Henry's Last Days

As the Discovery prepared for sailing, Hudson made the decision to divide the food that was left and give each a portion of the food. The plan was not the best he made, because some of the men ate their entire two-week allowance of food in a single day. Many of the crew members suspected Hudson of holding some for himself, while he suspected some of the men of hoarding all of the food. In a hunt of evidence of hoarding, Hudson sent the ship’s boy, Nicholas Syms, to search the crew’s sea chests. He found thirty or more “cakes” and brought them to Hudson. It was later revealed that Hudson did have favorites among the crew and did take better food as well as more food for himself and these special individuals. Hudson felt that “it was necessary that some of them should be kept up.” The crew then decided that because Henry was hoarding the food to mutiny. The mutiny that occurred was that Hudson along with his son was left in the now Hudson bay in a small wooden boat without food, water, clothes, or fire. They eventually froze and no one ever found a sign of them being there.