Henry Hudson

Henry Hudson

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Henry Hudson, by Thomas A. Janvier
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Title: Henry Hudson A Brief Statement Of His Aims And His
Achievements
Author: Thomas A. Janvier
Release Date: September 12, 2004 [EBook #13442]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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HUDSON ***

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[Illustration: SAINT ETHELBURGA'S CHURCH, INTERIOR]

HENRY HUDSON

A BRIEF STATEMENT OF HIS AIMS AND HIS ACHIEVEMENTS
BY
THOMAS A. JANVIER
TO WHICH IS ADDED A NEWLY-DISCOVERED PARTIAL
RECORD NOW FIRST PUBLISHED
OF
THE TRIAL OF THE MUTINEERS BY WHOM HE AND OTHERS
WERE ABANDONED TO THEIR DEATH

1909

TO C.A.J.

CONTENTS

PART I A Brief Life of Henry Hudson

PART II Newly-discovered Documents

PREFACE
It is with great pleasure that I include in this volume contemporary
Hudson documents which have remained neglected for three centuries,

and here are published for the first time. As I explain more fully
elsewhere, their discovery is due to the painstaking research of Mr. R.G.
Marsden, M.A. My humble share in the matter has been to recognize
the importance of Mr. Marsden's discovery; and to direct the particular
search in the Record Office, in London, that has resulted in their
present reproduction. I regret that they are inconclusive. We still are
ignorant of what punishment was inflicted upon the mutineers of the
"Discovery"; or even if they were punished at all.
The primary importance of these documents, however, is not that they
establish the fact--until now not established--that the mutineers were
brought to trial; it is that they embody the sworn testimony, hitherto
unproduced, of six members of Hudson's crew concerning the mutiny.
Asher, the most authoritative of Hudson's modern historians, wrote:
"Prickett is the only eye-witness that has left us an account of these
events, and we can therefore not correct his statements whether they be
true or false." We now have the accounts of five additional
eye-witnesses (Prickett himself is one of the six whose testimony has
been recovered), and all of them, so far as they go, substantially are in
accord with Prickett's account. Such agreement is not proof of truth.
The newly adduced witnesses and the earlier single witness equally
were interested in making out a case in their own favor that would save
them from being hanged. But this new evidence does entitle Prickett's
"Larger Discourse" to a more respectful consideration than that dubious
document heretofore has received. Save in matters affected by this
fresh material, the following narrative is a condensation of what has
been recorded by Hudson's authoritative biographers, of whom the
more important are: Samuel Purchas, Hessel Gerritz, Emanuel Van
Meteren, G.M. Asher, Henry C. Murphy, John Romeyn Brodhead, and
John Meredith Read.
T.A.J. New York, July 16, 1909.

THE ILLUSTRATIONS
No portrait of Hudson is known to be in existence. What has passed

with the uncritical for his portrait--a dapper-looking man wearing a
ruffed collar--frequently has been, and continues to be, reproduced.
Who that man was is unknown. That he was not Hudson is certain.
Lacking Hudson's portrait, I have used for a frontispiece a photograph,
especially taken for this purpose, of the interior of the Church of Saint
Ethelburga: the sole remaining material link, of which we have sure
knowledge, between Hudson and ourselves. The drawing on the cover
represents what is very near to being another material link--the replica,
lately built in Holland, of the "Half Moon," the ship in which Hudson
made his most famous voyage.
The other illustrations have been selected with a strict regard to the
meaning of that word. In order to throw light on the text, I have
preferred--to the ventures of fancy--reproductions of title-pages of
works on navigation that Hudson probably used; pictures of the few
and crude instruments of navigation that he certainly used; and pictures
of ships virtually identical with those in which he sailed.
The copy of Wright's famous work on navigation that Hudson may
have had, and probably did have, with him was of an earlier date than
that (1610) of which the title-page here is reproduced. This
reproduction is of interest in that it shows at a glance all of the nautical
instruments that Hudson had at his command; and of a still greater
interest in that the map which is a part of it exhibits what at that time,
by exploration or by conjecture, was the known world. To the making
of that map Hudson himself contributed: on it, with