preparation, and knowledge before the contract was entered into with the
Amsterdam directors of the Dutch East India Company. In his second
voyage in the employ of the Muscovy Company, under date of August 7,
1608, he made the following entry into his journal: "I used all
diligence to arrive in London, for being at Nova Zembla on the 8th day
of July and void of hope of a northeast route except by Vaygats, for
which I was not fitted to try or prove, I therefore resolved to use all
means I could to sail to the _northwest_ (which would have been in
direct violation of his instructions) and to make trial at Lumley's
Inlet and Captain Davis Straits, hoping to run into it a hundred leagues
and return." He did not carry out his resolve but indicated his desire
to seek a _northwestern_ passage then.
Henry Hudson was not wild, erratic, nor a rover. Perhaps no one whom
Hudson met in London so much determined his course as did Captain John
Smith, a very remarkable English adventurer--a daring rover in early
life, entering military service in several of the European governments,
captured, imprisoned, and escaped to play such a prominent part in
establishing the first permanent English settlement in Virginia in the
United States. Captain John Smith's name is almost always associated
with that of Pocahontas (the daughter of the famous Chief Powhatan) who
while yet a girl but twelve years is said to have interposed her body
and thereby saved the life of Captain Smith from the uplifted war clubs
of the Indians about to descend upon him. Captain Smith also
corresponded with Hudson, gave him maps of North America and advised him
as to the course to be pursued in seeking a westward watercourse to
India. Perhaps the maps most serviceable to Hudson in his voyage
westward in 1609 were those of New France, which plainly represented the
Grande river (subsequently called the Hudson river), and were published
in the sixteenth century. Hudson was also a theorist. He believed in an
"Open Polar Sea" and so far as is known was the first to promulgate that
theory, entertained and followed by searchers after the North Pole.
Hudson made the acquaintance and won the friendship of learned
geographers in Amsterdam, prominent among them was the Reverend Peter
Plancius, who said it was reasonable that the sea should be open near
the Pole where the sun shines incessantly for months though with less
heat than where it shines only a few hours by day and the hours of the
night intervening, cooling. Hudson said his experience convinced him,
for after passing beyond a certain line (about 66° north latitude) the
sea became more open as he went further north. This Doctor Peter
Plancius was a member of the Reformed Church and as such driven from his
Belgian home by the Spaniards, he heartily co-operated with Usselinx in
his plan to form a West India Company. He was often in consultation with
Hudson in Amsterdam and to his chapter on "Norumbega (said to be
somewhere in New England) et Virginia" he added a map which, imperfect
in some respect--incorrect in its latitudes--was serviceable to Hudson
in his westward voyage. The French map of about 1517 and the map of
Thomas Hood, an Englishman, published in 1594, which shows under
latitude 40° north (New York city is 40° 43' north) the mouth of a river
called Rio de San Antonio, the name given by the earliest Spanish
discoverers to what later on became known as the Hudson river. In this
connection it may not be amiss to call attention to the historical fact
that Giovanni da Verrazano, a Florentine navigator in the employ of
Francis I, King of France, entered the New York bay and saw at least the
mouth of the river which the French called the "Grande river" in 1524,
eighty-five years before Henry Hudson saw it. It is further claimed that
soon after the French built a fort on Castle Island near Albany and
there carried on a trade in furs with the Indians. Some historians
discredit this French claim, which, however, seems sustained though it
never resulted in advantage to the French. A map made by Vaz Dornado at
Lisbon in 1571 gives the Hudson river in almost its entire course from
the mountains to the bay. A copy of this map made in 1580, which went to
Munich, was probably seen by Dr. Plancius, Hudson's friend and adviser.
_Johannes de Laet_, a director of the West India company and a copatroon
of Rensselaerwick with Kilian Van Rensselaer, admits in his book that
the object of the West India Company was _war on Spain, and he
congratulates the country upon its success_.
Jean Wagenaar, a Dutch historian, a historiographer, the secretary of
the city of Amsterdam, held in the highest esteem, who had free access
to the archives and whose statements are not to be discredited, says the
company "_sent out a skipper to discover a passage to China by the
Northwest not by the Northeast_." _A resolution of the States of
Holland, quoted by this same authority, proves that previous to Hudson's
voyage, the Dutch knew that they would find terra firma north of the
Spanish possessions and contiguous to them._
_Resolved, "That by carrying the war over to America, the Spaniards be
attacked there where their weakest point is, but whence they draw the
most of their resources."_
As much has appeared in this article concerning the sincerity of the
motives actuating the parties to the contract of January 8, 1609, and as
doubts and adverse criticisms had been expressed and no authority given
therefor--they seemed conjectures--perhaps not unreasonable, plausible
but requiring confirmation--_proof_ to be entitled to credit.
Not, however, until the latter half of the nineteenth century was any
documentary evidence on that subject obtainable and published, though
efforts had been made before.
The Hon. Henry Cruse Murphy, born in Brooklyn in 1810, prepared in the
High School for Columbia College, where he graduated with honor in 1830,
studied law, was admitted to practice in 1833, married in 1834, mayor of
Brooklyn, member of two State constitutional conventions, five times
elected to the Senate of the State of New York, a gentleman of culture
and refinement, author and founder of the Brooklyn Eagle, whom, in 1857,
President Buchanan appointed Minister to The Hague, exceptionally well
qualified to represent the United States. His pleasing manners enabled
him to obtain most valuable information about the war between Spain and
the Netherlands, and also about the early settlement of North America.
He first gives to the public an exact copy of that contract of January,
1609, where there could be no doubt that the navigator's name was
_Henry_, not Hendrick.
The Minister says: "The following memoir is the result of an
investigation made for the purpose of ascertaining more precisely than
has hitherto been explained, the circumstances which originated the
voyage made on behalf of the Dutch East India Company by Henry Hudson;
the motives, purposes and character of its projectors and the designs of
the navigator himself at the time he sailed upon that expedition. We
have examined the records of the East India Company, comprising the
registers or book of resolutions of the general of the company, styled
the Council of Seventeen, and the Chambers of Amsterdam, Zealand, etc.,
with some other documents among the archives of the Kingdom at The
Hague, where all the books and papers of the company have been brought
from the several chambers, have been arranged and kept. A copy of the
contract between Hudson and two members of the Chamber of Amsterdam (as
given on previous pages), was found appended to a history of the company
never published, but prepared at its request by Mr. P. Van Dam, who held
the position of counsel of the company for the extraordinary period of
fifty-four years, that is, from 1652 until his death in 1706."
The Amsterdam Chamber of the Dutch East India Company had, among its
members, enterprising merchants who had a particular motive in seeking
to secure Hudson's services. They wished to forestall others, and
especially their own country, in the discovery, and thus prevent any
interference with their chartered monopoly of the East India trade. The
evidence of this policy distinctly appears in the resolutions and
proceedings of the general council of all the chambers of the company,
called the "Council of Seventeen."
The company itself, shortly after its organization, took into
consideration the expediency of making an attempt to explore the
northern passage and of soliciting the necessary privileges from the
government. It is quite apparent, therefore, that the fears and the
hopes of opening that route still existed in the minds of some of the
directors.
The Council of Seventeen determined finally that it was inexpedient to
make the trial. Their determination was, however, accompanied by a
remarkable resolution. The final action of the Council of Seventeen took
place on the 7th of August, 1603, and is thus entered in the minutes:
"It is likewise for deliberation and resolution whether the voyage by
the North shall also be undertaken and negotiations be had with the
Noble Lord States in regards to terms and privileges for that purpose
seeing that some private persons have already been in communication with
said Lords; the more so as this matter at the meeting of the 17 on the
27th of Feby last past was postponed as appears by the 17th section of
the proceedings of that meeting."
In the margin is the following disposition of that subject: "The
contents hereof are rejected as it is deemed not serviceable to the Co,
and therefore if this navigation should be undertaken by any private
person it ought by all means to be prevented." The company was realizing
by the southern route enormous profits, dividing among its stockholders
37 per cent. for its first two years.
The States General, by a decree on the 1st of July, 1606, expressly
prohibited from navigating by the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of
Magellan, and in the following September, by another decree, the
subjects of the Netherlands were prohibited from carrying on the trade.
The entire period is so short, concerning which we know anything about
Henry Hudson, do we really know enough of him to form a true and fair
estimate of his character?
We do know that Hudson had made two (and we don't know how many more)
voyages north of Siberia, in the employ of the Muscovy Company,
intending to go east and then south, down to Cathay, but did not
succeed. He had, however, been exposed, inured to the arctic colds,
privations and dangers, and had won the rank of captain. What did he
know about the recently explored seas and lands or what more did he need
to know about them, if he was in the employ of the Dutch East India
Company through its Amsterdam Chambers, two directors to pursue the same
course he had on the two voyages he had for the Muscovy Company?
Before Henry Hudson had signed the famous contract on the 8th of
January, 1609, he had been a careful geographical student, as far as he
had opportunity.
About the beginning of the seventeenth century, after the Belgians, on
account of their religious views, had been expelled from Belgium, and
many of them gone to Holland--mostly to Amsterdam, then that city and
London, England, became the great rendezvous for navigators,
discoverers, would-be discoverers, or explorers, to discuss matters,
compare notes, and get all information possible on such subjects.
The Muscovy Company had headquarters in London, where Hudson would go,
and there he met, it is known, Captain John Smith, and it is probable
that there he met and formed a favorable opinion of Jodocus Hondius, who
was his interpreter, adviser, and witness to the contract of January
8th. He was an educated gentleman, a minister of the Reformed Church, a
Belgian, driven out of his country, went to London, a geographer,
map-maker and portrait painter. He painted Queen Elizabeth's portrait.
The center around which the Belgians then gathered as their brightest
man in discovery was Peter Plancius, another Belgian, a Calvinistic
minister driven from Belgium, and who had settled in Amsterdam, and was
a devoted friend and adviser of Hudson. Hudson before he had engaged
with the Amsterdam directors had seen and examined the most important
maps of the French, English, Spanish and Portuguese, and especially of
the Arctic regions, New York and Canada, and had borrowed some of them
from Plancius and Smith, and those that he wanted most were about the
northwest and above 35° north latitude.
Hudson's friends were warm, zealous to help him, that they might lessen
the power and vindictiveness of the Spaniards.
Captain John Smith sent Captain Henry Hudson important maps and
instructions from Virginia, before Hudson set sail in the "Half Moon."
Smith's advice to Hudson seems to have been to seek a passage to the
Pacific ocean at about 40° north latitude or about 50° north latitude,
or still farther north, and seek a passage through Lumly inlet or some
other entrance into the Hudson bay. Hudson made extraordinary
preparations if he did not expect to pursue that course for the
Amsterdam Chamber of the Dutch East India Company.
That Henry Hudson first discovered, at least first reported, the "Open
Sea" north of 66° north is conceded, and that has been confirmed by
several Arctic explorers since--prominent among them Dr. Kane. That
Sebastian Cabot discovered Hudson straits in about 1517 is admitted.
Jodocus Hondius, a warm friend of Hudson, tried to dissuade him from
entering Hudson bay in hopes to find a passage to the Pacific, for he
told him that a relative of his had explored the bay, and that there was
no communication with the Pacific ocean.
Read, Jr., says our sense of the loss of Hudson's own journal in
conclusion with his discovery of Delaware bay is indeed irreparable. Our
sense of the loss is increased by the remembrance that the Hudson river,
Hudson strait and Hudson bay had been visited long before Hudson
explored them. George Weymouth had visited the mouth of Hudson straits.
Gerard Mercator's celebrated map of the world, made at Duisburg,
Germany, in 1569, shows the French fort on the east side of the Grande
(or Hudson) river. He outlined the Hudson to the height of its
navigation with the Mohawk as far as the French had explored it.
_Winsor_, 1520, vol. 4, p. 434. The Pompey Stone and Spaniards in New
York State, found in Oneida county with its Spanish inscriptions and
date of 1520, and the names of places given in their corruption by the
Dutch in a grant conveying part of Albany county. We can no longer
hesitate to believe that the heathen reported by Danskon and other
writers mentioned before had some foundation, and that the Spaniards
knew and had explored the country on the Hudson long before the Dutch
came, but had thought, as Peter Martys expresses it, after the failure
of Estibon Comez and the Leconcrado d'Aillen "To the South, to the South
for the great and exceeding riches of the Equator. They that seek gold
must not go to the cold North." The Spaniards never considered New
Netherlands of any value itself.
The Pompey Stone was located near where the Cardiff Giant was found and
I do not build on it.
That Giovanni de Verazzano, in the French ship "La Dauphin," with a crew
of fifty men, commissioned by Francis I, King of France, to make
discoveries of new lands entered the lower and upper bays of what now is
New York, and the mouth of the North, or now called the Hudson river, is
conceded. He tried to ascend the river, thinking it the water route to
the South sea or the Pacific ocean on the way to Cathay and the East
Indies. A violent gale sprang up and compelled him to go to sea, and his
discoveries along the coast of North America, from Florida to the Gulf
of St. Lawrence, resulted in the French claiming that territory as La
Nouvelle France (New France), an extent of more than 1,100 miles.
The valuable furs and peltries of New France induced French merchants,
ship owners and capitalists to send many vessels with merchandise to
trade with the Indians. Some of these vessels sailed up the river (North
or Hudson) to the height of its navigation, where the Mohawk enters into
it. For protection and for a trading-house, the French built a fortified
trading-house or castle in 1540, lying in the little bay on the west
side of the river, called by the French the "Grande river," near the
site of Albany. Before the castle was completed the island was inundated
by a great freshet. The earliest Europeans, coming to what is now New
York, did not come intending to settle, but to gain in dealing in furs
and peltry, and in that pursuit they became well acquainted with the
topography of the country. On many of the maps of New France the Grande
river is plainly represented from Sandy Hook to its navigable limits,
about 175 miles.
Sincerely believing that the honors awarded Henry Hudson, the famous
navigator, are not on the true basis, and that at the tercentenary they
are likely to be perpetuated against historical facts, I have cited
evidence and will add but two more from his own countrymen, viz.: John
Knox Laughton, Professor of History in Kings College, London, since
1885, and C. M. Asher, LL. D., "Henry Hudson, the Navigator. The
original documents in which his career is recorded printed in London,
1860, for the highly distinguished historical body, the Hakluyt
Society."
Professor Laughton, in the Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 28,
pp. 148 and 149, says: "Hudson's personality is shady in the extreme,
and his achievements have been the subject of much exaggeration and
misrepresentation. The River, the Strait, the Bay and the vast tract of
land which bears his name have kept his memory alive; _but in point of
fact not one of these was discovered by Hudson_. All that can be
seriously claimed for him is that he pushed his _explorations_ further
than his predecessors and left them a more distinct but still imperfect
record. It has been conclusively shown by Dr. Asher that the River,
Strait and the Bay were all marked in maps many years before the time of
Hudson.
"In April, 1614, Hudson's widow applied to the East India Company for
some employment for another son, she being left very poor. The company
considered that the boy had a just claim on them, as his father had
perished in the service of the commonwealth; they accordingly placed him
for nautical instruction in the Samaritan and gave five pounds toward
his outfit." Henry Hudson, born about 1560.
Dr. Asher, in his publication, says: "_Hudson river, Hudson strait and
Hudson bay remind every educated man of the illustrious navigator by
whom they were explored._" But though the name of Henry Hudson possesses
the preservative against oblivion, little more has been done in its
behalf, and few persons have any accurate notion of the real extent of
its merits. By considering Hudson as the discoverer of the three mighty
waters that bear his name, we indeed both overrate and underrate his
deserts. For it is certain that these localities _had_ repeatedly been
visited, and even drawn on maps and charts long before he set out on his
voyages.
Special attention is called to Justin Winsor's "America," and to Henry
Cruse Murphy's "Hudson in Holland." The naming of the territorial empire
of Prince Rupert's land upon which Hudson, perhaps, never set his foot,
seems more than strange.
The retrospect has been long, and though only by glances, far from
complete, doubtless it has been tedious, but to differ from public
opinion it seemed necessary to give strong reasons.
Does it not, then, seem that the contract made by the Amsterdam
directors and Henry Hudson was rather a blind, and for political
reasons, than genuine?
Some historians say that Henry Hudson, when in the employ of the Dutch
East India Company, set sail from Amsterdam March 25, 1609, and others
April 4, 1609--there is no discrepancy, for the former is what is called
Old Style, and the latter New Style, of reckoning time. Some authorities
state Hudson had two vessels, namely, the "Good Hope" and the "Half
Moon." The contract between the Amsterdam directors of the Dutch East
India Company and Henry Hudson names the "Half Moon" and no other.
Moreover, the Hon. Henry C. Murphy, when United States Minister to
Holland, ascertained from the archives that the Amsterdam directors of
the Dutch East India Company did have, in 1608, a vessel named "Good
Hope," which sailed April 15, 1608, for the East Indies, and was
captured by the Spaniards.
The crew of the "Half Moon," under Henry Hudson as master, consisted of
about twenty, part Dutch and part English, many of them had served under
him while he was in the employ of the Muscovy Company--his son being one
of that number. The "Half Moon" was a yacht of about eighty tons burden.
Hudson followed the route he had taken when in the employ of the Muscovy
Company until he met with the same obstacles as in his previous
expedition, namely, impenetrable ice, fogs and adverse winds which drove
him backward. Then he submitted the choice to his crew to decide whether
they should sail to the coast of America, latitude 40° north (New Jersey
coast) or in search of Davis strait latitude, about 62° north. Many of
his crew had been sailors in southern warmer waters and chose the lower
latitude, while then, it is said, Hudson preferred the other, but must
submit to the wishes of the crew. On the 14th of May Hudson sailed the
"Half Moon" westward, and a fortnight later reached the Faroe islands,
replenished his water casks, and set sail again, making slow progress
for a month against fierce gales, but on the 2d of July was at the grand
banks of Newfoundland, with foremast gone and the sails badly torn.
There they found a large fleet of Frenchmen fishing, but had no
intercourse with them. Becalmed, the "Half Moon" men caught cod. Having
made the needed repairs they set sail again, and on the 12th of July
Hudson was gladdened by the sight of America's shores. The "Half Moon"
entered and anchored in a safe and large harbor (probably Penobscot bay)
on the coast of Maine. Here an unfortunate and wanton attack was made by
the crew upon the natives, and Hudson at once set sail, and did not
approach land again until August 3d, when he sent five men ashore who
returned loaded with rose trees and grapes. He supposed that the place
was "Cape Cod," which Gonold had so named in 1602. Then for two weeks
the "Half Moon" sailed south and came to the mouth of King James river
in Virginia. Then Hudson coasted northerly and Friday, August 28th,
entered the great Delaware bay. After exploring, he became satisfied
that there was no passage-way there to China, and emerging from the bay
went north, and September 3, 1609, entered and anchored under the
shelter of what is called Sandy Hook. On the 12th of September Henry
Hudson entered the Hudson river.
Drifting with the tide, he anchored over night (the 13th) just above
Yonkers; on the 14th passed Tappan and Haverstraw bays, entered the
Highlands and anchored for the night near West Point. On the morning of
the 15th he entered Newburgh bay and reached Catskill on the 16th,
Athens on the 17th and Castleton and Albany on the 18th, and then sent
out an exploring boat as far as Waterford.