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Hudson Tercentenary
AN HISTORICAL RETROSPECT
REGARDING THE OBJECT AND QUEST OF AN ALL-WATER ROUTE FROM EUROPE TO
INDIA; THE OBSTACLES IN THE WAY; AND ALSO HUDSON'S VOYAGE TO AMERICA IN
1609 AND SOME OF ITS RESULTS
BY
FRANK CHAMBERLAIN
ALBANY
J. B. LYON COMPANY, PRINTERS
1909
COPYRIGHT 1909
By Frank Chamberlain
HUDSON TERCENTENARY
Let us turn back the pages of history and take a cursory view of what
gave the wonderful stimulus to maritime adventure; and what so long
delayed the discovery of the western world by the Europeans.
Civilized mankind scarcely secures the _necessaries_ of life before the
desire for the _luxuries_ springs up and is cherished.
For untold centuries all of eastern Asia forbade the entrance of
foreigners into its territories. To Europeans it was an unknown land.
In the year 326 B. C. Alexander the Great marched his conquering
Macedonian legions against the myriads of Asiatic troops, subdued them
and marched on to the Hindus, where he "improvised a fleet" for his
army, sailed down that river, called Sacred, to the Indian ocean.
Astonished at the wealth of the country and having amassed precious gems
and hundreds of millions of dollars he returned loaded with his
treasures up the Euphrates, to that most wonderful city of ancient
times, Babylon, where he died. He opened the western doors of India,
which exposed its great wealth, excited the avarice of the small number
of Greeks who knew of his exploits; and for centuries it was the
Europeans' Eldorado, which ultimately, by its luxury and effeminacy,
undermined western manhood and led to the decay of Greece and Rome.
Asia, beyond the Euphrates, except by a few, was an unknown country to
Europeans until Marco Polo in 1271 A. D., in the company of his father
and uncle, met Kublai Khan, the Mongol Emperor, won his confidence and
esteem and by him was entrusted with the most important missions. During
the seventeen years he remained he visited the most important places in
China, India and the East Indies, and returned to Italy loaded with the
rarest, most precious gems and immense wealth, published a book telling
his experience and picturing the East in the most roseate colors,
generally emanating from fancy, but in this case resting upon facts of
which he was able to furnish satisfactory proof.
The fact established that India--the East Indies had the gold, silver,
precious gems and stones, ebony, ivory, cloves, cinnamon, cassia, spices
and the most beautiful and costly fabrics, articles not obtainable
elsewhere and the great desiderata of the Europeans, the question arose
as to how they could the most easily, quickly and cheaply be obtained.
They could, without much difficulty, find their way to the Indian ocean,
but the transportation thence to Europe must be by "the ship of the
desert," the camel, across the Arabian desert and the Isthmus of Suez,
"the bridge of nations" to the Mediterranean or by a more northerly
route through the Caspian and Black seas. Caravans must be formed by the
merchants and armed troops to protect them against the robbers. The land
route by the caravans was slow and very expensive, and the hope was
cherished that an all-water route might be found which would not only
shorten the time, but greatly lessen the expense of transportation. For
a considerable time the Phoenicians, occupying a little skirt of land on
the eastern end of the Mediterranean, and the first distinctly
commercial nation in the world's history, virtually monopolized this
land transportation; and then distributed the articles along the shore
of the Mediterranean, where they had planted colonies clear up to the
Pillars of Hercules. But Venice and Genoa, rival and wealthy cities of
Italy, with fine harbors on this inland sea, sought the India trade,
supplanted Phoenicia and became greatly enriched by it. The great
desideratum--an all-water route from western Europe to the Indies--had
not yet been found, but after the Italian cities had enjoyed,
monopolized the trade with India for a period of 150 years, another
little skirt of land on the west end of the Mediterranean and on the
Atlantic ocean, Portugal, brought about a complete change in the
transportation which deprived Venice and Genoa of that business.
Henry, Prince of Portugal, surnamed the Navigator, far in advance of his
time in geographical knowledge and in the science of navigation,
introduced the compass and the astrolabe, which he furnished with
nautical maps and other guides for his mariners, whom he inspired to
sail along the western coast of Africa and double the Cape of Good Hope.
This, Bartholomew Diaz, a Portuguese navigator, did in 1486, and then it
seemed certain that an all-water route from western Europe to India had
been found, but it was not an accomplished fact until Vasco da Gama, a
Portuguese navigator, availing himself of Diaz's discovery of 1486, made
a voyage in 1497 from Lisbon to Calicut (not Calcutta) in southwestern
India.
Henry "the Navigator" was the father of what may be called ocean, in
contradistinction to coast, navigation, scientific, instead of chance
navigation, although he died before the Cape of Good Hope had been
doubled. After Diaz had doubled the Cape of Good Hope in 1486, the furor
of every mariner was to point the prow of his vessel toward India to
share in its precious gems, its beautiful and costly fabrics, articles
of luxury, and its great wealth. The India fever seized all the maritime
nations of Europe, Portugal, Spain, France, the Netherlands, England,
Sweden and Denmark. Christopher Columbus in 1492 sought, and thought he
had found India by sailing westward. Then Rodrigo Lenzoli Borgia, a
Spaniard, and the Pope, under the title of Alexander VI, assuming to be
vice-gerent of the world, made a division of all the newly-discovered,
or subsequently to be discovered, heathen lands between the two great
Catholic powers, Spain and Portugal, by drawing a line from pole to pole
one hundred leagues west of the Azores and the Cape de Verde islands
(this line was subsequently changed) and declared that all lands
discovered west of that line and not belonging to some Christian prince
should belong to Spain, and all similar lands east of that line should
belong to Portugal. The two great maritime and exploring nations of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were Portugal and Spain--the former in
the east and the latter in the west. Alas! their great fame is in the
past. Spain hoped to reach the Indies by a shorter all-water route,
sailing _westward_, and that was Columbus's mission, purpose and hope.
The edict of the Pope did not, in the least, restrain France, England or
the Netherlands from attempting to make discoveries, and France,
England, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark granted charters to
companies of their own subjects, granting them great and exclusive
rights, and calling them East India companies. At the close of the year
A. D. 1600, Queen Elizabeth chartered the English East India Company
with most extraordinary rights and privileges, and thus laid the
foundations for Great Britain's Asiatic empire.
The Dutch East India Company charter was granted in 1602, to trade to
the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope and the Strait of Magellan for
twenty-one years, and no other of the East India companies has been so
successfully managed. The Dutch have derived large revenue from the
islands they still hold there, viz.: Java, the Moluccas or Spice
islands, a large part of Borneo, Sumatra, Celebes and several small
islands in the Malay Archipelago.
Cornelius Hartman, a Dutch navigator, who had spent some time in Lisbon,
Portugal, returned in 1594 to Amsterdam, where he gave such a glowing
account of the rich and wonderful products of the East, which covered
the quays of the Tagus, in Lisbon, that nine prominent merchants of
Amsterdam formed a company, equipped a fleet of four ships, fitted for
war (a war then prevailing between Holland and Spain) and for trade, and
put Hartman in command. He followed the Portuguese route, and two years
later returned with cargoes far surpassing the expectations or even the
hopes of the company.
Seeing this Indian wealth upon their own docks, other associations and
companies were formed in the Netherlands to engage in this lucrative
trade. Rivalry between them became so great as to diminish the profits
that a consolidation of the companies was effected by Barneveldt. This
company consisted of six branches called chambers, each of which was to
be managed by its own directors (originally fifty-three in all) in
different parts of the country.
A general council of seventeen directors (Amsterdam eight, Zealand four,
Rotterdam, Hoorn and Enkhuizen each one, and the seventeenth to be
chosen by the chamber of Zealand, the Maas and North Holland) were by a
majority of votes to _determine all voyages_. This arrangement was made
to protect the small chambers against the power and policy of Amsterdam
if against their interests. Each locality was secured in its due
proportion of the business of the company. Each chamber had the
exclusive management of its ships sent out by it and was held
responsible for the property coming into its possession. The general
council of seventeen did not meet often, but the subordinate chambers
could legislate upon subjects appropriate, and which did not trench upon
the general policy and course of the company.
The Dutch East India Company was clothed with extraordinary powers and
privileges and became very wealthy; not alone in the pursuit of the East
India trade, but by capturing in the West Indies galleons containing
great quantities of gold and silver, which the Spaniards, by the most
cruel methods, had taken in Mexico and Peru.
The ancients held different opinions about the form, dimensions, the
proportion of land to water, of the earth, and as to whether it was
motionless, around which all the universe revolved, as the great center,
and of supreme importance, or whether it was merely a satellite
revolving around the sun. It seems flat and the heavenly bodies seem to
revolve around it. Others thought the earth was a sphere because "the
sphere is the most perfect form; it was the center of the universe
because that is the place of honor; and it is motionless, because motion
is less dignified than rest." Some believed that the earth is round and
rests upon the ocean. Homer (900 B. C.) taught that the earth is flat,
and so, too, did some of the learned men of Greece and Rome, in the
Augustan age. The great Church of Rome, of unequaled influence and
power, taught that the earth is flat and the center of the universe and
interdicted, and for centuries punished as heretics, those denying the
infallibility of the Popes and teaching otherwise. It is probable that
about 600 B. C., Thales of Miletus, one of the "Seven Wise Men of
Greece," a famous astronomer and geometer, was the first to teach that
the earth is round. About 550 B. C. Pythagoras, the renowned Greek
philosopher and mathematician, taught that "the earth is a globe which
admits of antipodes; that it is in motion; is not the center of the
universe, but revolves around the sun." Plato, Aristotle, Hipparchus,
Pliny, Cicero, Virgil, Ovid, Eratosthenes and many others, the most
eminent scholars of their times, believed that the earth is a sphere;
and Eratosthenes, an Alexandrian philosopher, astronomer, geometer and
geographer about 210 B. C. thought that he had not only proved that by
scientific astronomical observations but also the speed of the earth in
its revolutions; its magnitude and also the relative proportion of its
constituent elements of land and water.
Claudius Ptolemy, about 150 A. D., a celebrated Alexandrian astronomer,
geographer and mathematician, held the opinion and promulgated it, that
the earth is a sphere and that the sun, planets and stars revolve around
it as the grand center. He was the founder of the Ptolemaic System which
was almost universally received for 1,350 years, when the system of
Copernicus (a revival of the system of Pythagoras) permanently displaced
it, notwithstanding the violent opposition, extending to persecution, of
the Church of Rome against it.
Claudius Ptolemy had calculated the equatorial girth of the earth to be
20,400 miles. Making allowance for latitude, the circumference at the
Canaries would be about 18,000 miles and the diameter about one-third of
that, or 6,000 miles. Columbus was a student of everything accessible
concerning geography and navigation and a devout Roman Catholic. He
credited the statement in the Apochrypha of the Bible, Second Esdras,
chapter 6, verse 42, which says: "Upon the third day Thou didst command
that the _waters_ should be gathered in the _seventh part of the earth_,
six parts has Thou dried up and kept them," etc., etc.
If Ptolemy's calculation had been correct and Esdras's statement
reliable, 18,000 miles divided by 7, giving a quotient of 2,571 miles,
would have been the distance Columbus would have had to sail from the
Azores to Japan. He estimated he might have to sail 4,000 miles (to
reach the west coast of India facing Europe) by being deflected from a
straight course. The real distance from the Canaries to Japan is 12,000
miles, and the relative proportion of salt water on the surface of the
earth to the land is _three-quarters_. Columbus, believing that he was
inspired and commissioned by God to convert the heathen, sailed and
thought he had reached India, called the natives Indians (so they have
been called ever since) and he died so thinking.
If the magnitude of the earth--its diameter had been ascertained and the
relative proportion of land to water with the known longitude and
latitude of India, then the problem was easily solved that an all-water
route to India from Europe, whether by sailing westward or northward,
would greatly diminish the distance (about 8,000 miles) covered by
sailing around Cape Good Hope. That was a great desideratum--the aim of
individuals and nations, which would seem to warrant the belief of
speedy accomplishment. Let us not forget that we must consider the
conditions of the past and not of the twentieth or nineteenth centuries.
Notwithstanding "Henry, the Navigator" applied the inventions and
equipments so indispensable to scientific navigation, and did all he
could to inspire his sailors to sail around South Africa, it was forty
years before that was an accomplished fact. So inferior, so inadequate,
for ocean navigation, were the vessels then, and so little was known
about ocean currents and the trade winds, that we can easily imagine
that long sea voyages were discouraging.
There is no other class of men so superstitious as were the sailors, nor
as are the sailors now. Everything that they see or hear of, that is
unusual or they don't understand, frightens them as foreboding evil. It
is an experience reported by so many of the famous navigators. You will
recall Columbus's experience in his first voyage across the Atlantic,
and not only the evasive answers he gave when the sailors noticed a
variation of the needle and his threats to enforce his orders, that he
might continue his voyage.
About 480 B. C., Pindar, the greatest of the lyric poets of Greece,
declared that "Beyond Cades (Cadiz in Spain) no man, however bold and
brave, could pass; only a god might voyage those waters." The Atlantic
was deemed a dangerous ocean. Thus we are reminded of some of the
obstacles which delayed European discovery of the western world.
All that is known of the life, education, pursuits and achievements of
Hudson, the Navigator, whose name is perpetuated in monuments ("more
enduring than brass") upon the face of nature (its waters and land) in
North America, is contained in the brief period of five years, or from
1606 to 1611, and is almost entirely contained in his log-books of his
four voyages.
That so little about Hudson is known is not because efforts have not
been made by competent and zealous investigators. It is greatly to be
regretted that Richard Hakluyt and Samuel Purchas, Englishmen and
contemporaries of Hudson, so greatly condensed in their writings the
material they had and which is the chief source of information.
Hessel Gerritsz and Emanuel Van Meteren, Hollanders, also contemporaries
of Hudson, historians, geographers, map-makers and publishers, threw
much side-light upon the discoveries which had been made in search of an
all-water route to India (describing and illustrating by maps) before
Hudson made any of his four famous voyages.
Coming down to the nineteenth century we find prominent among Hudson's
biographers, Henry R. Cleveland's Life of Hudson, in Sparks' Library of
American Biography, vol. 10, 1838; Henry Hudson in Holland, by the Hon.
Henry C. Murphy, United States Minister at The Hague in 1859; Gen. John
Meredith Read, Jr.'s elaborate historical research about Hudson
published in 1866; Dr. G. M. Asher's article on Henry Hudson, printed
for the Hakluyt Society in London, 1860; and John Knox Laughton,
Professor of Modern History in Kings College since 1885, whose article
appears in the Dictionary of International Biography, vol. 28, pp.
147-149, stating that Dr. Asher's article of 400 pages covers almost
everything known about Henry Hudson, and Justin Winsor's America, eight
volumes, in 1889; John Brodhead's History of New York, 1871, etc., etc.
_We do know that Hudson, the Navigator's name was Henry and not
Hendrick_, as so often called and even now blazoned on the newest and
finest steamboat on the Hudson river, as evidenced in his contract with
the Amsterdam directors of the Dutch East India Company, a copy of which
follows. _We know that he was and remained an Englishman when on his
return from his third voyage_ (for the Dutch) the English government
forbade him and all the Englishmen with him to enter any service other
than for her own country.
As Hudson did not understand the Dutch language he employed, as his
interpreter in his conference with the two Amsterdam directors of the
Dutch East India Company, a learned Hollander named Jodocus Hondius, who
signed the contract as a witness.
CONTRACT.
"On this eighth day of January in the year of our Lord 1609, the
directors of the East India Company of the Chamber of Amsterdam, of the
ten year's reckoning of the one part, and Mr Henry Hudson, Englishman
assisted by Jodocus Hondius 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 (about 60 tons)
burden with which well provided with men, provisions, and other
necessaries the aforesaid Hudson shall about the first of April sail in
order to search for a passage by the North, around by the North side of
Novaya Zemlya and shall continue thus along that parallel until he shall
be able to sail southward to the latitude of 60 degrees. He shall obtain
as much knowledge of the lands as can be done without any considerable
loss of time, and if it be 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 to the said Hudson as well as for his outfit for the said voyage as
for the support of his wife and children the sum of 800 guilders; (about
320 dollars) and, in case (which God prevent) he do not come back or
arrive hereabouts within a year the directors shall further pay to his
wife 200 guilders in cash; and thereupon they shall not be further
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 aforenamed
Hudson for his dangers, trouble and knowledge in their discretion, with
which the before mentioned Hudson is content. And in case the directors
think proper to prosecute and continue the same voyage it is stipulated
and agreed with the aforenamed 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 further service in all justice and equity. All without fraud or
evil intent. In witness of the truth, two contracts are made hereof, of
the same tenor and are subscribed by both parties and also by Jodocus
Hondius as interpreter and witness.
"Dated as above
Signed
"DIRK VAN OS
"J. POPPE
"HENRY HUDSON
"JODOCUS HONDIUS
"Witness"
The period of the tercentenary of Henry Hudson's exploration, in 1609,
of the "Grande river," which for centuries has been called the "Hudson
river," approaches, and already plans and preparations, on a grand
scale, have been begun to commemorate that highly important event.
Albanians are especially interested and participating in the
preparations for this celebration, for the site of Albany was deemed the
most important in the New Netherlands, that of the city of New York
alone excepted, and in many respects, early, even more important than
that. For at Albany, near the confluence of the two great rivers of the
territory of New York, the Hudson from the north and the Mohawk from the
west, the Indians from the north and west came in their canoes with
their peltry and furs, as a market place, designed by nature, for the
exchange of articles between the red men and the white men for what they
did not want, to get what, respectively, they did want. Then, too, it
was where the Indians assembled to make their important treaties; where
the governors of the American provinces met to consider and decide
important measures; and where the first provincial congress, in 1754,
met and prepared a plan for the union of the colonies. It was, moreover,
the great strategic point contended for by the French and English on
American soil, and later by the English against the United States in the
War of the American Revolution. Albany's charter, as a city, under the
date of 1686, is the oldest unrevoked charter of a city in the United
States and during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries no place in
the western world surpassed it in historic interest; and for the last
hundred years and more, as the capital of the Empire State, it has been
considered, next to Washington, the most influential and important
legislative center in the United States.
The Scandinavians were the earliest and boldest Arctic navigators and
Iceland was their rendezvous. A great part of the Arctic shores that
have been visited in modern times was known to the Scandinavians.
Columbus visited Iceland fifteen years before he sailed in 1492. S.
Cabot went to North America in 1498 by way of Iceland. Scandinavians
were seeking fisheries, as were the exploring nations of that period,
and many of their acts were those of freebooters. The Portuguese, the
Spanish, and the French, the three nations which had followed in the
track of Cabot and his English companions and had then arrived at the
northern shores of America in search of a passage to Asia, did not
abandon the newly explored region.
The Portuguese continued their surveys of the northern coasts most
likely to discover advantageous fisheries. They advanced slowly along
the shores of Newfoundland and then up to the mouth of Hudson strait,
then through that strait, and at last into _Hudson bay_. With a certain
number of ancient maps, ranging from 1529 to 1570, before us we can
trace the progress step by step. In 1554 the Portuguese seemed not yet
to have reached the mouth of the Hudson strait. In 1558 their
geographical knowledge extended beyond the mouth of the strait and in
1570 they had reached the bay. The authorities for all this are our
ancient geographical delineations. Much geographical intelligence in
those days was kept secret. _We can therefore state with the greatest
certainty that Hudson bay had been discovered before the publication of
Ortelius's Atlas, published 1570. So said Dr. Asher._
General J. M. Read, Jr., with competent assistants, much time and ample
means, pursued a thorough, exhaustive examination to ascertain all
possible about the Hudsons, of which Henry was one; and while the book
is very interesting and many ingenious theories presented, yet
rock-foundation of evidence seems to be lacking.
While neither the parents of Henry Hudson nor the date of his birth have
been ascertained, that he was born in England, and almost beyond
question in Hoddersdon (where so many of the Hudsons lived) in
Hertfordshire, about seventeen miles north by east of London, seems
settled. It, moreover, seems highly probable that our Henry Hudson was
the grandson of Henry Hudson, a Londoner of great wealth and influence,
one of the founders and the first president of the Muscovy or Russian
Company which Sebastian Cabot suggested and of which he became its first
governor, and that in the service of that company our navigator there
had his first service and won the rank and distinction of captain. The
Muscovy or Russian Company was formed of London merchant adventurers for
the purpose of seeking an all-water route to the Indies by sailing north
of Russia and then down the Pacific, greatly shortening the route via
the Cape of Good Hope. This company was held in such high esteem that
both England and Russia granted it a charter in 1555. Several
unsuccessful voyages for this purpose were made, the ice and storms
proving insurmountable obstacles. It was in the employ of this company
where, and in his own journal, our Henry Hudson first makes himself
known as the captain of the "Hopeful," which sailed April 19, 1607, with
ten sailors and his son John, a boy, aboard, with directions to explore
the coast of Greenland, pass around it to the northeast, or directly
under the Pole or, in his own words, "for to discover a passage by the
North Pole to Japan and China." The "Hopeful" left Gravesend May 1,
1607, and in twenty-six days reached the Shetland Islands, where
supplies were taken on. Four days after leaving these islands it was
observed that the magnetic needle was deflected, which created
consternation among the sailors. They believed the voyage was under an
evil spell and would meet with disaster. Then the resources of the
captain were evoked to carry out instructions or plans and prevent
mutiny. Hudson managed his crew, sailed along the east coast of
Greenland and thence along the ice barrier to Spitzbergen (discovered by
the Dutch in 1596), going as far north as 80° 23'. Prevented by ice, he
sailed back to England, which he reached September 15, 1607.
The Muscovy Company still believed that an all-water and a very much
shorter route than that via Cape of Good Hope from Western Europe to
India could be found by the northeast, fitted out a vessel with a larger
crew and gave our Captain Henry Hudson the command of it and under the
same instructions as before. His son, as well as several others of his
crew on the "Hopeful," went with him on this second voyage. He sailed
from London April 25, 1608, and, obstructed by the ice, he could go no
further than Nova Zembla, which had been discovered in 1553. He promptly
returned to England and reported to the company. Hudson asked for more
men and less rigid orders that he might make another voyage, but the
company did not comply with his request. "It is not known whether it was
because it had abandoned the hope of finding a northeastern route or had
lost confidence in Hudson's ability." Navigators, like prophets, "are
not without honor save in their own country;" as examples, Columbus,
John Cabot, Verazzano, Magellan and Americus Vespucius, whose
discoveries were for nations not their own.
Hudson, firm in the belief that he could find a much shorter all-water
route than then was known, sought employment from the Dutch East India
Company, which had heard of him as an able, brave and skilled navigator
who had been in the employ of their rival--the English--an incentive to
secure his services. Hudson was invited to Amsterdam to confer with the
directors of the Dutch East India Company. He went and there met the
Amsterdam directors of the Dutch East India Company. The Amsterdam
directors thought favorably of securing Hudson's services for the Dutch
East India Company--at all events to prevent him from entering any other
service and it is said they asked him to come to them a year later for
employment as a matter of that importance could be acted on only by the
Council of Seventeen. This was to postpone the matter, much to Hudson's
disappointment and detriment--ending, possibly, in mere talk. The Dutch
East India Company was then the most prosperous of the East India
companies and was really more anxious to prevent any other company from
discovering a new all-water route (_the company had resolved to do that
at any cost_) than to find one themselves. However, the Amsterdam
directors did not hoodwink Hudson by their excuse for delay, which would
bind him for a year and leave them free. A former director of the Dutch
East India Company, who thought he had been ill treated by the company,
resigned, became a bitter opponent of the company and resided in Paris.
He told Hudson of the duplicity and purpose of the Amsterdam directors
in holding him in suspense. The then French King, Henry IV, felt
chagrined that France, through oversight or neglect, had not in any due
proportion, considering her dignity and importance, shared in the India
trade and that her expeditions to Canada had not proved a success,
determined to seek and obtain an experienced navigator to take command
of a well-equipped expedition in quest of the best all-water route to
India. The French King was advised to communicate with James Lemaire, a
Dutch navigator of great wealth and residing in Paris. He did so and
Lemaire knew Hudson and named him as the best man for the position.
Governments employ a secret service to keep a close watch upon other
governments and to report promptly what they are doing and
contemplating. King Henry learned about Henry Hudson's conference with
the Amsterdam directors of the Dutch East India Company who wanted to
bind him to wait a year before engaging again in a voyage of discovery
for India and then come to them for employment.
The French King gave orders that Hudson be engaged at once on most
liberal terms in the service of France, but the Amsterdam directors
learned of his decision and without any further delay entered on the 8th
of January, 1609, in a contract with Hudson which resulted in the Dutch
claim of New Netherlands instead, perhaps, of extended French claims in
the New World. This contract has been very sharply commented upon as
being very illiberal in the compensation stated for the services and
great risk that Hudson was to undergo; that while clear in terms it was
not in perfect good faith for as it claimed to be an act of the Dutch
East India Company and was signed by _only two of the directors of the
Amsterdam chamber who had no authority to bind the company in such a
matter and that therefore it was voidable if for any reason the company
so desired_. It might have been merely an inexpensive scheme to prevent
Hudson from entering any other employ. Then, too, it appeared singular
that either the Amsterdam directors or Hudson should want to attempt the
_northeastern_ route which so often had resulted in failure before our
Hudson's time and that Hudson himself as a master had signally failed in
two expeditions and probably before that while as a mariner in the
employ of the Muscovy Company. It seemed as though Hudson who, after
commanding two searches for the Muscovy Company wanted greater freedom
in the pursuit and so asked of that company. The belief on the part of
some was that there was a secret agreement or understanding between the
contracting parties that Hudson might, or was really, to ignore the
contract which was given to the public as a blind. While subsequent
events gave color, plausibility to these thoughts, they were merely
conjectures, for it is most remarkable that there has so little
documentary evidence been found about a man whose name appears so often
and so prominently in North America. Hudson's last voyage was for three
wealthy Englishmen, viz.: Sir Thomas Smythe, Sir Dudley Digges and John
Wolstenholme. Doubtless very much of Hudson's writings were not made
public--probably publication at that time was forbidden, fearing that
rival navigators would thereby gain some information to their advantage
and to the detriment of Hudson's employers. Then, too, it has been
thought and said that if Hudson's writings had been published in full
some things would have been revealed that at least some of the
contracting parties were anxious to conceal. Although nearly 300 years
have passed and the public has not been fully enlightened on this
subject there still remains the belief that Hudson's writings about his
contracts for searching for an all-water and shorter route to India will
yet be discovered and published. To engage in any great and hazardous
undertaking there must be some adequate motive. Considering the high
demands and promises made to bold and skillful navigators (perhaps in
compensation, rank, and authority none comparable with the case of
Christopher Columbus) it is scarcely presumable that Henry Hudson
entered the service of the Dutch East India Company merely for the
paltry sum named in that contract and in a route which he himself on two
occasions or more had found impracticable--presumably impossible. Henry
Hudson, a bold and experienced navigator, well posted in the discoveries
made by maritime discoverers especially in the New World; in the
discoveries in geography, geometry, and in possession of the latest and
best maps of the world, surely had some strong motive, presumably a
worthy ambition to become a discoverer of a new all-water route to
India, and in his journal he told of his desire to seek that route by
sailing _westward_ when his instructions were distinct and positive to
sail _north_ and _east_.
If, then, such were the views and purposes of Hudson when he made the
contract (which is quoted herein) with the Amsterdam directors of the
Dutch East India Company, let us see, if we may, the real and principal
motives actuating that company, so powerful, so dominant in the
Netherlands, to engage Hudson by contract and whether either party was
not going to live up to it in good faith or whether the strong
presumption is that it was merely a blind to deceive rivals and that
there was another and very different secret agreement.
Charles V, German Emperor, was born at Ghent, Flanders, 1500. He was the
eldest son of Philip, Archduke of Austria, and of Joanna, the daughter
of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Philip's parents were the Emperor
Maximilian and Marie, daughter and heiress of Charles the Bold, Duke of
Burgundy. On the death of his grandfather, Ferdinand, in 1516, Charles
took possession of the throne of Spain by the title of Charles I.
On the death of Maximilian in 1519 Charles was elected German Emperor
and crowned October 22, 1519, at Aix-la-Chapelle and received from the
Pope the title of Roman Emperor, making him the most powerful monarch in
Europe. A zealous Catholic, he aimed to nullify the doctrine taught by
the reformer Martin Luther and to compel the Hollanders, the
Netherlanders, to express their faith and belief in Ignatius Loyola, the
reputed founder of the Society of Jesus--the Jesuits. It was not Loyola
but Torquemada, whose name, as the Chief Inquisitor, became a by-word
and reproach. Justin Winsor, a high authority, said that Carlyle said,
"Those Dutch are a strong people. They raised their land out of a marsh
and went on for a long time breeding cows and making cheese and might
have gone with their cows and cheese till doomsday. But Spain comes over
and says, 'We want you to believe in Ignatius.' The Dutch replied, 'We
are very sorry, but we cannot.' 'God, but you must,' said Spain, and
went about it with guns and swords to make the Dutch believe in
Ignatius." Thus began a religious war (usually the fiercest and most
unrelenting) which, with some cessation of hostilities, lasted for
nearly seventy years, down to 1648, when the independence of the Dutch
Republic was acknowledged and it had become one of the foremost, if not
really the foremost, power in Europe.
War (which Erasmus called "the malady of princes" and General Sherman
called "hell"), begun by Charles I of Spain against the Netherlands, was
continued by his son and grandson and resulted in driving out of Europe
many of North America's early and most desirable settlers.
Many of the Dutch East India Company's vessels were equipped for war as
well as for commerce and her East India possessions were active in
building and fitting out ships which captured many and rich prizes from
the Spaniards. The richest locality for capturing such prizes was in the
West Indies, and what the Netherlands greatly needed was territory near
there, where her ships could be sheltered, repaired, and obtain the
needed supplies. Spain was in possession of nearly all of what is now
the south of the United States, and France of Canada. The English held
Virginia and claimed what is now called New England, but between the two
was a territory that seemed free for settlement and there is reason to
believe that the Dutch East India Company was aware of that fact and
aimed to take it.
In 1497 and 1498 the Cabots, in the employ of Henry VII of England,
sailed westward in search of a shorter all-water route to India,
coasting along the Atlantic from a parallel of latitude about the same
as that of the Straits of Gibraltar clear up to Hudson straits, where
the icebergs prevented further advance. Having landed and planted the
English flag, they claimed the country for the British crown and under
their discovery the English claim in North America rested. On a German
map made in 1515 America is represented as a large island in the western
Atlantic. Magellan, in whose honor the straits near Cape Horn, South
America, were named, sailed around the globe in 1519-21, proved that
America was a continent and the world a sphere. Sir Francis Drake, in
1577-79, also circumnavigated the globe. In 1728 Vitus Behring sailed
through the straits which bear his name and proved that America is no
part of Asia. From 1499 to 1504 Americus Vespucius, a Florentine
navigator and explorer, made, in the employ of Spain, four voyages to
the east coast of South America and built a fort on the coast of Brazil,
and from him, or rather in his honor, the western continent was named
"America"--the name first appearing in a little pamphlet published in
France in 1507 by Waldseemuler, a German geographer, who gave as his
reason for the name the following, viz.: "The fourth part of the world
having been discovered by Americus, it may be called the land of
Americus or America."
Between the years 1512 and 1542 Ponce de Leon, Balboa, Cortez, Narvaez,
Cabeza de Vaca, De Soto, Pizarro, and Coronado, all for Spain, had made
extensive and very important discoveries in what are now the southern of
the United States, the Mississippi river, Mexico, and Peru. Some of
these men became infamous by their horrible crimes. They were arrogant
and frank. Balboa, in 1513, was the first European to discover the
"South sea" (the Pacific ocean), and "wading into its waters drew his
sword and declared that the Kings of Spain should hold possession of the
'South sea' and of its coasts and islands 'while the earth revolves, and
until the universal judgment of mankind.'" Cortez bluffly declared in a
few words when speaking to the Mexicans the motives of the Spanish as
follows: "We Spaniards are troubled with a disease of the heart for
which we find gold and gold only a specific remedy." These discoverers,
explorers, freebooters from Spain in her vast territory New Spain,
merited the just contempt not only of the ancient civilizations of
Mexico and Peru but also of the whole enlightened world. It seems to
have been the firm belief of the Spaniard for centuries that he is made
of a finer material than any other nation and destined to rule and
others to obey.
The French disputed the Spanish claims to North America and established
a colony of Huguenots in South Carolina, but France's discoveries and
possessions in North America were principally in the north. Cartier
discovered and explored the St. Lawrence river in 1535, and that was
thought to be a part, if not all, of the water-way through the continent
of America to the South sea or Pacific ocean en route to India. No
nation was more zealous and successful than France in making discoveries
and settlements in Canada, and what ultimately became the northwestern
of the United States along the upper lakes and the upper Mississippi
river, by those wonderful religious orders, the Franciscans and Jesuits.
Eighty-five years had elapsed after the discovery in North America by
the Cabots, under which the English based their claim to the territory,
before they made any attempt at colonization or even to establish a
permanent settlement. In 1584 that unique, able, versatile, vain Queen
Elizabeth of England granted a most remarkable charter to, at one time
her especial favorite, the highly gifted but eccentric Sir Walter
Raleigh, to lay claim to any land in the west "not actually possessed by
any Christian prince." Raleigh sent out several expeditions to make a
settlement on Roanoke island, off the coast of North Carolina. It was
represented to the Queen as a remarkably fine land, so that she named it
in her own honor as the Virgin Queen Virginia and thereupon knighted
Raleigh. Raleigh, though he made determined and prolonged efforts and at
great personal expense to establish permanent English settlements in
America, failed. To Sir Walter Raleigh is given the credit or curse of
having discovered in Virginia a weed which King James called "the vilest
of weeds" and Edmund Spencer, the famous poet, "divine tobacco." To Sir
Walter also is generally given the credit of having introduced the most
valuable of all the vegetables known to man--the potato.
Justin Winsor, a distinguished American historian, said that the scheme
to form a West India Company was first broached in 1592 by William
Usselinx, an exiled Antwerp merchant. It was many years before it could
be accomplished. The longing for a share in the riches of the New World
conduced in the meantime to the establishment of the "Greenland Company"
about 1596 and the pretended search by its ships for a northwestern
passage led to a supposed first discovery of the Hudson river, if we may
rely upon an unsupported statement by the officers of the West India
Company in an appeal for assistance to the Assembly of the Nineteenth in
1644. According to this statement ships of the "Greenland Company" had
entered the North and Delaware rivers in 1598; their crews had landed in
both places and had built small forts to protect them against the
inclemency of the weather and to resist the attacks of the Indians.
A company of English merchants had organized to trade to America in the
first year of the seventeenth century. Their first adventure to Guiana
and Virginia were not successful yet gave a new impetus to the scheme
originally conceived by Usselinx. A plan for the organization of a West
India Company was drawn up in 1606, according to the excited Belgian
ideas. This company was to have an existence of thirty-six years; to
receive during the first six years assistance from all the United
Provinces, and to be managed in the same manner as the East India
Company. It was not consummated. Olden-Barneveldt, the Advocate of
Holland and one of the most prominent and influential members of the
peace party, foresaw that the organization of a West India Company with
the avowed purpose of obtaining most of its profits by preying on
Spanish commerce in American waters would only prolong the war.
Usselinx's plan was to compel Spain by these means to evacuate Belgium
and thus give her exiled sons a chance to return to their old home. A
wholesale departure of the shrewd, industrious, and skilful Belgians
would have deprived Holland of her political pre-eminence and have left
her an obscure and isolated province. The conflicting views and claims
of the provinces caused the scheme to fail until after Olden-Barneveldt,
accused of high treason, was tried, condemned, and beheaded in 1619.
Subsequently Maurice of Nassau took up the scheme of forming the Dutch
West India Company. Private ships sailing from Dutch ports had not been
idle in the meantime; in 1607 we hear of them in Canada trading for
furs. Belgium and the Netherlands, compelled to become maritime nations,
while other circumstances directed to commercial pursuits, had become
the common carriers of the sea and the Netherlands especially had
availed themselves of the discoveries made by the Cabots, Verrazano, and
other adventurous explorers in the country succeeding Columbus'
discovery of America. They thought Spain most assailable in the West
Indies where they could prey upon their commerce and capture their
treasures from Mexico and Peru. The first proposition to make such an
expedition was submitted to the States General in 1581 by an English sea
captain named Beets. It was refused. Later it gained favor and caused
the formation of a West India Company really to fight Spain and not
ignoring the search for a shorter route to India.
Before Henry Hudson's attempts to find a _northwest_ passage to India
six trials had been made and subsequently more than twenty-five more,
and while it is claimed that Sir Robert McClure in his expedition in
1650-54 succeeded, it was only by abandoning his vessel and completing
his way on ice. The discovery is of no practical utility.
In 1606 James I, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, granted two
charters--one to the London Company giving it power to establish
settlements anywhere between the thirty-fourth and thirty-eighth degrees
of north latitude (that is between Cape Fear and the Potomac); and the
other to the Plymouth Company granting it the territory in Northern
Virginia between the forty-first and the forty-fifth degrees of north
latitude (that is between the eastern end of Long Island and the
northern limit of Nova Scotia), with the right to establish settlements
therein. Each of these grants extended 100 miles inland. The territory
between these two companies (from thirty-ninth to forty-first degrees),
embracing what is Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and a little of New
York, was open to settlement by either of these companies, provided that
neither should make a settlement within 100 miles of the other.
It is not presumable that the alert, watchful, shrewd Amsterdam
directors of the Dutch East India Company were ignorant of the
discoveries, explorations, and important events in the western world nor
of the charters of 1606 granted by King James which seemed to leave an
unoccupied and an unknown territory extending from the thirty-eight to
the forty-eight degrees of North latitude which would furnish the
Netherlands a desirable base for their operations in America against
Spain. Perhaps that territory might be secured under the right of prior
discovery if a small craft was sent out nominally to sail northeast as a
blind but really westward for the double purpose either of finding a
shorter route to India or obtaining a desirable foothold in the New
World.