A correspondent of the New York Evening Post, writing from Winnipeg, Manitoba, describes an old manuscript written in 1618 by one of the mutineers who sent Hendrick Hudson and eight of his crew adrift in an open boat. They were never heard of more, and for more than 200 years there has been much speculation as to their fate. The manuscript, written in a large, firm hand, consisted of ten slips of paper, apparently torn from a book and tied together for better preservation. It has been forwarded, together with other relics, to the office of the Hudson’s Bay Company in London. The writer, Louis Marin, thus tells the story of the mutiny:
“One night, when we were in great misery, stars fell from Heaven in countless numbers and we rejoiced to think for a time that the end of the word [sic] had come. Our Captain was gloomy all the time, and the men often cursed him in his hearing for bringing them to such a pass. Spring was very tardy in coming, but when the ice field broke up we thrush Hudson and the five blind sailors into the pinnace and told them to go ashore. We headed the ship out that night, and in the morning the pinnace had disappeared. I became afraid of the crew and of the ship, for every night at midnight the ghosts of the Captain and the five blind sailors came aboard and troubled us sorely. While I was at my prayers one night one of the ghosts told me to leave the ship, and when we touched the coast for water I ran away from it.”
You can read a fabulous online biography about Henry Hudson, which gives the crew list for the fatal voyage of Hudson. “Louis Marin” (in any spelling or variant I could think of) doesn’t show up on the list, nor on any deserters list.
But wouldn’t you like to see the manuscript anyway?