It 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 unsolved problems in his career.
In itself, there was nothing out of the common in those days in an
English shipmaster going captain in a Dutch vessel. But Hudson--by
General Read's showing--was so strongly backed by family influence
in the Muscovy Company that it is not easy to understand why he
took service with a corporation that in a way was the Muscovy
Company's trade rival. Lacking any explanation of the matter, I am
inclined to link it with the action of the English Government--when
he returned from his voyage and made harbor at Dartmouth--in
detaining him in England and in ordering him to serve only under
the English flag; and to infer that his going to Holland was the
result of a falling out with the directors of the Muscovy Company;
and that at their request, when the chances of the sea brought him
within English jurisdiction, he was detained 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
apparent in Hudson's doings, and which is most apparent in his
third voyage: that evidently had its origin in a series of curious
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 taking service with the Dutch
Company is told in a letter from President Jeannin--the French
envoy who was engaged in the years 1608-9, with representatives of
other nations, in trying to patch up a truce or a peace between 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 orders, 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 useful 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 dismissed him
with the promise of employing him next year, 1610. The Englishman,
having thus obtained his leave, Le Maire, who knows him well, has
since conferred with him and has learnt his opinions on these
subjects; with regard to which the Englishman had also intercourse
with Plancius, a great geographer and clever mathematician.
Plancius maintains, according to the reasons of his science, and
from the information given him, ... that there must be in the
northern parts a passage corresponding to the one found near the
south pole by Magellan.... The Englishman also reports that, having
been to the north as far as 80 degrees, he has found that the more
northwards he went, the less cold it became."
[Illustration: "HOW THE EARTH IS ROUND"
FAC-SIMILE OF PAGE "THE ARTE OF NAVIGATION" LONDON. EDITION 1596]
Hudson's name is not mentioned by Jeannin, but as no other
navigator had been so far north as 80°, there can be no doubt as to
who "the Englishman" was. The letter goes on to urge that the
French king should undertake the "glorious enterprise" of searching
for a northerly passage to the Indies, and that he should undertake
it openly: as "the East India Company will not have even a right
to complain, because the charter granted to them by the States
General authorizes them to sail only around the Cape of Good Hope,
and not by the north." But Jeannin adds that Le Maire "does not
dare to speak about it to any one, because the East India Company
fears above everything to be forestalled in this design."
Precisely that fear on the part of the East India Company did
undercut the French envoy's plans. In a postscript to his letter he
adds: "This letter having been terminated, and I being ready to
send it to your Majesty, Le Maire has again written to me.... Some
members of the East India Company, who had been informed that the
Englishman had secretly treated with him, had become afraid that I
might wish to employ him for the discovery of the passage. For this
reason they have again treated with him about his undertaking such
an expedition 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 Amsterdam 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 Hudson missed being taken into the
French service, and was taken into that of the Dutch. A French
ship, under the command of a captain whose name has not been
preserved, did sail for the North--almost precisely 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 reasonable 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?
V
Mr. 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 Company, written by P. van Dam in the seventeenth 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 nine, the Directors of the East India Company of
the Chamber of Amsterdam of the ten years reckoning of the one
part, and Master Henry Hudson, Englishman, assisted by Jodocus
Hondius[1], of the other part, have agreed in manner following, to
wit: That the said Directors shall in the first place equip a small
vessel or yacht of about 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
Zembla, 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 knowledge 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 to the Directors, and to deliver over his journals,
log-books, and charts, together with an account of everything
whatsoever which shall happen to him during 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.
"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 residence in this country with his
wife and children, 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
interpreter and witness."
[Footnote 1: Hondius, 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 died in the year 1611.]
[Illustration: FAC-SIMILE OF TITLE-PAGE OF A SEA HANDBOOK OF
HUDSON'S TIME]
Of Hudson's sailing orders no copy has been found; but an abstract
of them has been preserved by Van Dam in these words: "This
Company, in the year 1609, fitted out a yacht of about thirty lasts
burden and engaged a Mr. Henry Hudson, an Englishman, and a
skilful pilot, as master thereof: with orders to search for the
aforesaid passage by the north and north-east above Nova Zembla
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 instructions to think of
discovering no other route or passages except the route around the
north and north-east above Nova Zembla; 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 than those which were given
to Hudson as to how his voyage was, and as to how it was not, to be
made. On his 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 consideration
that reasonably might be expected to touch him still more
closely--their obligation to bestow a solatium upon his wife and
children in the event of his death. And yet, 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.