The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism. Volume 3Whymper, Frederick
History
The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism. Volume 3
Whymper, Frederick
Adventure and adventurers; Arctic regions; Ocean; Voyages around the world
form his own conclusions very speedily in regard to Pricket’s own share in
this brutal transaction, in spite of his constant protestations. The story
in its sequel furnishes a significant example of the condition to which
mutiny and lawlessness on board ship may bring the perpetrators.
Abacuk Pricket says that Hudson, being closely beset in the ice, and
doubtful whether he should ever escape from it, brought out his chart, and
showed the company that he had entered the strait a hundred leagues
further than any Englishman before him, and, in spite of the dangers, very
naturally wished to follow up his discoveries. He, however, put it to them
whether they should sail forward or turn the ship’s head towards England.
No decision appears to have been obtained, some wishing themselves at
home, and others, sailor-like, saying they cared not where they were so
long as they were out of the ice. The narrator admits, however, that
“there were some who then spake words which were remembered a great while
after.”
The slumbering embers of mutiny appear to have been first fanned into a
flame when Hudson displaced the mate and boatswain “for words spoken when
in the ice,” and appointed others. Still sailing southward, they entered a
bay on Michaelmas day, and here the discontent was increased by Hudson
insisting on weighing the anchor, while the crew was desirous of remaining
there. Having voyaged for three months “in a labyrinth without end,” they
at length, on November 1st, found a suitable place to winter, and were
soon frozen in. Hudson had taken into his house in London, apparently from
sheer kindheartedness, a young man named Greene, of good and respectable
parentage, but of a very dissolute and abandoned life, and had brought him
to act as a kind of captain’s clerk on this voyage. Greene was most
undoubtedly an irreclaimable vagabond, as well as a most ungrateful
person. He quarrelled with the surgeon and others on board, and was the
leading conspirator in the mutinous proceedings against his benefactor,
which were now fast ripening to a conclusion. Pricket speaks well of his
“manhood”—which it is to be hoped he meant only as regarded his physical
qualifications—“but for religion, he would say he was cleane paper,
whereon he might write what he would.” Although the ship’s provisions were
nearly exhausted, they obtained, during the first three months, as many as
a hundred dozen white partridges, and, with more difficulty, in the early
spring, a few swans, geese, and ducks. A little later these failed them,
and they were reduced to eating moss and frogs. Later again, when the ice
broke up, seven men were sent out with the boat, and returned with five
hundred fish as big as good herrings. They were, however, unsuccessful
afterwards, and when the ship left the bay in which they had wintered, had
nothing left but short rations of bread for a fortnight, and five cheeses
which gave three pounds and a half to each man. These were carefully and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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