THE TRAGEDY OF HENRY HUDSON
Though the adventurers to Hudson Bay turned to fur trading and won
wealth, and discovered an empire while pursuing the little beaver across
a continent, the beginning of all this was not the beaver, but a
myth--the North-West Passage--a short way round the world to bring back
the spices and silks and teas of India and Japan. It was this quest, not
the lure of the beaver, that first brought men into the heart of New
World wilds by way of Hudson Bay.
In this search Henry Hudson led the way when he sent his little
high-decked oak craft, the _Discovery_, butting through the ice-drive of
Hudson Strait in July of 1610; 'worming a way' through the floes by
anchor out to the fore and a pull on the rope from behind. Smith,
Wolstenholme, and Digges, the English merchant adventurers who had
supplied him with money for his brig and crew, cared for nothing but
the short route to those spices and silks of the orient. They thought,
since Hudson's progress had been blocked the year before in the same
search up the bay of Chesapeake and up the Hudson river, that the only
remaining way must lie through these northern straits. So now thought
Hudson, as the ice jams closed behind him and a clear way opened before
him to the west on a great inland sea that rocked to an ocean tide.
Was that tide from the Pacific? How easily does a wish become father to
the thought! Ice lay north, open water south and west; and so south-west
steered Hudson, standing by the wheel, though Juet, the old mate, raged
in open mutiny because not enough provisions remained to warrant further
voyaging, much less the wintering of a crew of twenty in an ice-locked
world. Henry Greene, a gutter-snipe picked off the streets of London, as
the most of the sailors of that day were, went whispering from man to
man of the crew that the master's commands to go on ought not to be
obeyed. But we must not forget two things when we sit in judgment on
Henry Hudson's crew. First, nearly all sailors of that period were
unwilling men seized forcibly and put on board. Secondly, in those days
nearly all seamen, masters as well as men, were apt to turn pirate at
the sight of an alien sail. The ships of all foreign nations were
considered lawful prey to the mariner with the stronger crew or fleeter
sail.
[Illustration: THE ROUTES OF HUDSON AND MUNCK
Map by Bartholomew.]
The waters that we know to-day as the Pacific were known to Hudson as
the South Sea. And now the tide rolled south over shelving, sandy
shores, past countless islands yellowing to the touch of September
frosts, and silent as death but for the cries of gull, tern, bittern,
the hooting piebald loon, match-legged phalaropes, and geese and ducks
of every hue, collected for the autumnal flight south. It was a
yellowish sea under a sky blue as turquoise; and it may be that Hudson
recalled sailor yarns of China's seas, lying yellow under skies blue as
a robin's egg. At any rate he continued to steer south in spite of the
old mate's mutterings. Men in unwilling service at a few shillings a
month do not court death for the sake of glory. The shore line of rocks
and pine turned westward. So did Hudson, sounding the ship's line as he
crept forward one sail up, the others rattling against the bare masts in
the autumn wind--doleful music to the thoughts of the coward crew. The
shore line at the south end of Hudson Bay, as the world now knows, is
cut sharply by a ridge of swampy land that shoals to muddy flats in
what is known as Hannah Bay.
Hudson's hopes must have been dimmed if not dashed as he saw the western
shore turn north and bar his way. He must suddenly have understood the
force of the fear that his provisions would not last him to England if
this course did not open towards China. It was now October; and the
furious equinoctial gales lashed the shallow sea to mountainous waves
that swept clear over the decks of the _Discovery_, knocking the sailors
from the capstan bars and setting all the lee scuppers spouting. In a
rage Juet threw down his pole and declared that he would serve no
longer. Hudson was compelled to arrest his old mate for mutiny and
depose him with loss of wages. The trial brought out the fact that the
crew had been plotting to break open the lockers and seize firearms. It
must be remembered that most of Hudson's sailors were ragged, under-fed,
under-clothed fellows, ill fitted for the rigorous climate of the north
and unmoved by the glorious aims that, like a star of hope, led Hudson
on. They saw no star of hope, and felt only hunger and cold and that
dislike of the hardships of life which is the birthright of the
weakling, as well as his Nemesis.
What with the north wind driving water back up the shallows, and with
tamarac swamps on the landward side, Hudson deemed it unwise to anchor
for the winter in the western corner of the Bay, and came back to the
waters that, from the description of the hills, may now be identified as
Rupert Bay, in the south-east corner. The furious autumn winds bobbled
the little high-decked ship about on the water like a chip in a
maelstrom, and finally, with a ripping crash that tore timbers asunder,
sent her on the rocks, in the blackness of a November night. The
starving crew dashed up the hatchway to decks glassed with ice and
wrapped in the gloom of a snow-storm thick as wool. To any who have been
on that shore in a storm it is quite unnecessary to explain why it was
impossible to seek safety ashore by lowering a boat. Shallow seas always
beat to wilder turbulence in storm than do the great deeps. Even so do
shallow natures, and one can guess how the mutinous crew, stung into
unwonted fury by cold and despair, railed at Hudson with the rage of
panic-stricken hysteria. But in daylight and calm, presumably on the
morning of November 11, drenched and cold, they reached shore safely,
and knocked together, out of the tamarac and pines and rocks, some
semblance of winter cabins.
Of game there was abundance then, as now--rabbit and deer and grouse
enough to provision an army; and Hudson offered reward for all
provisions brought in. But the leaven of rebellion had worked its
mischief. The men would not hunt. Probably they did not know how.
Certainly none of them had ever before felt such cold as this--cold that
left the naked hand sticking to any metal that it touched, that filled
the air with frost fog and mock suns, that set the wet ship's timbers
crackling every night like musket shots, that left a lining of
hoar-frost and snow on the under side of the berth-beds, that burst the
great pines and fir trees ashore in loud nightly explosions, and set the
air whipping in lights of unearthly splendour that passed them moving
and rustling in curtains of blood and fire.[1] As anyone who has lived
in the region knows, the cowardly incompetents should have been up and
out hunting and wresting from nature the one means of protection against
northern cold--fur clothing. That is the one demand the North makes of
man--that he shall fight and strive for mastery; but these whimpering
weaklings, convulsed with the poison of self-pity, sat inside shivering
over the little pans and braziers of coal, cursing and cursing Hudson.
In the midst of the smouldering mutiny the ship's gunner died, and
probably because the gutter boy, Greene, was the most poorly clad of
all, Hudson gave the dead man's overcoat to the London lad. Instantly
there was wild outcry from the other men. It was customary to auction a
dead seaman's clothes from the mainmast. Why had the commander shown
favour? In disgust Hudson turned the coat over to the new mate--thereby
adding fresh fuel to the crew's wrath and making Greene a real source of
danger. Greene was, to be sure, only a youth, but small snakes sometimes
secrete deadly venom.
How the winter passed there is no record, except that it was 'void of
hope'; and one may guess the tension of the sulky atmosphere. The old
captain, with his young son, stood his ground against the mutineers,
like a bear baited by snapping curs. If they had hunted half as
diligently as they snarled and complained, there would have been ample
provisions and absolute security; and this statement holds good of more
complainants against life than Henry Hudson's mutinous crew. It holds
good of nearly all mutineers against life.
Spring came, as it always comes in that snow-washed northern land, with
a ramp of the ice loosening its grip from the turbulent waters, and a
whirr of the birds winging north in long, high, wedge-shaped lines, and
a crunching of the icefloes riding turbulently out to sea, and a piping
of the odorous spring winds through the resinous balsam-scented woods.
Hudson and the loyal members of the crew attempted to replenish
provisions by fishing. Then a brilliant thought penetrated the wooden
brains of the idle and incompetent crew--a thought that still works its
poison in like brains of to-day--namely, if there were half as many
people there would be twice as much provisions for each.
Ice out, anchor up, the gulls and wild geese winging northward
again--all was ready for sail on June 18, 1611. With the tattered canvas
and the seams tarred and the mends in the hull caulked, Hudson handed
out all the bread that was left--a pound to each man.
He had failed to find the North-West Passage. He was going home a
failure, balked, beaten, thrown back by the waves that had been beating
the icefloes to the mournful call of the desolate wind all winter.
There were tears in the eyes of the old captain as he handed out the
last of the bread. Any one who has watched what snapping mongrels do
when the big dog goes down, need not be told what happened now. There
were whisperings that night as the ship slipped before the wind,
whisperings and tale-bearings from berth to berth, threats uttered in
shrill scared falsetto 'to end it or to mend it; better hang at home for
mutiny than starve at sea.' Prickett, the agent for the merchant
adventurers, pleaded for Hudson's life; the mutineers, led by Juet and
Greene, roughly bade him look to his own. Prickett was ill in bed with
scurvy, and the tremor of self-fear came into his plea. Then the
mutineers swore on the Bible that what they planned was to sacrifice the
lives of the few to save the many. When the destroyer profanes the Cross
with unclean perjury, 'tis well to use the Cross for firewood and
unsheath a sword. Peevish with sickness, Prickett punily acquiesced.
When Hudson stepped from the wheel-house or cabin next morning, they
leaped upon him like a pack of wolves. No oaths on Scripture and Holy
Cross this break of day! Oaths of another sort--oaths and blows and
railings--all pretence of clean motives thrown off--malice with its
teeth out snapping! Somewhere north of Rupert, probably off Charlton
Island, Hudson, his son, and eight loyal members of the crew were thrown
into one of the boats on the davits. The boat was lowered on its pulleys
and touched sea. The _Discovery_ then spread sail and sped through open
water to the wind. The little boat with the marooned crew came climbing
after. Somebody threw into it some implements and ammunition, and some
one cut the painter. The abandoned boat slacked and fell back in the
wave wash; and that is all we know of the end of Henry Hudson, who had
discovered a northern sea, the size of a Mediterranean, that was to be a
future arena of nations warring for an empire, and who had before
discovered a river that was to be a path of world commerce.
[Illustration: THE LAST HOURS OF HUDSON From the painting by Collier]
What became of Hudson? A famous painting represents him, with his little
son and the castaway crew, huddling among the engulfing icebergs. That
may have been; but it is improbable that the dauntless old pathfinder
would have succumbed so supinely. Three traditions, more or less
reasonable, exist about his end. When Captain James came out twenty
years later seeking the North-West Passage he found on a little
island (Danby), south-east from Charlton Island, a number of sticks
standing in the ground, with the chip marks of a steel blade. Did the
old timbers mark some winter house of Hudson and his castaways? When
Radisson came cruising among these islands fifty years later, he
discovered an old house 'all marked and battered with bullets'; and the
Indians told Radisson stories of 'canoes with sails' having come to the
Bay. Had Indians, supplied with firearms overland from Quebec traders,
assailed that house where nine white men, standing at bay between
starvation and their enemies, took their last stand? The third tradition
is of a later day. A few years ago a resident of Fort Frances, who had
spent the summer at the foot of James Bay, and who understood the Indian
language, wrote that the Indians had told him legends of white men who
had come to the Bay long long ago, before ever 'the Big Company came,'
and who had been cast away by their fellows, and who came ashore and
lived among the Indians and took Indian wives and left red-haired
descendants. It is probable that fur traders had told the Indians the
story of Hudson; and this would explain the origin of this tradition. On
the other hand, in a race utterly isolated from the outside world,
among whom neither printing nor telegraph ever existed, traditions
handed down from father to son acquire peculiar value; and in them we
can often find a germ of truth. The legends are given for what they are
worth.
There is no need to relate the fate of the mutineers. The fate of
mutineers is the same the world over. They quarrelled among themselves.
They lost themselves among the icefloes. When they found their way back
through the straits all provisions were exhausted. While they were
prisoners in the icefloes, scurvy assailed the crew. Landing to gather
sorrel grass as an antidote to scurvy, they were attacked by Eskimos.
Only four men were left to man the ship home, and they were reduced to a
diet of sea moss and offal before reaching Ireland. Greene perished
miserably among the Indians, and his body was thrown into the sea. Old
Juet died of starvation in sight of Ireland, raving impotent curses. But
however dire Nemesis may be, or however deep may be repentance, neither
undoes the wrong; and Hudson had gone to his unknown grave, sent thither
by imbeciles, who would not work that they might eat, nor strive that
they might win, but sat crouching, as their prototypes sit, ready to
spring at the throat of Endeavour.
Thomas Button, afterwards knighted for his effort, came out the very
next year at the expense of the merchant adventurers--Walstenholme,
Smith, and Digges--to search for Hudson. He wintered (1612-13) at Port
Nelson, which he explored and named after his mate, who died there of
scurvy; but the sea gave up no secret of its dead. Prickett and Bylot,
of Hudson's former crew, were there also with the old ship _Discovery_
and a large frigate called _Resolution_, an appropriate name. Button's
crew became infected with scurvy, and Port Nelson a camp for the dead.
Then came Captain Gibbon in 1614; but the ice caught him at Labrador and
turned him back. The merchant adventurers then fitted out Bylot,
Hudson's second mate, and in 1615-16 he searched the desolate, lonely
northern waters. He found no trace of Hudson, nor a passage to the South
Sea; but he gave his mate's name--Baffin--to the lonely land that lines
the northern side of the straits. Novelists are frequently accused of
sensationalism and exaggeration, but if, as tradition seems to suggest,
Hudson were still alive seven hundred miles south at the lower end of
the Bay, straining vain eyes for a sail at sea, like Alexander Selkirk
of a later day--with a Button and a Gibbon and a Bylot and a Baffin
searching for him with echoing cannon roll and useless call in the
north--then the life and death of the old pathfinder are more like a
tale from Defoe than a story of real life.
The English merchant adventurers then gave up--possibly for the very
good reason that they had emptied their purses. This brings us to the
year 1617 with no North-West Passage discovered, and very little other
reward for the toll of life and heroism during seven years.
Superficially, when we contemplate such failure, it looks like the
broken arc of a circle; but when we find the whole circle we see that it
is made up very largely of broken endeavour, and that Destiny has shaped
the wheel to roll to undreamed ends. There was no practicable North-West
Passage, as we know; but the search for such a passage gave to the world
a new empire.