Not contented with the destruction of their commander, that nothing might be wanting to fill up the measure of their wickedness, they formed the horrible plan of destroying, at the same time, all of their companions whom sickness and suffering had rendered a helpless and unresisting prey to their cruelty.  The manner of effecting this massacre was worthy of the authors of such a plot.  To have killed their unhappy victims outright would have been comparatively merciful; but a long, lingering, and painful death was chosen for them.  The imagination turns with intense and fearful interest to the scene.  The form of the commander is before us, bound hand and foot, condescending to no supplication to the mutineers, but calling in vain for assistance from those who would gladly have helped him, but who were overpowered by numbers, or disabled by sickness.  The cry of the suffering and dying rings in our ears, as they are dragged from their beds, to be exposed to the inclemencies of the ice-covered sea in an open boat.  Among them appears the young son of Hudson, whose tender years can wake no compassion in the cold-blooded murderers.[3]

[Footnote 3:  It is impossible to tell very much about this young son of Henry Hudson.  In some accounts he is said to be but a lad of seven years old, but as he appears in the journal of the voyage as a sailor, it is probable that he was much older.  He had accompanied his father on two of his earlier voyages and possibly on the third.]

We refrain from following them, even in fancy, through their sufferings after they are separated from the ship; their days and nights of agony, their cry of distress, and the frenzy of starvation, their hopes of relief defeated, their despair, and their raving as death comes on.  Over these awful scenes the hand of God has hung a veil, which hides them from us forever.  Let us not seek to penetrate, even in imagination, the terrors which it conceals.

How far Pricket’s account, in regard to the course pursued by Hudson, is worthy of confidence, must be left to conjecture.  It should be remembered, however, that Pricket was not free from the suspicion of having been in some degree implicated in the conspiracy, and that his narrative was designed in part as a vindication of himself.  The indiscreet severity charged upon Hudson, and the hasty temper he is represented to have shown, in embroiling himself with his men, for apparently trifling reasons, are not consistent with the moderation, good sense, and equanimity, with which his conduct had been marked in all his preceding voyages.  It is moreover hardly credible, that, knowing as he did the mutinous spirit of some of the crew he should so rashly inflame this spirit, at a time when he was surrounded by imminent dangers, and when his safety depended on the united support of all the men under his command.  Hence, whatever reliance may be placed on the veracity of Pricket, it is due to the memory of Hudson not to overlook the circumstances by which his pen may have been biased.