Henry Hudson, a brief statement of his aims and his achievements
Janvier, Thomas Allibone, 1849-1913
;♦ *> -^ o,T( .^^'-^ - -^^o^ • t ^-..^* .♦ .' J'^ »^v cl» *' %/ .^°-^. /.'i^'.% ./yi.;j^..\ oo*,-'"'^-'*^ '^ •■-:.<^.>;^^-yf .°>-^""^'V •^ •* o -2^-' V ' K**^ °^ <^<'..^-,\ \' .^*^°- V i'\r^-.::^ms./\}} SAINT ETHELBURGA-S CHURCH. INTERIOR HENRY HUDSON A BRIEF STATEMENT OF HIS AIMS ANI> HIS ACHIEVEMENTS THOMAS A. JANVIER TO WHICH IS AWDED A NEWLY-DISCOVERED PARTIAL RECORD NOW FIK8T rUBLISHKD OF THE TRIAL OF THE MUTINEERS BY WHOM HK AND OTHERS WERE ABANDONED TO THEIK DEATH NEW YORK AND LONI>ON HAKPEK & BKOTHEllS PUBLISHERS 1 9 O 9 Copyright, rgog, by Harper & Brothers. AU rights reserved. Published August, iqog. CI. A 24r:(i4 2 AUi 20 1909 1- TO CONTENTS PART I A Brief Life of Henry Hudson . . * \ PAGE PART II Newly-discovered Documents . ♦ . * H? PREFA CE IT is with great pleaswrc that I incltide in this volume contemporary Hudson docu- ments which have remained neglected for three centuries, and here are published for the first time. As I explain more fully else- where, their discovery is due to the pains- taking research of Mr. R. G. Marsden, M.A. My humble share in the matter has been to recognize the importance of Mr. Mars- den's discovery; and to direct the particular search in the Record Office, in London, that has resulted in their present repro- duction. I regret that they are inconclu- sive. We still are ignorant of what punish- ment was inflicted upon the mutineers of PRE FA CE the ** Discovery''; or even if they were pun- ished at alL The primary importance of these docu- ments, however, is not that they establish the fact — until now not established — that the mutineers were brought to trial; it is that they embody the sworn testimony, hitherto unproduced, of six members of Hudson's crew concerning the mutiny. Asher, the most authoritative of Hudson's modern historians, wrote: ** 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 be true or false*" "We now have the accounts of five additional eye-witnesses (Prickett him- self is one of the six whose testimony has been recovered), and all of them, so far as they go, substantially are in accord with Prickett's account. Such agreement is not proof of truth. The newly adduced wit- PREFACE nesses and the earlier single witness equally were interested in making ottt a case in their own favor that would save them from being hanged* But this new evidence does entitle Prickett's ** Larger Discourse ** to a more respectful consideration than that dxihious document heretofore has received* Save in matters affected by this fresh ma- terialt the following narrative is a conden- sation of what has been recorded by Hud- son's authoritative biographers, of whom the more important are: Samuel Purchas, Hessel Gerritz, Emanuel Van Meteren, G. M. Asher, Henry C* Murphy, John Romeyn Brodhead, and John Meredith Read. T. A. J. New York, 7a/3J 16, 1909. THE ILLUSTRATIONS NO portrait of Httdson is known to be in existence. What has passed with the uncritical for his portrait — a dapper-look- ing man wearing a ruffed collar — frequently has been, and continues to be, reproduced. Who that man was is unknown. That he was not Hudson is certain. Lacking Hudson's portrait, I have used for a frontispiece a photograph, especially- taken for this purpose, of the interior of the Church of Saint Ethelburga: the sole re- maining material link, of which we have sure knowledge, between Hudson and our- selves. The drawing on the cover represents what is very near to being another material link — the replica, lately built in Holland, THE ILLUSTRATIONS of the *'HaIf Moon/' the ship in which Hud- son made his most famous voyage. The other tllastrations have been selected with a strict regard to the meaning of that word. In order to throw light on the text, I have preferred — to the ventures of fancy — reproductions of title-pages of works on navigation that Hudson probably used; pictures of the few and crude instruments of navigation that he certainly used; and pict- ures of ships virtually identical with those in which he sailed. The copy of Wright's famous work on navigation that Hudson may have had, and probably did have, with him was of an earlier date than that (I6I0) of which the title-page here is reproduced. This repro- duction is of interest in that it shows at a, glance all of the nautical instruments that Hudson had at his command; and of a still greater interest in that the map which is a THE ILLUSTRATIONS part of it exhibits what at that timet by ex- ploration or by conjectare, was the known world* To the making of that map Httdson himself contributed: on it, with a previous- ly unknown assurance, his River clearly is marked* The inadequate indication of his Bay probably is taken from Weymouth's chart — the chart that Hudson had with him on his voyage* A curious feature of this map is its marking — in defiance of known facts — of two straits, to the north and to the south of a large island, where should be the Isthmus of Panama* The one seemingly fanciful picture, that of the mermaids, is not fanciful — a point that I have enlarged upon elsewhere — by the standard of Hudson's times* Hudson himself believed in the existence of mer- maids: as is proved by his matter-of-fact entry in his log that a mermaid had been seen by two of his crew* A BRIEF LIFE OF HENRY HUDSON HENRY HUDSON F ever a compelling Fate set its grip upon a man and drove him to an accomplishment beside his purpose and outside his thought, it was when Henry Hudson — laving headed his ship upon an ordered course northeastward — directly traversed his orders by fetching that compass to the southwestward which ended by bringing him into what now is Hudson's River, and which led on quickly to the founding of what now is New York. I HENRY HUDSON Indeed, the late Thomas Aquinas, and the later Calvin, cottid have made otrt from the few known facts in the life of this navigator so pretty a case in favor of Pre- destination that the blessed St^ Augustine and the worthy Arminius — supposing the four come together for a friendly dish of theological talk — would have had their work cut out for them to formulate a countercase in favor of Free Will. It is a curious truth that every important move in Hudson's life of which we have record seems to have been a forced move: some- times with a look of chance about it — as when the directors of the Dutch East India Company called him back and hastily renewed with him their suspended agree- ment that he should search for a passage to Cathay on a northeast course past Nova Zembia, and so sent him off on the voyage that brought the ** Half Moon " into Hud- 2 HENRY HUDSON son's River; sometimes with the fatalism very m«ch in evidence — as when his own government seized him ottt of the Dutch service, and so pttt him in the way to go sailing to his death on that voyage through Hudson's Strait that ended, for him, in his mutineering crew casting him adrift to starve with cold and - hunger in Hudson's Bay* And, being dead, the same inconsequent Fate that harried him while alive has pre- served his name, and very nobly, by an- choring it fast to that River and Strait and Bay forever: and this notwithstanding the fact that all three of them were discovered by other navigators before his time* Hudson sought, as from the time of Colum- bus downward other navigators had sought before him, a short cut to the Indies; but his search was made, because of what those others had accomplished, within narrowed lines. In the century and more that had 3 HENRY HUDSON passed between the great Admirars death and the beginning of Hudson's explorations one important geographical fact had been established: that there was no water-way across America between, rowghly, the lati- tudes of 40° South and 40° North. To the eastward, both Dutch and English searchers had gone far along the coast of Russia; passing between that coast and Nova Zembia and entering the Kara Sea. To the westward, in the year 1524, Verazzano had 4 FAC-SIMILE OF TITLE-PAGE OF A SEA HAND- BOOK OF HUDSON'S TIME HENRY HUDSON sailed along the American coast from 34° to 50° North; and in the cotirse of that voyage had entered what now is New York Bay. In the year 1598^ Sebastian Cabot had coasted America from ZZ° North to the mouth of what now is Hudson's Strait. Frobisher had entered that Strait in the year 1577; Weymouth had sailed into it nearly one hundred leagues in the year 1602; and Portuguese navigators* in the years 1558 and 1569, probably had passed through it and had entered what now is Hudson's Bay. As the result of all this exploration, Hud- son had at his command a mass of informa- tion— positive as well as negative — that at once narrowed his search and directed it; and there is very good reason for believing that he actually carried with him charts of a crude sort on which, more or less clearly, were indicated the Strait and the Bay and the River which popularly are regarded as HENRY HUDSON of his discovery and to which have been given his name. But I hold that his just fame is not lessened by the fact that his discoveries, nominally, were rediscoveries. Within the proper meaning of the word they trtily were his dis-coveries: in that he did «n-cover them so effectually that they be- came known clearly, and thereafter remained known clearly, to the world. n ECAUSE of his MI accomplish- ment of what others essayed and only partially accomplished, Hud- son's name is the best known — excepting only that of Columbus — of all the names of explorers by land and sea. From Purchases time downward it has headed the list of Arctic discoverers; in every history of America it has a leading place; on every map of North America it thrice is written large; here in New York, which owes its founding to his exploring voyage, it is tittered — as we refer to the river, the county, the city, the street, the railroad, bearing it — a thousand times a day. 7 HENRY HUDSON And yet, in despite of this familiarity with his name, our certain knowledge of Hudson's life is limited to a period (April 19, 1607- J«ne 22, I6n ) of little more than four years. Of that period, during which he. did the work that has made him famous, we have a partial record — much of it under his own hand — that certainly is authentic in its general outlines until it reaches the culmi- nating tragedy. At the very last, where we most want the clear truth, we have only the one-sided account presented by his mur- derers: and murderers, being at odds with moral conventions generally, are not, as a rule, models of veracity. And so it has fallen out that what we know about the end of Hudson's life, save that it ended foully, is as uncertain as the facts of the earlier and larger part of his life are obscure. An American investigator, the late Gen. John Meredith Read, has gone farthest in a HENRY HUDSON ttnearthing facts which enlighten this ob- scurity; bat with no better result than to establish certain strong probabilities as to Hudson's ancestry and antecedents* By General Read's showing, the Henry Hudson mentioned by Hakluyt as one of the charter members (February 6, 1554-5) of the Musco- vy Company, possibly was our navigator's grandfather. He was a freeman of London, a member of the Skinners Company, and sometime an alderman* He dizd in Decem- ber, 1555, according to Stow, ^*of the late hote burning feuers, whereof died many olde persons, so that in London dizd seven Aldermen in the space of tenne monthes*" They gave that departed worthy a very noble funeral ! Henry Machyn, who had charge of it, describes it in his delightful '" Diary " in these terms: ** The xx day of December was bered at Sant Donstones in the Est master Hare Herdson, altherman of 9 HENRY HUDSON London and Skynner, and on of the masters of the gray frere in London with men and xxiiij women in mantyl fresse [frieze?] gownes^ a herse [catafalque] of wax and hong with blake; and there was my lord mare and the swordberer in blake, and dyvers oder althermen in blake, and the resedew of the althermen, atys berying; and all the masters, boyth althermen and odtir, with ther gren staffes in ther hands, and all the chylders of the gray frersse, and iiij in blake gownes bayring iiij gret stayffes- torchys bornying, and then xxiiij men with torchys bornying; and the morrow iij masses songe; and after to ys plasse to dener; and ther was ij goodly whyt branches, and mony prestes and clarkes syngying/* Stow adds that the dead alderman's widow, Barbara, caused to be set up in St» Dunstan's to his memory — and also to that of her second husband. O ^ APPARATUS FOR CORRECTING ERRORS OF THE COMPASS FROM CERTAINE ERRORS IN NAVIGATION." LONDON. 1610 HENRY HUDSON written to come home ♦ ♦ ♦ considering the death of his father and mother ''; and, as the Alderman died in the year 1555, and as his remarried widow was alive in the year 1560, this is conclusive* Being come back to England, this Christopher rose to be a person of importance in the Company; as appears from the fact that he was one of a commit- tee (circa 1583) appointed to confer with ** Captain Chris. Carlile. upon his in- tended discoveries and attempt into the hithermost parts of America/' General Read thus summarized the re- sult of his investigations: ** We have leeirned thai London was the residence of Henry Hudson the elder, of Henry Hudson his son, and of Christopher Hudson, and that Captain Thomas Hudson lived at Limehouse, now a part of the Metropolis; while Thomas Hud- son, the friend of Dr. John Dee, resided at Mortlake, then only six or seven miles from J3 HENRY HUDSON the City ♦. By reference to a statement made by Abakuk Prickett, in his * Larger Discourse/ it will be fotmd that Henry Hud- son the discoverer also was a citizen of Lon- don and had a house there/' From all of w^hich, together with various minor corrobo- rative facts, he draws these conclusions : That Henry Hudson the discoverer was the descendant, probably the grandson, of the Henry Hudson who died while holding the office of Alderman of the City of London in the year 1555; that he ** received his early training, and imbibed the ideas which con- trolled the purposes of his after life, under the fostering care of the great Corporation [the Muscovy Company] which his relatives had helped to found and afterwards to main- tain "; that he entered the service of that Company as an apprentice, in accordance with the then custom, and in due course was advanced to command rank* 14 HENRY HUDSON That is the net result of General Read's most laboriotisly painstaking investigations* The facts for which he searched so diligently, and so longed to find, he did not find* In a foot-note he added: ** The place and date of Hudson's birth will doubtless be accurately ascertained in the course of the examinations now being made in England under my di- rections* The result of these researches I hope to be able to present to the public at no distant day*'' That note was written nearly fifty years ago, and its writer died long since with his hope unrealized* But while General Read failed to accom- plish his main purpose, he didt as I have said, more than any other investigator has done to throw light on Hudson's ancestry, and on. his connection with the Muscovy Com- pany in whose service he sailed* Our navi- gator may or may not have been a grandson of the alderman who cut so fine a figure in 15 HENRY HUDSON the City three centuries and a half ago ; but beyond a reasonable doubt he was of the family — so eminently distinguished in the annals of discovery — to which that alder- man, one of the founders of the Muscovy Company, and Christopher Hudson, one of its later governors, and Captain Thomas Hudson, who sailed in its service, all be- longed. Ill £1—11 NNO, 1607, Aprill the nineteenth, at Saint Ethelburget in Bishops Gate streett did communicate with Wthe rest of the parishioners, these I persons, seamen, purposing to goe to sea foare days after, for to discover a passage by the North Pole to Japan and China. First, Henry Hudson, master. Secondly, William Colines, his mate. Third- ly, James Young. Fourthly, John Colman. Fiftly, John Cooke. Sixtly, James Beu- bery. Seventhly, James Skrutton. Eight- ly, John Pleyce. Ninthly, Thomas Barter. Tenthly, Richard Day. Eleventhly, James Knight. Twelfthly, John Hudson, a boy/' 17 HENRY HUDSON "With those words Ptjrchas prefaced his ac- count of what is known — because we have no record of earlier voyages — as Hudson's first voyage; and with those words our cer- tain knowledge of Hudson's life begins* St» Ethelburga'st a restful pause in the bustle of Bishopsgate Street, still stands — the worse, to be sure, for the clutter of little shops that has been built in front of it, and for incongruous interior renovation — and I am very grateful to Purchas for having pre- served the scrap of information that links Hudson's living body with that church which still is alive: into which may pass by the very doorway that he passed through those who venerate his memory; and there may stand within the very walls and beneath the very roof that sheltered him when he and his ship's company partook of the Sacra- ment together three hundred years ago, Purchas, no doubt, could have told all that 18 HENRY HUDSON we so gladly would know of Hudson's early history^ B«t he did not tell it— and we must rest contentt I think well content, with that poetic beginning at the chancel rail of St. Ethelburga's of the strong life that less than fo«r years later came to its epic ending* The voyage made in the year 1607, for which Hudson and his crew prepared by making their peace with God in St. Ethel- barga's, had nothing to do with America; nor did his voyage of the year following have anything to do with this continent. Both of those adventures were set forth by the Muscovy Company in search of a northeast passage to the Indies; and, while they failed in their main purpose, they added important facts concerning the coasts of Spitzbergen and of Nova Zembia to the existing stock of geographical knowledge, and yielded practical results in that they extended Eng- land's Russian trade. ^ 19 HENRY HUDSON The most notable scientific accomplish- ment of the first voyage was the high north- ing made. By observation Quiy 23, 1607) Hudson was in 80*^ 23'. By reckoning, two days later, he was in 8r\ His reckoning, because of his ignorance of the currents, always has been considered doubtful. His observed position recently has been questioned by Sir Martin Conway, who has arrived at the conclusion : ** It is de- monstrably probable that for 80'' 23' we should read 79' 23' r' But even with this reduction accepted, the fact remains that until the year J 773, when Captain Phipps reached 80^ 48', Hudson held the record for ** farthest north.'' To the second voyage belongs the often- quoted incident of the mermaid. The log of *** Hudson's Voyage to Spitzbcrgen in 1607/* by Sir Martin G^nway. The Geographical Journal. February, 1900. 20 HENRY HUDSON that voyage that has come down to «s was kept by Hudson himself; and this is what he wrote in it (June 15, 1608) with his own hand: ** All day and night cleere sunshine. The wind at east. The latitude at noone 75 degrees 7 minutes. We held westward by our account 13 leagues. In the after- noon, the sea was asswaged, and the wind being at east we set sayle, and stood south and by east, and south southeast as we could. This morning one of our companie looking over boord saw a mermaid, and calling up some of the companie to see her, one more came up and by that time shee was come close to the ships side, looking earnestly on the men, A little after a sea came and overturned her. From the navill upward her backe and breasts were like a womans, as they say that saw her, but her body as big as one of us. Her skin very white, and long haire hanging downe behinde of 21 HENRY HUDSON colour blacke* In her going downe they saw her taykt which was like the tayle of a porposse, and speckled like a macrell. Their names that saw her were Thomas EQUes and Robert Rayner/' I am sorry to say that the too-conscien- tioas Doctor Asher, in editing this log, felt called tipon to add, in a foot-note: ** Prob- ably a seal *'; and to quote, in stipport of his prosaic suggestion, various unnecessary facts about seals observed a few centuries later in the same waters by Doctor Kane. For my own part, I much prefer to believe in the mermaid — and, by so believing, to create in my own heart somewhat of the feeling which was in the hearts of those old seafarers in a time when sea-prodigies and sea-mysteries were to be counted with as among the perils of every ocean voyage. This belief of mine is not a mere whimsical fancy. Unless we take as real what the 22 HENRY HUDSON shipmcn of Hudson's time took as real, we not only miss the strong romance which was so large a part of their lif e, but we go wide of understanding the brave spirit in which their exploring work was done* Adventur- ing into tempests in their cockle-shell ships they took as a matter of course — and were brave in that way without any thought of their bravery. As a part of the day's work, also, they took their wretched quarters aboard ship and their wretched, and usually insufficient, food* Their highest courage was reserved for facing the fearsome dangers which existed only in their imaginations — but wfiich were as real to them as v/ere the dangers of wreck and of starvation and of battlings with wild beasts, brute or human, in strange new-found lands* It followed of necessity that men leading lives so full of physical hardship, and so beset by wonder- ing dread, were moody and discontented — 23 HENRY HUDSON and so easily went on from sullen anger into open mutiny* And equally did it follow- that the shipmasters who held those surly brutes to the collar — driving them to their work with blowSt and now and then killing one of them by way of encouraging the others to obedience — were as absolutely fearless and as absolutely strong of will as men could be* All of these conditions we must recognize, and must try to realize, if we would understand the work that was cut out for Hudson, and for every master navigator, in that cruel and harsh and yet ardently romantic time* IV 1 l] w T is Hudson's third voyage — the one that brought him into our own river, and that led on directly to the founding of our own city — that has the deepest interest to us of New York* He made it in the service of the Dutch East India Company: but how he came to enter that service is one of the un- solved problems in his career. In itselft there was nothing out of the com- mon in those days in an English shipmaster going captain in a Dutch vesseh But Hud- son— by General Read's showing — was so strongly backed by family influence in the Muscovy Company that it is not easy to 25 HENRY HUDSON understand why he took service with a cor- poration that in a way was the Muscovy Company's trade rival. Lacking any ex- planation of the matter, I am inclined to link it with the action of the English Govern- ment— when he returned from his voyage and made harbor at Dartmouth — in detain- ing him in England and in ordering him to serve only under the English flag; and to infer that his going to Holland was the re- sult of a falling out with the directors of the Muscovy Company; and that at their re- quest, when the chances of the sea brought him within English jurisdiction, he was de- tained in his own country — and so was put in the way to take up with the adventure that led him straight onward to his death. In all of which may be seen the working-out of that fatalism which to my mind is so ap- parent in Hudson's doings, and which is most apparent in his third voyage: that 26 HENRY HUDSON evidently had its origin in a series of curiotjs mischances, and that ended in his doing precisely what those who sent him on it were resolved that he should not do. All that we know certainly about his tak- ing service with the Dutch Company is told in a letter from President Jeannin — the French envoy who was engaged in the years I608-9t with representatives of other nations^ in trying to patch up a truce or a peace be- tween the Netherlands and Spain — to his master, Henry IV. Along with his open instructions, Jeannin seems to have had private instructions — in keeping with the customs and principles of the time — to do what he could do in the way of stealing from Holland for the benefit of France a share of the East India trade. In regard to this amiable phase of his mission, under date of January 21, 1609, he wrote : ** Some time ago I made, by your Majesty's 27 HENRY HUDSON orderst overtures to an Amsterdam merchant named Isaac Le Maire, a wealthy man of a considerable experience in the East India trade. He offered to make himself oseftil to your Majesty in matters of this kind. ♦ . . A few days ago he sent to me his brother, to inform me that an English pilot who has twice sailed in search of a northern passage has been called to Amsterdam by the East India Company to tell them what he had found, and whether he hoped to discover that passage. They had been well satisfied with his answer, and had thought they might succeed in the scheme. They had, however, been unwilling to undertake at once the said expedition; and they had only remunerated the Englishman for his trouble, and had dis- missed him with the promise of employing him next year, t6I0. The Englishman, hav- ing thus obtained his leave, Le Maire, who knows him well, has since conferred with him theArteofNauigation. Fol. 6. IBut ^f re fomc ma? mooiic a toubtt , facing, tljat on tlje arcaf caallvc0 airt> JUlavncp, tt»iCbmanvi»uifrfttic;6of fimo;? otl)crD«pc anu\)nequallplatc0, b?rcafontx)ljereof,tt)f cart^ cannot truelT! be caUeu rounoc.lCo tins J fa p , tljat in tvoo man mrj5,tl)CCfirt^iStaUcDantitinticrlfoobetobcroimtic . ii0 after onemanner,rpeak)n&p}ccifelp , it t^caltcDrounoe, as a Circle o^a ^pt)ere, Uil)ict)e toe call rotmbe, bccaufe tl)at all rigl)tl?nc^ &;atocn fromtlje center tljercof to tlje circtimferencf,are equall. ff:ijeotberrounbneffc, ia ronfiuereb toit^otit f^i« pjecifenciTe: anb iu fuclj,ajj not b? all bvs partes is equally tntfant ft-om ijys mvbbc{IoKentcr,ljut hat!) fomc partes; bvfiljer, anb fomelotu* er, vet not in fuel) qnantitie as may beiTrop t^ rounbncllic off l)e tobole. as if in a iSotole tberc tocre ccrta^ic cl?fteso;H)Oles, it tt)oulDe not tljerebp leaue to be rounbe , altljoufib "of perfettlp o;pjecifclp rounbe. SlnbfoMbiscanfefaitb Auerrois, tIjataU tbouslj both tl}e hcauenlv bouies ano tbc ffi lements are of roimb founncvet Differ ifiey in tliis, tl)attbel)caucnlrfe>pberesljauc perfect ro«nbneflc,anb tljc Clcmentesnot.^s tlje Cartb>bv rca^ fon of bis a^ounta^nes i tmalcs^tlje &ea bv bys encrcafiu8,ani> Oecreafing;tl)C C[v>;ealfofo;l)isnearene(reto tbe fv,JC,anDb?l)Fi5 contrarictie Doetb fomet^me ooo.auii ftmetvme fuffe r ( tbat is to ■x\^^ ,^ fap)is fomctjme adnie anb fomctime paffiue.Jso tbat follotDing afliue&Vai tbconc,itQcctl)tl)eotlicr,b?rearontol)creof, it alfolacfeet^pen ''"',';;;' ""' fecte rounoneflie , )l3uttl)ef»je,fo^a»mncl)easitisnearetotI)e fJ^d/ concaue of tl)c Circle oftlje ^oone , trtljici] i{i$9p^ericall,map ttjerefa^c be calUb ^pijcricall o? rounbe. """ "^^^ '' 315 4 The HOW THE EARTH IS ROUND" FAC-SIMILE OF PAGE "tHE ARTE OF NAVIGATION" LONDON. For this reason they have again treated with 30 HENRY HUDSON him about his undertaking such an expedi- tion in the course of the present year. The directors of the Amsterdam Chamber have written to the other chambers of the same Company to request their approval; and should the others refuse^ the Amsterdam Chamber will undertake the expedition at their own risk/' In point of fact, the other chambers did refuse (although, before Hudson actually sailed, they seem to have ratified the agreement made with him); and the Am- sterdam Chamber, single-handed, did set forth the voyage. In view of the fact that the French project in a way was realized, a curiously subtle interest attaches to Jeannin's showing of how narrow were the chances by which Hud- son missed being taken into the French service, and was taken into that of the Dutch. A French ship, under the command 4 3J HENRY HUDSON of a captain whose name has not been pre- served, did sail for the North — almost pre- cisely a month later than Hudson's sailing — on May 5, 1609* Beyond the bare fact that such a voyage was made, nothing is known about it: whence the inference is a reason- able one that it produced no new discoveries. But suppose that Hudson had commanded; and, so commanding, had not sailed that unknown captain's useless course but had brought his French ship into what now are our bay and our river; and that the French, not the Dutch, had founded the city here that now is — but by those hair-wide chances might not have been — New York? R, HENRY C MURPHY -to whose searchings in the archives of Holland we owe so much — found at The Hague a manuscript history of the East India Com- pany, written by P* van Dam in the seven- teenth century, in which a copy of Hudson's contract with the Company is preserved. The contract reads as follows: ** On this eighth of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and ninCt the Directors of the East India Com- pany of the Chamber of Amsterdam of the ten years reckoning of the one part, and Master Henry Hudson, Englishman, assisted 33 HENRY HUDSON by Jodocus Hondius^ of the other part, have agreed in manner following, to wit: That the said Directors shall in the first place eqtiip a small vessel or yacht of abottt thirty lasts [60 tons] burden, well provided with men, provisions and other necessaries, with which the above named Hudson shall, about the first of April, sail in order to search for a passage by the north, around the north side of Nova Zembia, and shall continue thus along that parallel until he shall be able to sail southward to the latitude of sixty degrees* He shall obtain as much knowl- edge of the lands as can be done without any considerable loss of time, and if it is possible return immediately in order to make a faithful report and relation of his voyage ^ Hondias, an eminent map-engraver of the time, was a Fleming, who, being driven from Flanders by the Spanish cruelties, made his home in Amsterdam, where he dizd in the year 1611. 34 THE ARTE OF NAVI G A T I O N. Contayning a breife defcription of the Spheare, with the partes and Circles ot the fame : as alto the making and vfe of certainelnftrumenrs. Verynecefsa- rieforall fortes of Sea-men to vndeifland. Firft written in SpanKh by Martin (urtij, and tranflatedinto Englifh by Richard Eden: and laflly correAed and aug- mented, with a Regiment or Table of declina- tion,and diuersoiher necefTry tables and rules of common Naui- gation. Calculated (thisyeare i ; 9 ^^beinc^leapyeare) by J*. T- Imprinted at London by Edw. AHde for Hugh Ajlley, by the afsignes of Richard Watkins, and are to be folde at Siina Magnus corner. I J ^ 6. FAC-SIMILE OF TITLE-PAGE OF A SEA HAND- BOOK OF HUDSON-S TIME HENRY HUDSON to the Directorst and to deliver over his journalst log-books, and charts, together with an account of everything whatsoever which shall happen to him daring the voyage without keeping anything back, ** For which said voyage the Directors shall pay the said Hudson, as well for his outfit for the said voyage as for the support of his wife and children, the sum of eight hundred guilders [say $336]. And in case (which God prevent) he does not come back or arrive hereabouts within a year, the Directors shall farther pay to his wife two hundred guilders in cash; and thereupon they shall not be farther liable to him or his heirs, unless he shall either afterward or within the year arrive and have found the passage good and suitable for the Company to use; in which case the Directors will reward the before named Hudson for his dangers, trouble, and knowledge, in their discretion, 35 HENRY HUDSON ** And in case the Directors think proper to prosecute and continue the same voyage, it is stipulated and agreed with the before named Hudson that he shall make his resi- dence in this country with his wife and chil- dren, and shall enter into the employment of no other than the Company, and this at the discretion of the Directors, who also promise to make him satisfied and content for such farther service in all justice and equity^ All without fraud or evil intent* In witness of the truth, two contracts are made hereof ♦ ♦ ♦ and are subscribed by both parties and also by Jodocus Hondius as in- terpreter and witness/' Of Hudson's sailing orders no copy has been found; but an abstract of them has been preserved by Van Dam in these words: ** I'his Company, in the year 1609, fitted out a yacht of about thirty lasts burden and engaged a Mr. Henry Hudson, an Eng- 36 HENRY HUDSON lishman, and a skilful pilot, as master there- of: witli orders to search for the aforesaid passage by the north and north-east above Nova Zembia toward the lands or straits of Amian, and then to sail at least as far as the sixtieth degree of north latitude, when if the time permitted he was to return from the straits of Amian again to this country. But he was farther ordered by his instruc- tions to think of discovering no other route or passages except the route around the north and north-east above Nova Zembia; with this additional proviso that, if it could not be accomplished at that time, another route would be the subject of consideration for another voyage/' It is evident from the foregoing that never did a shipmaster get away to sea with more explicit orders tfian those which were given to Hudson as to how his voyage was, and as to how it was not, to be made. On his 37 HENRY HUDSON obedience to those orders, which essentially were a part of his contract, depended the obligation of the directors to pay him for his services; and farther depended — a considera- tion that re^onably might be expected to touch him still more closely — their obliga- tion to bestow a solatium upon his wife and children in the event of his death. And yett with those facts clearly before him, he did precisely what he had contracted, and what in most express terms he was ordered, not to do. VI H n u U UDSON sailed from the Texel m the **HaIf Moon*' (possibly accom- panied by a small vessel, the ** Good Hopet'' that did not par- swe the voyage) on March 27- April 6, 1609; and for more than a month — ttntil he had doubled the North Cape and was well on toward Nova Zembia — went dtfly on his way. Then came the mutiny that made him change, or that gave him an excuse for changing, his ordered course. The log that has been preserved of this voyage was kept by Robert Juet; who was Hudson's mate on his second voyage, and who was mate again on Hudson's fourth 39 HENRY HUDSON voyage — until his mutinous conduct caused him to be deposed. What rating he had on board the ** Half Moon ** is not known; nor do we know whether he had, or had nott a share in the mutiny that changed the ship's course from east to west* With a suspicious frankness, he wrote in his log: ** Because it is a journey usually knowne I omit to put downe what passed till we came to the height of the North Cape of Finmarke, which we did performe by the fift of May (stilo novo), being Tuesday/* To this he adds the observed position on May 5th, IV 46' North, and the course, ** east, and by south and east,** and con- tinues: ** After much trouble, with fogges sometimes, and more dangerous ice* The nineteenth, being Tuesday, was close stormie weather, with much wind and snow, and very cold* The wind variable between the north north - west and north - east. We 40 to I'! HENRY HUDSON made otir way west and by north till noone/' His abrupt transition from the fifth to the nineteenth of May covers the time in which the mutiny occurred* Practically, his log begins almost on the day that the ship's course was changed* In the smooth con- cluding paragraph of this same log, to be cited later, he passes over unmentioned the mutiny that occurred on the homeward voyage* "jadgmg him by the facts recorded in the accounts of the voyage into Hud- son's Bay, it is a fair assumption that in both of these earlier mutinies Juet had a hand* I wish that we could find the bond that held Hudson and Juet together* That Juet could write, and that he understood the science of navigation — although those were rare accomplishments among seamen in his time — fail sufficiently to account for Hud- 41 HENRY HUDSON son's persistent employment of him. For my own part, I revert to my theory of fatal- ism. One authority, and a very good authority, for the facts which Juet suppressed con- cerning the third voyage is the historian Van Meteren: who obtained them, there is good reason for believing, directly from Hud- son himself. In his ** Historie der Nieder- landen " (I6I4) Van Meteren wrote: " This 42 HENRY HUDSON Henry Hadson left the Texel the 6th of April, 1609, and having doubled the Cape of Norway the 5th of May, directed his course along the northern coasts toward Nova Zembla. But he there found the sea as full of ice as he had found it in the preceding year, so that he lost the hope of effecting anything during the season. This circum- stance, and the cold which some of his men who had been in the East Indies could not bear, caused quarrels among the crew, they being partly English, partly Dutch; upon which the captain, Henry Hudson, laid be- fore them two propositions. The first of these was, to go to the coast of America to the lat- itude of forty degrees. This idea had been suggested to him by some letters and maps which his friend Captain Smith had sent him from Virginia, and by which he informed him that there was a sea leading into the western ocean to the north of the southern 5 43 HENRY HUDSON English colony [Virginia]* Had this in- formation been true (experience goes as yet to the contrary )t it would have been of great advantage^ as indicating a short way to India* The other proposition was to direct their search to Davis's Straits. This meet- ing with general approval, they sailed on the Hth of May, and arrived, with a good wind, at the Faroe Islands, where they stopped btrt twenty-four hours to supply themselves with fresh water* After leaving these islands they sailed on till, on the 18th of July, they reached the coast of Nova Francia under 44 degrees. ♦ ♦ . They left that place on the 26th of July, and kept out at sea till the 3d of August, when they were again near the coast in 42 degrees of latitude. Thence they sailed on till, on the 1 2th of August, they reached the shore under 37 '^ 45'. Thence they sailed along the shore until we [sic] reached 40° 45', where they found a 44 HENRY HUDSON good entrance, between two headlandst and thus entered on the 1 2th of September into as fine a river as can be found, with good anchoring ground on both sides/' That river, ** as fine as can be found,'* was our own Hudson. Van Meteren's account of the voyage, although not published until the year 16 1 4, was written very soon after Hudson's re- turn— the slip that he makes in using ** we " points to the probability that he copied directly from Hudson's log — and in it we have all that we ever are likely to know about the causes which led to the change in the ** Half Moon's " course. For my own part, I believe that Hudson did precisely what he had wanted to do from the start. The prohibitory clause in his instructions, forbidding him to go upon other than the course laid down for him, pointedly suggests that he had expressed the desire — natural 45 HENRY HUDSON enoaght since he twice had searched vainly for a passage by Nova Zembia — to search westward instead of eastward for a water- way to the Indies* As Van Meteren states^ authoritatively, he was encouraged to search in that direction by the information given him by Captain John Smith concerning a passage north of Virginia across the Ameri- can continent — a notion that Smith probably derived in the first instance from Michael Lok's planisphere, which shows the con- tinent reduced to a mere strip in about the latitude of the river that Hudson found; and that he very well might have conceived to be confirmed by stories about a great sea not far westward (the great lakes) which he heard from the Indians. But the starting point of this geographical error is immaterial. The important fact is that Hudson entertained it: and so was led to offer for first choice to his mutinous crew 46 HENRY HUDSON that they should ** go to the coast of America in the latitude of forty degrees/* His readi- ness with that proposition^ when the chance to make it came, confirms my belief that his own desire was to sail westward, and that he made the most of his opportunity* And the essential point, after all, is not whether the mutiny forced him to change, or merely gave him an excuse for changing, his ordered course: it is that he was equal to the emer- gency when the mutiny came, and so con- trolled it that — instead of going back, de- feated of his purpose, to Holland — he deliberately took the risk of personal loss that attended breaking his contract and traversing his orders, and continued on new lines his exploring voyage. It is indicative of Hudson's character that he met that cast of fate against him most resolutely; and most resolutely played up to it with a strong hand. 