Henry Hudson: A Brief Statement of His Aims and His AchievementsJanvier, Thomas A. (Thomas Allibone)
History
Henry Hudson: A Brief Statement of His Aims and His Achievements
Janvier, Thomas A. (Thomas Allibone)
Explorers -- Great Britain -- Biography; Hudson, Henry, -1611
The second document is styled by Purchas: "A Note Found in the
Deske of Thomas Wydowse, Student in the Mathematickes, hee being
one of them who was put into the Shallop." Concerning this poor
"student in the mathematickes" Prickett testified before the court:
"Thomas Widowes 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 "Discovery," nor who he was. Possibly he
may have been a son of the "Richard Widowes, goldsmith," who is
named in the second charter (1609) of the Virginia Company. His
"Note"--cited in full later on--exhibits clearly the evil
conditions that obtained aboard the "Discovery"; and especially
makes clear that Juet's mutinous 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 complete 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 Saved in hope to procure his Master
to worke their Pardon." Purchas wrote that "this report of Prickett
may happely bee suspected by some as not so friendly to Hudson."
Being essentially a bit of special pleading, intended to save his
own neck and the necks of his companions, it has rested always
under 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
exception of Byleth--told substantially the same story; and--as
they all equally were in danger of hanging--that story most
naturally was in their own favor and in much the same words. From
the Trinity House record it appears that Prickett was "a land man
put in by the Adventurers"; and in the court records he is
described, most incongruously, as a "haberdasher"--facts which
place him, as his own very remarkable narrative places him, on a
level much above that of the ordinary seamen of Hudson's time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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