Navigator; born about the middle of the sixteenth century; was first employed by English merchants, in 1607, to search for a northeastern passage to
India.
He sailed from
Gravesend on May 1, 1607, in a small vessel manned by only ten men and a boy—the latter his son. In lat. 80° N., on the eastern coast of
Greenland, he was stopped by the ice-pack.
He fought the ice-floes and
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storms for many weeks, and then returned to
England in September, bearing only the fruit of the discovery of the island of Spitzbergen.
Neither he nor his employers were disheartened, and late in April, 1608, he sailed again, expecting to make a passage between Spitzbergen and
Nova Zembla.
Again he was compelled by the ice to turn back.
His employers were now discouraged, and
Hudson went over to
Holland and offered his services to the
Dutch East India Company, and they were accepted.
On April 6, 1609, he sailed from
Amsterdam in the
Half Moon, a stanch vessel of 90 tons, and steered for
Nova Zembla.
Again the ice-barrier forbade his entrance to the polar seas.
Determined not to return fruitless to
Amsterdam, he sailed around the southern shores of
Greenland, into the beaten track of searchers after a northwest passage.
Again he was repulsed by the ice. Sailing southward, he discovered the
American continent off the coast of
Maine, and in
Casco Bay he repaired his storm-shattered vessel.
He then sailed southward as far as the
Cape of Virginia, touching at
Cape Cod on the way. Returning, he discovered
Delaware Bay, and early in September he entered Rari-
tan Bay, south of
Staten Island, and afterwards entered the (present) harbor of
New York.
Treating the Indians unkindly, they were hostile, and one of his seamen was killed by them, who attacked a boat's crew in canoes.
From the north flowed a large river into New York Bay.
Believing it would afford a northwest passage, he sailed up the stream, and was
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not undeceived until he met fresh water in the Highlands.
He kept on in his ship as far as the site of
Albany, and in small boats several miles farther.
Returning to the sea, he followed the coast southward as far as
Chesapeake Bay, and then returned to
England and told the story of his discoveries.
The unworthy monarch on
England's throne, jealous of the advantage which the
Dutch might derive from
Hudson's discoveries, detained him as an English subject; but the navigator outwitted his sovereign, for he had sent an account of his voyage to his
Amsterdam employers by a trusty hand.
In 1610 he sailed from
England on his fourth voyage, this time in the northwest.
He discovered the bay that bears his name in the far north of the western hemisphere, and intended to winter there; but a majority of his crew became mutinous and compelled him to sail homeward.
On the way his son and seven of his men who had remained faithful to him were seized by the mutineers, and, with the commander, were placed in an open shallop and abandoned on the icy sea, where, of course, they soon perished.
The names of the wretched passengers in that little vessel, left to perish, were
Henry Hudson,
John Hudson,
Arnold Ludlow,
Shadrach Fanna,
Philip Staffe,
Thomas Woodhouse,
Adam Moore,
Henry King, and
Michael Bute.
The compassionate carpenter of the ship furnished them with a fowlingpiece, some powder and shot, some meal and an iron pot to cook it in, and a few other things.
They were towed by the ship out of the ice-floes to the open sea, and then cut adrift.
The fate of the castaways was revealed by one of the mutineers.
England sent an expedition in search of them, but no trace could be found.
