Hudson sailed from the Texel in the "Half Moon" (possibly
accompanied by a small vessel, the "Good Hope," that did not pursue
the voyage) on March 27-April 6, 1609; and for more than a
month--until he had doubled the North Cape and was well on toward
Nova Zembla--went duly 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 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 not, 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, 71° 46' North, and the course, "east,
and by south and east," and continues: "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 made our way west and by north till noone."
[Illustration: DUTCH SHIPS OF HUDSON'S TIME.
FROM DE VEER. DRIE SEYLAGIEN, AMSTERDAM, 1605]
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 concluding paragraph of this same log, to be cited later, he
passes over unmentioned the mutiny that occurred on the homeward
voyage. Judging him by the facts recorded in the accounts of the
voyage into Hudson'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 Hudson's
persistent employment of him. For my own part, I revert to my
theory of fatalism. It is my fancy that this "ancient man"--as he
is styled by one of his companions--was Hudson's evil genius; and I
class him with the most finely conceived character in Marryat's
most finely conceived romance: the pilot Schriften, in "The Phantom
Ship." Just as Schriften clung to the younger Van der Decken to
thwart him, so Juet seems to have clung to Hudson to thwart him;
and to take--in the last round between them--a leading part in
compassing Hudson's death.
One authority, and a very good authority, for the facts which Juet
suppressed concerning the third voyage is the historian Van
Meteren: who obtained them, there is good reason for believing,
directly from Hudson himself. In his "Historie der Niederlanden"
(1614) Van Meteren wrote: "This Henry Hudson 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 circumstance, 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 before them two
propositions. The first of these was, to go to the coast of America
to the latitude 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
English colony [Virginia]. Had this information been true
(experience goes as yet to the contrary), 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
meeting with general approval, they sailed on the 14th of May, and
arrived, with a good wind, at the Faroe Islands, where they stopped
but 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 12th 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 good entrance,
between two headlands, and thus entered on the 12th 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 1614, was written very soon after Hudson's return--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 enough, since he twice had
searched vainly for a passage by Nova Zembla--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 American
continent--a notion that Smith probably derived in the first
instance from Michael Lok's planisphere, which shows the continent
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 that they should "go
to the coast of America in the latitude of forty degrees." His
readiness 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 emergency when the mutiny came, and so
controlled it that--instead of going back, defeated 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.