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
fairly divided by Hudson, and, as we are told in the narrative, “he wept
when he gave it unto them.”
The vessel stood to the north-west, and on June 21st, 1611, while
entangled in the drift ice, Pricket says that Wilson the boatswain and
Greene came to him and told him that they and the crew meant to turn the
master and all the sick into the boat, and leave them to shift for
themselves; that they had not eaten anything for three days, that there
were not fourteen days’ provisions left for the whole crew, and that they
were determined “either to mend or end; and what they had begun they would
go through with it or die.” Pricket says that he attempted to dissuade
them, but that they threatened him, and Greene bade him hold his tongue,
for he himself would rather be hanged at home than starved abroad. A
little later, five or six of the mutineers came to Pricket—he lying, as he
says, lame in his cabin—and administered the following oath to him:—“You
shall swear truth to God, your prince, and country; you shall do nothing
but to the glory of God, and the good of the action in hand, and harm to
no man.” The signification of all this soon appeared, for on Hudson coming
out of the cabin they seized him, and bound his arms behind him. He
demanded what they meant, when he was told that he would find out when he
was in the boat. The boat was hauled alongside, and Hudson, his son, and
seven “sicke and lame men” were hustled into it; a fowling-piece, some
powder and shot, a few pikes, an iron pot, a little meal, and some other
articles, were thrown in at the same time. Only one man, John King, the
carpenter, had the courage to face these fiends in human shape, and
remonstrate with them. He wasted his words and efforts, and, determining
not to abandon his captain, jumped into the boat, and the mutineers cut it
adrift among the ice. We know the horrors that have overtaken strong and
hearty men when obliged to trust to the boats in mid-ocean; in this case,
of ten persons seven at least were helpless and crippled; and sad as is
the fact, we can hardly wonder to find that nothing was ever gleaned
concerning their fate. One shudders to think of their hopeless and
inevitable doom, and that among them was lost one of the bravest and most
intrepid of England’s seamen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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