From Juet's log I make the following extracts, telling of the "Half
Moon's" approach to Sandy Hook and of her passage into the Lower
Bay:
"The first of September, faire weather, the wind variable betweene
east and sooth; we steered away north north west. At noone we found
our height [a little north of Cape May] to bee 39 degrees 3
minutes.... The second, in the morning close weather, the winde at
south in the morning. From twelve untill two of the clocke we
steered north north west, and had sounding one and twentie fathoms;
and in running one glasse we had but sixteene fathoms, then
seventeene, and so shoalder and shoalder untill it came to twelve
fathoms. We saw a great fire but could not see the land. Then we
came to ten fathoms, whereupon we brought our tacks aboord, and
stood to the eastward east south east, foure glasses. Then the
sunne arose, and we steered away north againe, and saw the land
[the low region about Sandy Hook] from the west by north to the
north west by north, all like broken islands, and our soundings
were eleven and ten fathoms. Then we looft in for the shoare, and
faire by the shoare we had seven fathoms. The course along the land
we found to be north east by north. From the land which we had
first sight of, untill we came to a great lake of water [the Lower
Bay] as we could judge it to be, being drowned land, which made it
to rise like islands, which was in length ten leagues. The mouth
of that land hath many shoalds, and the sea breaketh on them as it
is cast out of the mouth of it. And from that lake or bay the land
lyeth north by east, and we had a great streame out of the bay; and
from thence our sounding was ten fathoms two leagues from the land.
At five of the clocke we anchored, being little winde, and rode in
eight fathoms water.... This night I found the land to hall the
compasse 8 degrees. For to the northward off us we saw high hils
[Staten Island and the Highlands]. For the day before we found not
above two degrees of variation. This is a very good land to fall
with, and a pleasant land to see.
"The third, the morning mystie, untill ten of the clocke. Then it
cleered, and the wind came to the south south east, so wee weighed
and stood to the northward. The land is very pleasant and high, and
bold to fall withal. At three of the clocke in the after noone, we
came to three great rivers [the Raritan, the Arthur Kill and the
Narrows]. So we stood along to the northermost [the Narrows],
thinking to have gone into it, but we found it to have a very
shoald barre before it, for we had but ten foot water. Then we cast
about to the southward, and found two fathoms, three fathoms, and
three and a quarter, till we came to the souther side of them; then
we had five and sixe fathoms, and anchored. So wee sent in our
boate to sound, and they found no lesse water than foure, five,
sixe, and seven fathoms, and returned in an houre and a halfe. So
we weighed and went in, and rode in five fathoms, oze ground, and
saw many salmons, and mullets, and rayes, very great. The height is
40 degrees 30 minutes."
That is the authoritative account of Hudson's great finding. I
have quoted it in full partly because of the thrilling interest
that it has for us; but more to show that the record of his
explorations--the "Half Moon's" log being written throughout with
the same definiteness and accuracy--gave what neither Gomez nor
Verrazano gave: clear directions for finding with certainty the
haven that he, and those earlier navigators, had found by chance.
On that fact, and on the other fact that his directions promptly
were utilized, rests his claim to be the practical discoverer of
the harbor of New York.
For more than a week the "Half Moon" lay in the Lower Bay and in
the Narrows. Then, on the eleventh of September, she passed fairly
beyond Staten Island and came out into the Upper Bay: and Hudson
saw the great river--which on that day became his river--stretching
broadly to the north. I can imagine that when he found that
wide waterway, leading from the ocean into the heart of the
continent--and found it precisely where his friend Captain John
Smith had told him he would find it, "under 40 degrees"--his hopes
were very high. The first part of the story being confirmed, it was
a fair inference that the second part would be confirmed; that
presently, sailing through the "strait" that he had entered, he
would come out, as Magellan had come out from the other strait,
upon the Pacific--with clear water before him to the coasts of
Cathay.
That glad hope must have filled his heart during the ensuing
fortnight; and even then it must have died out slowly through
another week--while the "Half Moon" worked her way northward as far
as where Albany now stands. Twice in the course of his voyage
inland--on September 14th, when his run was from Yonkers to
Peekskill--he reasonably may have believed that he was on the very
edge of his great discovery. As the river widened hugely into the
Tappan Sea, and again widened hugely into Haverstraw Bay, it well
may have seemed to him that he was come to the ocean outlet--and
that in a few hours more he would have the waters of the Pacific
beneath his keel. Then, as he passed through the Southern Gate of
the Highlands, and thence onward, his hope must have waned--until
on September 22d it vanished utterly away. Under that date Juet
wrote in his log: "This night, at ten of the clocke, our boat
returned in a showre of raine from sounding the river; and found it
to bee at an end for shipping to goe in."
That was the end of the adventure inland. Juet wrote on the 23d:
"At twelve of the clocke we weighed, and went downe two leagues";
and thereafter his log records their movements and their
doings--sometimes meeting with "loving people" with whom they had
friendly dealings; sometimes meeting and having fights with people
who were anything but loving--as the "Half Moon" dawdled slowly
down the stream. By the 2d of October they were come abreast of
about where Fort Lee now stands. There they had their last brush
with the savages, killing ten or twelve of them without loss on
their own side.
After telling about the fight, Juet adds: "Within a while after wee
got downe two leagues beyond that place and anchored in a bay
[north of Hoboken], cleere from all danger of them on the other
side of the river, where we saw a very good piece of ground [for
anchorage]. And hard by it there was a cliffe [Wiehawken] that
looked of the colour of a white greene, as though it were either
copper or silver myne. And I thinke it to be one of them, by the
trees that grow upon it. For they be all burned, and the other
places are greene as grasse. It is on that side of the river that
is called Manna-hata. There we saw no people to trouble us, and
rode quietly all night, but had much wind and raine."
In that entry the name Manna-hata was written for the first time,
and was applied, not to our island but to the opposite Jersey
shore. The explanation of Juet's record seems to be that the
Indians known as the Mannahattes dwelt--or that Juet thought that
they dwelt--on both sides of the river. That they did dwell on, and
that they did give their name to, our island of Manhattan are facts
absolutely established by the records of the ensuing three or four
years.
During October 3d the "Half Moon" was storm-bound. On the 4th, Juet
records "Faire weather, and the wind at north north west, wee
weighed and came out of the river into which we had runne so
farre." Thence, through the Upper Bay and the Narrows, and across
the Lower Bay--with a boat out ahead to sound--they went onward
into the Sandy Hook channel. "And by twelve of the clocke we were
cleere of all the inlet. Then we took in our boat, and set our
mayne sayle and sprit sayle and our top sayles, and steered away
east south east, and south east by east, off into the mayne sea."
Juet's log continues and concludes--passing over unmentioned the
mutiny that occurred before the ship's course definitely was set
eastward--in these words: "We continued our course toward England,
without seeing any land by the way, all the rest of this moneth of
October. And on the seventh day of November (stilo novo), being
Saturday, by the grace of God we safely arrived in the range of
Dartmouth, in Devonshire, in the yeere 1609."[1]
[Footnote 1: From Mr. Brodhead's "History of the State of New
York" I reproduce the following note, that tells of the little
"Half Moon's" dismal ending: "The subsequent career of the
'Half Moon' may, perhaps, interest the curious. The small 'ship
book,' before referred to, which I found, in 1841, in the
Company's archives at Amsterdam, besides recording the return
of the yacht on the 15th of July, 1610, states that on the 2d
of May, 1611, she sailed, in company with other vessels, to the
East Indies, under the command of Laurens Reael; and that on
the 6th of March, 1615, she was 'wrecked and lost' on the
island of Mauritius."]
From the standpoint of the East India Company, Hudson's quest upon
our coast and into our river--the most fruitful of all his
adventurings, since the planting of our city was the outcome of
it--was a failure. Hessel Gerritz (1613) wrote: "All that he did
in the west in 1609 was to exchange his merchandise for furs in
New France." And Hudson himself, no doubt, rated his great
accomplishment--on which so large a part of his fame rests
enduringly--as a mere waste of energy and of time. I hope that he
knows about, and takes a comforting pride in--over there in the
Shades--the great city which owes its founding to that seemingly
bootless voyage!