The end came in the spring-time. Through the winter the party had
"such store of fowle," and later had for a while so good a supply
of fish, that starvation was staved off. When the ice broke up,
about the middle of June, Hudson sailed from his winter quarters
and went out a little way into Hudson's Bay. There they were caught
and held in the floating ice--with their stores almost exhausted,
and with no more fowl nor fish to be had. Then the nip of hunger
came; and with it came openly the mutiny that secretly had been
fermenting through those months of cold and gloom.
Prickett writes: "Being thus in the ice on Saturday, the one and
twentieth of June, at night, Wilson the boat swayne, and Henry
Greene, came to mee lying (in my cabbin) lame, and told mee that
they and the rest of their associates would shift the company and
turne the Master and all the sicke men into the shallop, and let
them shift for themselves. For there was not fourteen daies
victuall left for all the company, at that poore allowance they
were at, and that there they lay, the Master not caring to goe one
way or other: and that they had not eaten any thing these three
dayes, and therefore were resolute, either to mend or end, and what
they had begun they would goe through with it, or dye."
According to his own account, Prickett made answer to this precious
pair of scoundrels that he "marvelled to heare so much from them,
considering that they were married men, and had wives and
children, and that for their sakes they should not commit so foule
a thing in the sight of God and man as that would bee"; to which
Greene replied that "he knew the worst, which was, to be hanged
when hee came home, and therefore of the two he would rather be
hanged at home than starved abroad." With that deliverance "Henry
Greene went his way, and presently came Juet, who, because he was
an ancient man, I hoped to have found some reason in him. But hee
was worse than Henry Greene, for he sware plainly that he would
justifie this deed when he came home."
More of the conspirators came to Prickett to urge him to join them
in their intended crime. We have his weak word for it that he
refused, and that he tried to stay them; to which he weakly adds:
"I hoped that some one or other would give some notice, either to
the Carpenter [or to] John King or the Master." That he did not try
to give "some notice" himself is the blackest count against him.
The just inference may be drawn from his narrative, as a whole,
that he was a liar; and from this particular section of it the
farther inference may be drawn that he was a coward.
In the dawn of the Sunday morning the outbreak came. Prickett tells
that it began by clapping the hatch over John King (one of the
faithful men), who had gone down into the hold for water; and
continues: "In the meane time Henrie Greene and another went to the
carpenter [Philip Staffe] and held him with a talke till the Master
came out of his cabbin (which hee soone did); then came John Thomas
and Bennet before him, while Wilson bound his arms behind him. He
asked them what they meant. They told him he should know when he
was in the shallop. Now Juet, while this was a-doing, came to John
King into the hold, who was provided for him, for he had got a
sword of his own, and kept him at a bay, and might have killed him,
but others came to helpe him, and so he came up to the Master. The
Master called to the Carpenter, and told him that he was bound, but
I heard no answer he made. Now Arnold Lodlo and Michael Bute rayled
at them, and told them their knaverie would show itselfe. Then was
the shallop haled up to the ship side, and the poore sicke and lame
men were called upon to get them out of their cabbins into the
shallop.
"The Master called to me, who came out of my cabbin as well as I
could, to the hatch way to speake with him: where, on my knees, I
besought them, for the love of God, to remember themselves, and to
doe as they would be done unto. They bade me keepe myselfe well,
and get me into my cabbin; not suffering the Master to speake with
me. But when I came into my cabbin againe, hee called to me at the
horne which gave light into my cabbin, and told me that Juet would
overthrow us all; nay (said I) it is that villaine Henrie Greene,
and I spake it not softly. Now was the Carpenter at libertie, who
asked them if they would bee hanged when they came home: and, as
for himselfe, hee said, hee would not stay in the ship unless they
would force him. They bade him goe then, for they would not stay
him....
"Now were all the poore men in the shallop, whose names are as
followeth: Henrie Hudson, John Hudson, Arnold Lodlo, Sidrack Faner,
Philip Staffe, Thomas Woodhouse or Wydhouse, Adam Moore, Henrie
[sic] King, Michael Bute. The Carpenter got of them a peece, and
powder, and shot, and some pikes, an iron pot, with some meale,
and other things. They stood out of the ice, the shallop being
fast to the sterne of the shippe, and so (when they were nigh out,
for I cannot say they were cleane out) they cut her head fast from
the sterne of our ship, then out with their top sayles, and toward
the east they stood in a cleere sea.
"In the end they took in their top sayles, righted their helme, and
lay under their fore sayle till they had ransacked and searched all
places in the ship. In the hold they found one of the vessels of
meale whole, and the other halfe spent, for wee had but two; wee
found also two firkins of batter, some twentie seven pieces of
porke, halfe a bushell of pease; but in the Masters cabbin we found
two hundred of bisket cakes, a pecke of meale, of beere to the
quantitie of a butt, one with another. Now it was said that the
shallop was come within sight, they let fall the main sayle, and
out with their top sayles, and fly as from an enemy. Then I prayed
them yet to remember themselves; but William Wilson (more than the
rest) would heare of no such matter. Comming nigh the east shore
they cast about, and stood to the west and came to an iland and
anchored.... Heere we lay that night, and the best part of the next
day, in all which time we saw not the shallop, or ever after."
That is the story of Hudson's murder as we get it from his
murderers; and even from Prickett's biased narrative so complete a
case is made out against the mutineers that there is comfort in
knowing that some of them, and the worst of them, came quickly to
their just reward.