HUDSON, Henry (sometimes called HENDRIK HUDSON), English navigator, born in the latter half of the 16th century. He was a citizen of London, had a house there, and belonged to a family that counted among its members another Henry Hudson, perhaps his grandfather, who was an alderman of London, and one of the founders, with Sebastian Cabot, of the Muscovy or Russia company, which was intended to promote the discovery of a northerly passage to China.

From its establishment in 1555 till 1607, when Henry Hudson first appears upon the scene as a captain in its employ, various Hudsons were eminent in the counsels of the Muscovy company, or were engaged in its explorations. Christopher Hudson was agent of the company in Russia as early as 1559-'60, took a deep interest in the voyage of discovery to America of Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1583, and advised the company to assist in raising the requisite funds. John Hudson was a member of the Muscovy and Virginia companies.

Thomas Hudson, a resident of Limehouse, was a captain of the Muscovy company in 1579, and commanded its expedition to Persia in the following year. On 24 January, 1583, Thomas Hudson advised Captain John Davis concerning his search for a northwest passage to China, which resulted in the discovery of Davis strait, and twenty-six years later exercised a powerful influence upon Henry Hudson in a voyage that eventually carried the latter into Delaware bay and Hudson river.

Stephen Hudson, a member of the East India company, which was originally promoted by some of the foremost members of the Muscovy company, is mentioned in the "Court Minutes" of the former corporation, under date of 13 December, 1602, as having paid to Mr. Chamberlain, the treasurer, "X for his supply toward the discovery of the Northwest passadge, and desired the Company to have him excused for non-payment thereof till now, for that he haith bene in the cuntry all this sfimer and never hard thereof."

Educated in the company's service and familiar with its aims, Henry Hudson was entirely devoted to the solution of the problem of a northerly passage to China, and the various discoveries that he made were the outcome of this original idea. Of Hudson's four voyages, of which we know anything, the first two were made for the Muscovy company, while the fourth and last was set on foot by Sir Thomas Smith, chief governor of the Muscovy company.

The journal of Hudson's first recorded voyage contains the earliest known incident in the life of the great mariner, and indicates his religious feeling while it also illustrates the devout spirit of the age.

Purchas records: "Anno 1607, April the nineteenth, at St. Etheburge in Bishop's Gate Street, did communicate with the rest of the parishioners these persons, seamen, purposing to go to sea four days after, for to discover a passage by the North Pole to Japan and China." Then follow eleven names, beginning with "Henry Hudson, master," and ending with his son "John Hudson, a boy." The little "Hopewell," of sixty tons, associated with the gallant Frobisher's last voyage twenty-nine years before, was now under Hudson's command, and in her he tried the eastern coast of Greenland, and followed the ice barrier around and up to about 82. N.

Having reached the neighborhood of Spitzbergen without finding an entrance, he sought once more to penetrate into Davis strait by the north of Greenland by Lumley's inlet and the "furious overfall." Again frustrated by ice, he returned to the Thames, 15 September He had attained a higher degree of latitude than any previous navigator, was the first to note the amelioration of the temperature in his northward progress, and, to suggest the existence of an open polar sea, and, moreover, by his recommendations he laid the foundations of the English whale-fisheries in the neighborhood of Spitzbergen.

In this voyage, also, Hudson amended the map of Molineux or Wright, published by Hakluyt in 1600, which the learned Mr. Coote identifies with the "new map" referred to by Shakespeare in "Twelfth Night." Hudson's second voyage for the Muscovy company, for the " finding a passage to the East Indies by the North-East," began on 22 April, 1608, and he had with him his son John and Robert Juet, who accompanied him in his two later voyages, and finally basely conspired against him.

On 3 June he reached the northern point of Norway, and on 11 June was in lat. 75º 24' N., between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla. Striving in vain to pass to the northeast of the latter, and "voide of hope of a North-East passage (except by the Vaygats, for which I was not fitted to trie or prove)," he resolved, 6 July, to use all means to sail to the northwest, once more hoping to pass what Captain Davis named Lumley's inlet and the furious overfall. But, haying made little headway, on 7 August he returned to England, arriving on 26 August.

The fame of Hudson's voyages soon reached the ears of the recently established Dutch East India company, and, although its charter only conferred the privilege of trading with India by the Cape of Good Hope, stimulated by its fears of English rivalry, it determined also to despatch an expedition in search of a northeast passage, and invited Hudson to command it.

The Muscovy company having temporarily abandoned the quest, and turned its attention to the whale fisheries, which Hudson had suggested, he was at liberty, and, haying conferred in person with the Amsterdam chamber, accepted the mission. Just as he had closed the affair, an invitation arrived from the king of France, desiring him to undertake a similar voyage, and offering 4,000 crowns for the purpose.

Henry C. Murphy, while United States minister at the Hague, discovered a copy of Hudson's contract, which shows that the original was executed, 6 January, 1609, at Amsterdam, that he signed his name Henry Hudson, and that in the body of the instrument he was also named Henry (and not Hendrik) Hudson; and that an interpreter was required, as Hudson did not understand Dutch.

It appears from the contract and abstract of instructions that the directors agreed to furnish a vessel of about sixty tons to "search for a passage to the north, around by the north side of Nova Zembla." For his outfit, and for the support of his wife and children, $320 were to be paid" and in case he lost his life, the directors were to give his widow $80. If he found "the passage good and suitable for the company to use," the directors declared that they would reward him in their discretion.

Having received important advice from his friends Jodocus Hondius, engraver and map-maker, and the celebrated geographer the Reverend Peter Plautius, and from the latter also translations of Barentson's voyage memoranda in 1595. and the treatise of Iver Boty, which had belonged to Barentson, and also the log books of George Waymouth, Hudson also had with him certain letters "which his friend, Captain John Smith, had sent him from Virginia, and by which he informed him that there was a sea leading into the western ocean, by the north of the English colony."

Hudson sailed from Amsterdam on 4 April, 1609, his vessel being the "Half Moon" (see illustration), of about eighty tons, manned by a motley crew of sixteen English and Dutch sailors. Robert Juet, who had been his mate in the previous voyage, now acted as his clerk, and fortunately kept the curious journal of the voyage preserved in Purchas's third volume Hudson's own journal, which De Laet had before him when he wrote the "Nieuwe Werelt," has entirely disappeared, together with such documents as Hudson may have forwarded to the Dutch East India company.

Van Meteren tells us that Hudson doubled the Cape of Norway on 5 May, and directed his course along the northern coasts toward Nova Zembla; but he there found the sea as full of ice as in the preceding year, so that he lost hope of effecting anything. This and the cold, which some of his men, accustomed to the East India heat, could not bear, caused dissensions among the crew, upon which Hudson proposed to go to the coast of America to the latitude of 40º (an idea suggested by Captain John Smith's maps and letters), or to direct the search to Davis strait The latter idea Hudson had abandoned, when in a somewhat similar position, on his last voyage, and he again renounced it, and, "contrary to his instructions," says Mr. Van Dam (which were to retrace his steps and return to Amsterdam in case of failure to find a passage to the northeast), he shaped his course toward the setting sun, hoping to find a passage to India north of the infant colony of Virginia.

A fortnight later he replenished his water-casks in one of the Faroe group, on 2 July was at soundings off the grand bank of Newfoundland, on the 12th was in Penobscot bay, on 4 August at Cape Cod, and two weeks later found himself off King James's river, in Virginia. Resisting the temptation to visit his friend Smith, he again steered northward, and on Friday, 28 August, entered the great bay now called Delaware, whence he emerged, after twenty-four hours of fruitless search for a passage to India, and, following the New Jersey coast, cast anchor on 3 September within Sandy Hook.

A month was passed in the great river in ascertaining that for about one hundred and fifty miles (to a point just above the site of the present city of Albany) its waters were navigable for light draught vessels, and that the surrounding country was attractive and fertile, abounding in valuable game, and frequented by peaceful Indians.

He was unaware that Samuel Champlain was at the same time exploring the country not many miles north of him. (See CHAMPLAIN.) Hudson arrived at Dartmouth, on his return voyage, 7 November, and immediately wrote to the Dutch East India company, proposing to leave Dartmouth on 1 March for a search in the northwest for the passage to India. His employers, in reply, ordered his speedy return to Holland.

But as Hudson and the other Englishman were about to sail they were ordered by their government to remain and serve their own country. After eight months' detention in England, the "Half Moon" arrived in Amsterdam in the summer of 1610.

In the preceding April, Hudson had once more sailed, under English auspices, in search of a northwest passage. In his ship the "Discouerie," of seventy tons, he penetrated the long straits and discovered the great bay that bears his name, at the southern extremity of which his men wintered.

Again surrounded by a mutinous crew, he encountered hardships and sufferings from their criminal misconduct, which the artful inventions of the survivors skilfully concealed. Though he had divided, even with tears, his last bread with his men, yet on midsummer's day, 1611, while near the eastern coast, half way back to the straits, his ungrateful crew, thrusting him into a frail boat, with his son John and five sailors sick and blind with scurvy, cut him adrift, to perish in the great waste of waters, which, bearing his name, "is his tomb and his monument."

It is said that a document has been discovered among the archives of the Hudson bay company at their headquarters at York Factory, which is the confession of one of the mutineers. The manuscript is written in a large, firm hand, and consists of ten slips of paper, apparently torn from a book and tied together for better preservation, and it is now in the office of the Hudson bay company in London. But personal application at the latter office, by the author of this article, was met by the emphatic reply of the authorities that not only had no such manuscript ever been in the London office, but no one there had ever heard of its existence.

There is no authentic portrait or autograph of Hudson; but the picture given on page 296 is believed to be his likeness. It is possible, however, that his intimate friend, Jodocus Hondius, engraved Hudson's portrait, and that it may yet be found.

It is apparent, from the contract between the Dutch East India company and Hudson, that he had several children besides the "only son" so often referred to by writers during the past two hundred years. The " Court Minutes of the English East India Company" also reveal the following extremely interesting facts: " April 19, 1614, Being informed that Mrs. Hudson, the wife or widow of Mr. Hudson who was left in the North West discovery, desired their favour for employing a youth, a Son of his, she being left very poor, and conceiving that they were partly obliged in charity to give assistance in regard that his Father perished in the service of the Commonwealth, resolved to recommend him to the care of some one who is to go the voyage [to the East. Indies]." Again, "April 19, 1614, Mrs. Hudson's son recommended to the care of Hunt, master's mate in the 'Samaritan,' 5l. to be laid out upon him for apparel and necessaries."

See "Historical Inquiry Concerning Henry Hudson," by John Meredith Read (Albany, 1866); "Henry Hudson in Holland," by Henry C. Murphy (New York, 1859); and "Henry Hudson the Navigator," by Dr. Asher (Hakluyt society publications, London, 1860).

from FamousAmericans.net

On Hudson's Voyage, 1610

We have observed in our last book that the Directors of the East India Company in Holland had sent out in March last, on purpose to seek a passage to China by northeast or northwest, a skilful English pilot, named Herry Hutson, in a Vlie boat, having a crew of eighteen or twenty men, partly English, partly Dutch, well provided.

This Henry Hutson left the Texel on the 6th of April, 1609, doubled the Cape of Norway the 5th of May, and directed his course along the northern coasts towards Nova Zembia; but he there found the sea as full of ice as he had found it in the preceding year, so that they 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 Captain Hutson laid before them two propositions.

The first of these was to go to the coast of America, to the latitude of 40 degrees, moved thereto mostly by letters and maps which a certain Captain Smith had sent him from Virginia, and by which he indicated to him a sea leading into the western ocean, by the north of the southern English colony. 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 through Davis's Straits. This meeting with general approval, they sailed thitherward on the 14th of May, and arrived on the last day of May 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, where they were obliged to run in, in order to get a new foremast, having lost theirs. They found one, and set it up. They found this a good place for cod-fishing, as also for traffic in good skins and furs, which were to be got there at a very low price. But the crew behaved badly towards the people of the country, taking their property by force, out of which there arose quarrels among themselves. The English, fearing that between the two they would be outnumbered and worsted, were therefore afraid to pursue the matter further.

So they left that place on the 26th of July, and kept out at sea till the 3d of August, when they came near the coast, in 42 degrees of latitude. Thence they sailed on, till on the 12th of August they again reached the shore, under 37 degrees 45'. Thence they sailed along the shore until they reached 40 degrees 45', where they found a good entrance, between two headlands, and entered on the 12th of September into as fine a river as can be found, wide and deep, with good anchoring ground on both sides.

Their ship finally sailed up the river as far as 42 degrees 40'. But their boat went higher up. In the lower part of the river they found strong and warlike people; but in the upper part they found friendly and polite people, who had an abundance of provisions, skins, and furs, of martens and foxes, and many other commodities, as birds and fruit, even white and red grapes, and they traded amicably with the people. And of all the above-mentioned commodities they brought some home. When they had thus been about fifty leagues up the river, they returned on the 4th of October, and went again to sea. More could have been done if there had been good-will among the crew and if the want of some necessary provisions had not prevented it.

While at sea, they held counsel together, but were of different opinions. The mate, a Dutchman, advised to winter in Newfoundland, and to search the northwestern passage of Davis throughout. This was opposed by Skipper Hutson. He was afraid of his mutinous crew, who had sometimes savagely threatened him; and he feared that during the cold season they would entirely consume their provisions, and would then be obliged to return, [with] many of the crew ill and sickly. Nobody, however, spoke of returning home to Holland, which circumstance made the captain still more suspicious. He proposed therefore to sail to Ireland, and winter there, which they all agreed to.

At last they arrived at Dartmouth, in England, the 7th of November, whence they informed their employers, the Directors in Holland, of their voyage. They proposed to them to go out again for a search in the northwest, and that, besides the pay, and what they already had in the ship, fifteen hundred florins should be laid out for an additional supply of provisions. He [Hudson] also wanted six or seven of his crew exchanged for others, and their number raised to twenty. He would then sail from Dartmouth about the 1st of

March, so as to be in the northwest towards the end of that month, and there to spend the whole of April and the first half of May in killing whales and other animals in the neighborhood of Panar Island, then to sail to the northwest, and there to pass the time till the middle of September, and then to return to Holland around the northeastern coast of Scotland. Thus this voyage ended.

A long time elapsed, through contrary winds, before the Company could be informed of the arrival of the ship in England. Then they ordered the ship and crew to return as soon as possible. But, when this was about to be done, Skipper Herry Hutson and the other Englishmen of the ship were commanded by the government there not to leave [England], but to serve their own country. Many persons thought it strange that captains should thus be prevented from laying their accounts and reports before their employers, having been sent out for the benefit of navigation in general. This took place in January, [1610]; and it was thought probably that the English themselves would send ships to Virginia, to explore further the aforesaid river.

Emanuel Van Meteren, On Hudson's Voyage, 1610. In J. Franklin Jameson, ed., Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664 (Original Narratives of Early American History). NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909.

From Original Narratives of Early American History, Project Gutenberg.

Hudson's Last Voyage, June 22, 1611

The Shallop on Hudson Bay

One sail in sight upon the lonely sea
And only one, God knows! For never ship
But mine broke through the icy gates that guard
These waters, greater grown than any since
We left the shores of England. We were first,
My men, to battle in between the bergs
And floes to these wide waves. This gulf is mine;
I name it! and that flying sail is mine!
And there, hull-down below that flying sail,
The ship that staggers home is mine, mine, mine!
My ship Discoverie!

                  The sullen dogs
Of mutineers, the bitches' whelps that snatched
Their food and bit the hand that nourished them,
Have stolen her. You ingrate Henry Greene,
I picked you from the gutter of Houndsditch,
And paid your debts, and kept you in my house,
And brought you here to make a man of you!
You Robert Juet, ancient, crafty man,
Toothless and tremulous, how many times
Have I employed you as a master's mate
To give you bread? And you Abacuck Prickett,
You sailor-clerk, you salted puritan,
You knew the plot and silently agreed,
Salving your conscience with a pious lie!
Yes, all of you--hounds, rebels, thieves! Bring back
My ship!

        Too late,--I rave,--they cannot hear
My voice: and if they heard, a drunken laugh
Would be their answer; for their minds have caught
The fatal firmness of the fool's resolve,
That looks like courage but is only fear.
They'll blunder on, and lose my ship, and drown,--
Or blunder home to England and be hanged.
Their skeletons will rattle in the chains
Of some tall gibbet on the Channel cliffs,
While passing mariners look up and say:
"Those are the rotten bones of Hudson's men
"Who left their captain in the frozen North!"

O God of justice, why hast Thou ordained
Plans of the wise and actions of the brave
Dependent on the aid of fools and cowards?
Look,--there she goes,--her topsails in the sun
Gleam from the ragged ocean edge, and drop
Clean out of sight! So let the traitors go
Clean out of mind! We'll think of braver things!
Come closer in the boat, my friends. John King,
You take the tiller, keep her head nor'west.
You Philip Staffe, the only one who chose
Freely to share our little shallop's fate,
Rather than travel in the hell-bound ship,--
Too good an English seaman to desert
These crippled comrades,--try to make them rest
More easy on the thwarts. And John, my  son,
My little shipmate, come and lean your head
Against your father's knee. Do you recall
That April morn in Ethelburga's church,
Five years ago, when side by side we kneeled
To take the sacrament with all our men,
Before the Hopewell left St. Catherine's docks
On our first voyage? It was then I vowed
My sailor-soul and years to search the sea
Until we found the water-path that leads
From Europe into Asia.

                     I believe
That God has poured the ocean round His world,
Not to divide, but to unite the lands.
And all the English captains that have dared
In little ships to plough uncharted waves,--
Davis and Drake, Hawkins and Frobisher,
Raleigh and Gilbert,--all the other names,--
Are written in the chivalry of God
As men who served His purpose. I would claim
A place among that knighthood of the sea;
And I have earned it, though my quest should fail!
For, mark me well, the honour of our life
Derives from this: to have a certain aim
Before us always, which our will must seek
Amid the peril of uncertain ways.
Then, though we miss the goal, our search is crowned
With courage, and we find along our path
A rich reward of unexpected things.
Press towards the aim: take fortune as it fares!

I know not why, but something in my heart
Has always whispered, "Westward seek your goal!"
Three times they sent me east, but still I turned
The bowsprit west, and felt among the floes
Of ruttling ice along the Groneland coast,
And down the rugged shore of Newfoundland,
And past the rocky capes and wooded bays
Where Gosnold sailed,--like one who feels his way
With outstretched hand across a darkened room,--
I groped among the inlets and the isles,
To find the passage to the Land of Spice.
I have not found it yet,--but I have found
Things worth the finding!

                      Son, have you forgot
Those mellow autumn days, two years ago,
When first we sent our little ship Half-Moon,--
The flag of Holland floating at her peak,--
Across a sandy bar, and sounded in
Among the channels, to a goodly bay
Where all the navies of the world could ride?
A fertile island that the redmen called
Manhattan, lay above the bay: the land
Around was bountiful and friendly fair.
But never land was fair enough to hold
The seaman from the calling of the sea.
And so we bore to westward of the isle,
Along a mighty inlet, where the tide
Was troubled by a downward-flowing flood
That seemed to come from far away,--perhaps
From some mysterious gulf of Tartary?

Inland we held our course; by palisades
Of naked rock where giants might have built
Their fortress; and by rolling hills adorned
With forests rich in timber for great ships;
Through narrows where the mountains shut us in
With frowning cliffs that seemed to bar the stream;
And then through open reaches where the banks
Sloped to the water gently, with their fields
Of corn and lentils smiling in the sun.
Ten days we voyaged through that placid land,
Until we came to shoals, and sent a boat
Upstream to find,--what I already knew,--
We travelled on a river, not a strait.

But what a river! God has never poured
A stream more royal through a land more rich.
Even now I see it flowing in my dream,
While coming ages people it with men
Of manhood equal to the river's pride.
I see the wigwams of the redmen changed
To ample houses, and the tiny plots
Of maize and green tobacco broadened out
To prosperous farms, that spread o'er hill and dale
The many-coloured mantle of their crops;
I see the terraced vineyard on the slope
Where now the fox-grape loops its tangled vine;
And cattle feeding where the red deer roam;
And wild-bees gathered into busy hives,
To store the silver comb with golden sweet;
And all the promised land begins to flow
With milk and honey. Stately manors rise
Along the banks, and castles top the hills,
And little villages grow populous with trade,
Until the river runs as proudly as the Rhine,--
The thread that links a hundred towns and towers!
And looking deeper in my dream, I see
A mighty city covering the isle
They call Manhattan, equal in her state
To all the older capitals of earth,--
The gateway city of a golden world,--
A city girt with masts, and crowned with spires,
And swarming with a host of busy men,
While to her open door across the bay
The ships of all the nations flock like doves.
My name will be remembered there, for men
Will say, "This river and this isle were found
By Henry Hudson, on his way to seek
The Northwest Passage into Farthest Inde."

Yes! yes! I sought it then, I seek it still,--
My great adventure and my guiding star!
For look ye, friends, our voyage is not done;
We hold by hope as long as life endures!
Somewhere among these floating fields of ice,
Somewhere along this westward widening bay,
Somewhere beneath this luminous northern night,
The channel opens to the Orient,--
I know it,--and some day a little ship
Will push her bowsprit in, and battle through!
And why not ours,--to-morrow,--who can tell?
The lucky chance awaits the fearless heart!
These are the longest days of all the year;
The world is round and God is everywhere,
And while our shallop floats we still can steer.
So point her up, John King, nor'west by north.
We'll keep the honour of a certain aim
Amid the peril of uncertain ways,
And sail ahead, and leave the rest to God.

From The White Bees, Henry Van Dyke, July, 1909.

Hudson in the New World

In 1609, Henry Hudson, an English navigator of great experience and remarkable energy, then in the service of the Dutch East India Company, explored the coast from the Chesapeake Bay to Maine. The Delaware River was first explored by this bold mariner. His first officer, Robert Jewett (or Juet), kept a journal of the ship's experience, from which it appears that on Aug. 28, 1609 (new style), they entered the mouth of the river. It was on the strength of this discovery, and that of the Hudson River by the same officer, that the Dutch based their claim to the lands between the North and South Rivers, as the Hudson and Delaware Rivers were then called, as well as that which was contiguous to their shores.

The accounts of this voyage and the discoveries made are said to be accurate, circumstantial, and satisfactory to all historians. [See NOTE 4-4.] The Dutch did not avail themselves at once of the great advantages of trade and commerce opened tip by the wonderful discoveries of Hudson, who had penetrated the North or Hudson River as far as Albany, visiting the river tribes of Indians and ascertaining the vast resources of valuable furs and skins purchasable from the savages at merely nominal prices.

Hudson's report of the South or Delaware River was that from observations made. He found the land "to trend away towards the northwest, with a great bay and rivers, but the bay was shoal." It is evident that Hudson did not find the Delaware River as inviting in a navigable point of view as the North or Hudson River, and therefore it was that the Dutch first settled upon the latter river.

[NOTE 4-4.]
We know surprisingly little of Henry Hudson. Be is said to have been the personal friend of Capt. John Smith, the founder of Virginia, and it is probable that he was of the family of that Henry Hudson who, in 1554, was one of the original incorporators of the English Muscovy Company. This man's son, Christopher, supposed to have been the father of the great navigator, was as early as 1560 and up to 1601, the factor and agent on the spot of the London company trading to Russia, and it seems likely that the younger Hudson, from his familiarity with Arctic navigation, and his daring pertinacity in attempting to invade the ice-bound northern wastes may have served his apprenticeship as a navigator in trading on the behalf of the Muscovy Company, from Bristol to Russia, as was than often done through the North Channel, and round the Hebrides, Orkneys, Shetlands, and North Cape to the White Sea and Archangel.

At any rate, when Hudson makes his first picturesque appearance before us in the summer of 1607, in the Church of St. Ethelburge, Bishopsgate Street, London, where he and his crew are present to partake of the Holy Sacrament together, it is preparatory to a voyage in the service of the newly organized "London Company," in Jewett's own words, "for to discover a passage by the North Pole to Japan and China." The navigator was at that time a middle-aged man, experienced and trusted.

He had already explored the northeast and the north, and the region between the Chesapeake and Maine. There was no room for hope but to the north of Newfoundland.

Proceeding by the way of Iceland, where the famous "Hecia" was casting out fire, passing Greenland and Frobisher's Straits, he landed on the 2d of August, 1610, into the straits which bear his name, and into which no one had gone before. As he came out from the passage upon the wild gulf, he believed that he beheld "a sea, to the westward," that
the short way, to the Pacific was found. How great was his disappointment when be found himself in a labyrinth without end. Still confident of ultimate success, the determined mariner resolved on wintering in the bay, that he might perfect his discovery in the
spring. His crew murmured at the sufferings of a winter, for which no preparations had been made. At length the late and anxiously-expected spring burst forth, but it opened in vain for Hudson.

Provisions were exhausted; he divided the last bread among his men and prepared for them a bill of return, and he "wept as he gave to them." Believing himself almost on the point of succeeding, where Spaniards and English and Danes and Dutch had failed, he left his anchoring-place to steer for Europe.

For two days the ship was encompassed by fields of ice, and the discontent of the crew broke forth into mutiny. Hudson was seized, and, with his only son and several others, four of whom were sick, were thrown into the shallop. Seeing his commander thus exposed, Philip Staffe, the carpenter, demanded and gained leave to share his fate. And just as the
ship made its way out of the ice, on a midsummer day, in a latitude where the sun in that season hardly goes down and evening twilight mingles with the dawn, the shallop was cut loose. What became of Hudson? Did he die miserably of starvation? Did he reach land to
perish from the fury Of the natives? Was he crushed between ribs of ice? The returning ship encountered storms, by which she was probably overwhelmed. The gloomy waste of waters which bears his name is his tomb, and his monument.

from Bean's History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania (1884) at Rootsweb.