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Admiralty.  Oyer and Terminer. 41.

[Abstract]

Friday 7 February, 1616 [O.S.]

Abacucke Prickett, of London, haberdasher, examined, says that Henry Hudson, John Hudson, Thomas Widowes, Philip Staffe, John Kinge, Michael Burte, Sidrach Fanner, Adrian Moore and John Ladley, mariners of the Discovery in the voyage for finding out the N.W. passage, about 6 years past, were put out of the ship by force into the Shallop in the strait called Hudson’s Strait in America, by Henry Grene, John Thomas, John Wilson, Michael Pearce, and others, by reason they were sick and victuals wanted, “under account” [i.e., if rations from the existing scant store were served out equally] they should starve for want of food if all the company should return home in the ship.  Philip Staffe went out of the ship of his own accord, for the love he bare to the said Hudson, who was thrust out of the ship.  Grene, with 11 or 12 more of the company, sailed away with the Discovery, leaving Hudson and the rest in the shallop in the month of June in the ice.  What became of them he knows not.  He was lame in his legs at the time, and unable to stand.  He greatly lamented the deed, and had no hand in it.  Hudson and Staffe were the best friends he had in the ship.

About five weeks after the said ship came to Sir Dudley Digges Island.  Here Grene, Wilson, Thomas, Pearse and Adrian Mouter would needs go ashore to trade with the savages, and were betrayed and set upon by the savages, and all of them sore wounded, yet recovered the boat before they died.  Grene, coming into the boat, died presently.  Wilson, Thomas and Pearse were taken into the ship, and died a few hours afterwards, two of them having had their bowels cut out.  The blood upon the clothes brought home was the blood of these persons so wounded and slain by the savages, and no other.

There was falling out between Grene and Hudson the master, and between Wilson the surgeon and Hudson, and between Staffe and Hudson, but no mutiny was in question, until of a sudden the said Grene and his consorts forced the said Hudson and the rest into the shallop, and left them in the ice.

The chests of Hudson and the rest were opened, and their clothes, and such things as they had, inventoried and sold by Grene and the others, and some of the clothes were worn.

Thomas Widowes was thrust out of the ship into the shallop, but whether he willed them take his keys and share his goods, to save his life, this examinate knoweth not.

At the putting out of the men, the ship’s carpenter [Staffe] asked the company if they would be [wished to be] hanged, when they came to England.

He does not know whether the carpenter is dead or alive, for he never saw him since he was put out into the shallop.

No shot was made at Hudson or any of them nor any hurt done them, that he knows.