The distinguished English naval discoverer, HENRY HUDSON, sailed from
London in the year 1607, in a small vessel, for the purpose of
discovering a north-east passage to China and Japan, with a crew of
only ten men and a boy besides himself, and, proceeding beyond the
80th degree of latitude, returned to England in September. In a second
voyage, the next year, he landed at Nova Zembla, but could proceed no
farther eastward. In 1609, he undertook a third voyage, under the
patronage of the Dutch East India Company. Being unsuccessful in his
attempt to find a north-east passage, he sailed for Davis’ straits,
but struck the continent of America in 44 deg. N. lat., and holding a
southerly course, discovered the mouth of the river Hudson, which he
ascended about fifty leagues in a boat. His last voyage was undertaken
in 1610. He sailed, April 17th, in a barque named the Discovery, with
a crew of twenty-three men, and came within sight of Greenland, June
4th. Proceeding westward he reached, in latitude 60 deg., the strait
bearing his name. Through this he advanced along the coast of
Labrador, to which he gave the name of Nova Brittannia, until it
issued into the vast bay, which is also called after him. He resolved
to winter in the most southern part of it, and the crew drew up the
ship in a small creek, and endeavored to sustain the severity of that
dismal climate, in which attempt they endured severe privations.
Hudson, however, fitted up his shallop for farther discoveries; but,
not being able to establish any communication with the natives, or to
revictual his ship, with tears in his eyes he distributed his little
remaining bread to his men, and prepared to return. Having a
dissatisfied and mutinous crew, he imprudently uttered some threats of
setting some of them on shore; upon which a body of them entered his
cabin at night, tied his arms behind him, and put him in his own
shallop, at the west end of the straits, with his son, John Hudson,
and seven of the most infirm of the crew. They were then turned
adrift, and were never more heard of. A small part of the crew, after
enduring incredible hardships, arrived at Plymouth, in September,
1611.