rested party, was the prime mover in
the seizure of Hudson out of the Dutch service. But we only know
certainly that he was seized out of that service: with the result
that he and Fate came to grips again; and that Fate's hold on him
did not loosen until Death cast it off.

Hudson's fourth, and last, voyage was not made for the Muscovy
Company; but those chiefly concerned in promoting it were members
of that Company, and two of them were members of the first
importance in the direction of its affairs. The adventure was set
forth, mainly, by Sir Dudley Digges, Sir Thomas Smith, and Master
John Wolstenholme--who severally are commemorated in the Arctic by
Smith's Sound, Cape Digges, and Cape Wolstenholme--and the
expedition got away from London in "the barke 'Discovery'" on April
17, 1610.

Purchas wrote a nearly contemporary history of this voyage that
included three strictly contemporary documents: two of them
certainly written aboard the "Discovery"; and the third either
written aboard the ship on the voyage home, as is possible, or not
long after the ship had arrived in England.

The first of these documents is "An Abstract of the Journal of
Master Henry Hudson." This is Hudson's own log, but badly
mutilated. It begins on the day of sailing, April 17th, and ends on
the ensuing August 3d. There are many gaps in it, and the block of
more than ten months is gone. The missing portions, presumably,
were destroyed by the mutineers.

The second document is styled by Purchas: "A Note Found in the
Deske of Thomas Wydowse, Student in the Mathematickes, hee being
one of them who was put into the Shallop." Concerning this poor
"student in the mathematickes" Prickett testified before the court:
"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." Practically, this is an
assurance that he did make such an offer; and his despairing
resistance to being outcast is implied also in the pathetic note
following his name in the Trinity House list of the abandoned ones:
"put away in great distress." There is nothing to show how he
happened to be aboard the "Discovery," nor who he was. Possibly he
may have been a son of the "Richard Widowes, goldsmith," who is
named in the second charter (1609) of the Virginia Company. His
"Note"--cited in full later on--exhibits clearly the evil
conditions that obtained aboard the "Dis