Explorations of the New England Coasts by English: Nova Zembla and Spitzbergen

Upon the walls of the governor's room in the City Hall, New York, hangs a dingy canvas bearing the portrait of a man apparently about forty years of age, with short-cut hair and beard, and a broad ruff, such as were worn by the English gentry late in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It is the portrait of Henry Hudson, "the bold Englishman, the expert pilot, and the famous navigator;" a pupil, probably of Drake, or Frobisher, or Grenville. Thoroughly imbued with the spirit of adventure then rife, he sought opportunities for winning renown in his profession; therefore it was a happy day for Hudson, early in the year 1607, when in its morning he received a summons to the parlor of Sir Thomas Gresham, a wealthy London merchant, who built the Royal Exchange. There he met a number of "certain worshipful merchants of London" who yet believed in the existence of a polar sea passage to India, and had conceived a plan for another search for it. They had sent for Hudson to join them in consultation. He found Sir Thomas and a number of friends sitting at a table covered with maps and charts, with just space enough besides for a rich silver salver holding bottles of wine and glasses to drink it. He was received graciously. The interview was not long, and it ended in a bargain between Hudson and the merchants for the navigator to command a small expedition for the discovery of a polar sea passage, not in the usual track in the northwestern waters, but around the north of Europe.

Hudson sailed from Gravesend on the first of May, 1607, a few days after an English colony had arrived in Virginia to plant the seeds of a great commonwealth there. The vessel in which Hudson sailed was a small one manned by only ten men and a boy. He went up the eastern coast of Greenland to the eighteenth degree, where a solid ice barrier compelled him to turn back. He had discovered the island of Spitzbergen, nothing more. Baffled but not discouraged, he returned to England at the middle of September. Neither were his employers disheartened. They fitted out another vessel in which Hudson sailed late in April, 1608, with full expectation that he should make the coveted passage between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla. Again the impenetrable ice-pack compelled him to turn back, and he again returned to England. He was not yet disheartened, but his employers were, and gave up the enterprise. Hudson went over to Holland to seek similar employment in the service of the Dutch East India Company, a wealthy corporation of merchants at Amsterdam, which had been in existence about seven years. Hudson inspired them with a belief that a much shorter passage to their possessions in the East Indies might be found around the North of Europe, and they fitted out a small vessel of ninety tons, to go in search of it. Hudson was placed in command of her, with a choice crew of English and Dutch seamen. She was a staunch new vessel named Dc Halve-Maen--the Half-Moon--and in her he left the Texel early in April, 1609, and sailed for Nova Zembla.

After manfully fighting the ice-pack on the parallel of Spitzbergen, and its allies--the polar fogs and tempests--until all hope of conquests vanished, Hudson was compelled, a third time, to turn back. He determined not to go without fruit to the Texel, so he sailed around the southern shores of Greenland into the track of searchers after a northwest passage. Again the ice-pack foiled him, and he sailed southward until, at the middle of July, he discovered the American continent off the coast of Maine. It is supposed that he passed several days in Casco Bay, repairing his storm-shattered vessel, when the natives, among whom he found French trinkets, treated him kindly. Their hospitality was requited by plundering their property and driving them from their houses. They resented this treatment so fiercely that he was compelled to put to sea.

Hudson now sailed southward as far as the Capes of Virginia, touching at Cape Cod on the way. Then he sailed up the coast, discovered Delaware Bay, and entered the harbor of New York early in September, after spending several days in visiting the beautiful shores of Raritan Bay, where he held friendly intercourse with the natives, although he was ever watchful for expected treachery. The inhabitants showed a disposition to traffic, but Hudson was so suspicious that he repelled them in an offensive manner and kindled their enmity. One night, whilst a boat load of his crew were returning from an exploration in the neighborhood of the Narrows (between Long and Staten Islands), they were attacked by Indians, in canoes, and one of the seamen was killed. Sadly his comrades carried his body ashore the next day and buried it near the beach, while savage men, women and children looked on in wonder from a neighboring hill.