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 57 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 58 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, 59 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 60 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 61 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 62 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 63 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 64 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.
Some historians say that Hudson anchored at Hudson and sent a boat containing his mate and 65 four men further up the river to explore and report whether it seemed to be a water-way to the South sea (Pacific ocean) on the way to India. Becoming convinced that it did not, on the 23d............