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 15 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 16 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, 17 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 18 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 19 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 20 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”
21
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, 22 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 23 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............