covery"; and especially
makes clear that Juet's mutinous disposition began to be manifested
at a very early stage of the voyage.

The third document is the most important, in that it gives--or
professes to give--a complete history of the whole voyage. Purchas
styles it: "A Larger Discourse of the Same Voyage, and the Successe
Thereof, written by Abacucks Prickett, a servant of Sir Dudley
Digges, whom the Mutineers had Saved in hope to procure his Master
to worke their Pardon." Purchas wrote that "this report of Prickett
may happely bee suspected by some as not so friendly to Hudson."
Being essentially a bit of special pleading, intended to save his
own neck and the necks of his companions, it has rested always
under the suspicion that Purchas cast upon it. Nor is it relieved
from suspicion by the fact that it is in accord with his sworn
testimony, and with the sworn testimony of his fellows, before the
High Court of Admiralty when he and they were on trial for their
lives as mutineers. The imperfect record of this trial merely shows
that Prickett and all of the other witnesses--with the partial
exception of Byleth--told substantially the same story; and--as
they all equally were in danger of hanging--that story most
naturally was in their own favor and in much the same words. From
the Trinity House record it appears that Prickett was "a land man
put in by the Adventurers"; and in the court records he is
described, most incongruously, as a "haberdasher"--facts which
place him, as his own very remarkable narrative places him, on a
level much above that of the ordinary seamen of Hudson's time.

Dr. Asher's comment upon Prickett's "Discourse," is a just
determination of its value: "Though the paper he has left us is in
form a narrative, the author's real intention was much more to
defend the mutineers than to describe the voyage. As an apologetic
essay, the 'Larger Discourse' is extremely clever. It manages to
cast some, not too much, shadow upon Hudson himself. The main fault
of the mutiny is thrown upon some men who had ceased to live when
the ship reached home. Those who were then still alive are
presented as guiltless, some as highly deserving. Prickett's
account of the mutiny and of its cause has often been suspected.
Even Purchas himself and Fox speak of it with distrust. But
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