptying an astonishing mean average of 8,163,000 U.S. gallons of fresh water every second. The labyrinth of rivers and streams defining the bay’s watershed spreads not only over four Canadian provinces and one territory, but stretches far into the American mid-west — Montana, Minnesota, and the Dakotas.
Arctic Obsession Page 10
