I have no desire to play the part of devil’s advocate; but—­in the guise of that personage under his more respectable title of Promotor Fidei—­it is my duty to point out that if Hudson deliberately did “keep up” himself and a favored few by putting the remainder on starvation rations—­no matter what may have been his motives—­he exceeded his ship-master’s right over his crew of life and death.  His doing so, if he did do so, did not justify mutiny.  Mutiny is a sea-crime that no provocation justifies.  But if the point at issue was who should die of hunger that the others should have food enough to keep them alive, then the mutineers could claim—­and this is what virtually they did claim in making their defence—­that they did by the Master in a swift and bold way precisely what in a slow and underhand way he was doing by them.

In the more agreeable role of Postulator, I may add that this charge against Hudson—­while not disproved—­is not sustained.  The one witness, Robert Byleth, of whom reputable record survives—­the only witness, indeed, of whom we have any record whatever beyond that of the case in hand—­did not even refer to it.  In his Admiralty Court examination—­he is not included in the record of those examined at the Trinity House—­he said no more than that the “discontent” of the crew was “by occasion of the want of victualls.”  Neither in his statement in chief nor in his cross-examination did he charge Hudson with wrong-doing of any kind.  Byleth himself does not seem to have been looked upon as a criminal:  as is implied by his being sent with Captain Button (1612) on the exploring expedition toward the northwest that was directed to search for Hudson; by his sailing two voyages (1615-1616) with Baffin; and, still more strongly, by the fact that he was employed on each of these occasions by the very persons—­members of the Muscovy Company and others—­who most would have desired to punish him had they believed that punishment was his just desert.  That he did not testify against Hudson must count, therefore, as a strong point in Hudson’s favor; so strong—­his credibility and theirs being considered comparatively—­that it goes far toward offsetting the testimony of the haberdasher and the barber-surgeon and the common sailors by whom Hudson was accused.

But it is useless to try to draw substantial conclusions from these fragmentary records.  The most that can be deduced from them—­and even that, because of Byleth’s silence, hesitantly—­is that in a general way they do tend to confirm Prickett’s narrative.  They would be more to my liking if this were not the case.