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 celebrated2 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 inscriptions3 and date of 1520, and the names of places given in their corruption4 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 ascend5 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 gale6 sprang up and compelled him to go to sea, and his discoveries along the coast of North America, from Florida to the Gulf7 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 vessels9 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 fortified10 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 inundated11 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 dealing12 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 perpetuated14 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 distinguished15 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 tract16 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 predecessors17 and left them a more distinct but still imperfect record. It has been conclusively18 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 applied19 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 commonwealth20; they accordingly placed him for nautical21 instruction in the Samaritan and gave five pounds toward his outfit22.” 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 preservative23 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 mighty24 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 drawn25 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 territorial26 empire of Prince Rupert’s land upon which Hudson, perhaps, never set his foot, seems more than strange.
The retrospect27 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 discrepancy28, 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, ascertained29 from the archives that the Amsterdam directors of the Dutch East India Company did have, in 1608, a vessel8 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 adverse30 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, latitude31 40° north (New Jersey32 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” westward33, and a fortnight later reached the Faroe islands, replenished34 his water casks, and set sail again, making slow progress for a month against fierce gales35, 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 intercourse36 with them. Becalmed, the “Half Moon” men caught cod37. 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 ashore38 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 of September he leisurely39 sailed down the river to its mouth. Hudson and his crew were greatly pleased with the grandeur40 and beauty of the river, the like of which they had never seen, passing through a fruitful, attractive country, which in their descriptions, they painted in glowing colors, justly deserved. It was the season of the year when nature, in that latitude, dons her variegated41 and most beautiful colors. Hudson had, along the river in many places where he stopped, many interesting and pleasant interviews with the Indians, gaining much information, and exchanging his trinkets for their valuable furs. The Indians, as a rule, were hospitable42, entertaining the strangers with game and fruits, etc. There were a few regrettable incidents on Hudson’s voyage up the river between the Indians and the crew, and it seems probable the latter were most blameworthy.
October 4, 1609, Henry Hudson and his crew in the “Half Moon” set sail from Sandy Hook for 66 Europe. On the homeward voyage some of the crew wanted to winter in Newfoundland and then in the spring search for a northwestern passage through Davis strait. Many were sick, but none of them were willing to go back to Holland as Hudson wished and was under obligations to do. Bear in mind that the master of a vessel then was not the autocrat43 that he now is. The crew had to be consulted and their decision controlled. A compromise was finally made that they should sail to Ireland. However, they reached Dartmouth, England, November 7, 1609, from which place Hudson made his report to the Dutch East India Company directors, and proposed to them to go out again for a search in the northwest, and that besides the pay, 1,500 florins should be laid out for an additional supply of provisions. Hudson also wanted six or seven of his men exchanged and his crew to number twenty.
It was a long time before the Dutch East India Company directors learned of the arrival of the “Half Moon” and heard from Hudson. Then they ordered the ship and crew to return as soon as possible. But when they were going to do so, Hudson and other Englishmen were commanded 67 by the government not to leave England, but to serve their own country. These things took place in January, 1610. After a detention44 of eight months in England the “Half Moon” reached Amsterdam in the summer of 1610.
April 17, 1610, Henry Hudson, in the vessel “Discovery,” with many of his crew of former voyages, sailed from England in the service of three Englishmen, Sir Thomas Smythe, Sir Dudley Digges, and John Wolstenholme, in quest of an all-water route to India through the Davis strait. After entering the bay named Hudson, in his honor, he spent much time in trying to find an outlet45 from it to the Pacific ocean on the way to China, but unsuccessfully.
His crew became quarrelsome, and some of them mutinous46. Among the worst were two he had favored most—one his mate, Juet, and another, a Mr. Green, a worthless, degenerate47 fellow. Juet was tried for insubordination—for attempting to incite48 to mutiny—found guilty and deposed49. The winter of 1610-1611 was a hard one—their provisions were short, owing to a treatment of a native by some of the crew—they could obtain no game from the Indians, nor could they catch fish. 68 It was said, perhaps falsely, that Hudson became very tyrannical, and said something that his enemies thought he meant to prolong his scanty50 supplies by getting rid of several of the crew. June, 1611, a few days after leaving one of the most southern harbors of James bay (a southern portion of Hudson bay) where they had wintered, a mutiny broke out among the crew. Hudson was seized and bound, and he, his son and seven others, principally sick and infirm, were put in a small boat and set adrift upon the waves, destined51 soon to perish.
Thus ended, in tragedy, the career of a remarkable52 man, whose appearance upon the theater had not extended a half dozen years.
To commemorate53 the tercentenary of Hendrick Hudson’s discovery of the Hudson river would be on a false basis—at war with historical facts. Hudson’s name was Henry (as has been clearly established) and not Hendrick, as doubtless the Dutch wanted him to become a Hollander on his entering the service of the Dutch East India Company.
There is no evidence that Henry Hudson was ever in Holland except late in the year 1608 and 69 early in the year 1609. It is certain that he did not see Holland after his expedition on behalf of the Dutch East India Company, and that born in England, he remained an Englishman, for that government forbid him, as an Englishman, to leave and enter any other service.
It seems most remarkable that in Hudson’s honor, as a discoverer, should have been named a strait (Hudson strait discovered by Sebastian Cabot in 1517), Hudson bay, the Hudson Bay Company territory, which originally included all the land which was drained into Hudson bay—territory ample for an empire—which Hudson did not discover and probably never put his foot on its soil, and the Hudson river, which has been clearly shown he did not discover. Unless the word discoverer has a different meaning from what the public understand by it and lexicographers primarily ascribe to it, Hudson, in none of these cases, was a discoverer. He was an explorer, and as such was a benefactor54, and deserved credit. We would “render unto C?sar the things which are C?sar’s.”
Henry Hudson was a bold, skillful navigator, a careful explorer, and had the ability and spirit 70 to have made important discoveries had the time and circumstances favored. It often happens that the discoverer, the inventor, merits less honor than the party coming after, who makes that discovery or invention serviceable—useful, as it had not been before. Robert Fulton was not the discoverer of the application of steam as a motive55 power in navigation, but he built the “Clermont”—propelled it by steam from New York to Albany, took the wind out of sails, revolutionized navigation, and received the honors. Samuel Finley Breese Morse was not the discoverer, the inventor of the electrical telegraph, but he made it serviceable—of practical utility—almost ignoring distance in the transmission of news, and he won the honors.
Henry Hudson did not discover a new and shorter water route to India, nor did he discover the Hudson river. He, however, did explore the Hudson river, and his glowing accounts of it, and the country through which it flows, attracted immigration, settlements, and was an important element in the founding of the new nation in the western world. The name, it is to be hoped, the true name of Hudson, Henry, and not Hendrick, 71 will be cherished, for whom living, so little was done. His widow, in extreme poverty, applied to the British government for another of her sons, and he was received and sent to the Government Naval56 School, and an allowance was made for his outfit. Henry Hudson appears to have had a large family.
The river which Hudson sailed up and down in 1609 has borne many names, given by different peoples at different times. The red men bestow57 names descriptive or characteristic—while there are no known laws or rules which the white men observe in naming. At the advent58 of the Europeans to North America many tribes of Indians inhabited the territory from Florida to the St. Lawrence, and back to the Mississippi river, and prominent among them were the Lenapes, to which the Mohicans belonged. These Indians called the river Mah-i-can-i-tuk, meaning “the flowing waters.” The Iroquois called it Co-hat-a-tea, or “river that flows from the mountains.” It was called the Mauritius, in honor of Prince Maurice of Nassau. Rio de Montagne was a name given to it. The French usually called it “Le Grande.” The Spanish called it “The River of the Mountains.” 72 It was often called the “North river” in contradistinction to the “South river”—the Delaware.
That Henry Hudson was greatly pleased in exploring this river is not surprising. “There is no river in the western world comparable with it in picturesqueness60 and beauty, nor has it a superior, if an equal, in these respects, in Europe. In some stretches of the Clyde and the Rhine are features resembling the Hudson, and the Elbe has in sections, such delicately penciled effects, but no European river is so lordly in its bearing, none flows in such state to the sea.” It has been said that no other river in the world presents so great a variety of views as the Hudson.
“Throughout its whole length, from the wilderness61 to the sea, from the Adirondacks to Staten Island, a distance of 325 miles, there is a combination of the finest pictures, illustrating62 some of the best scenery of the old world,” which some quaint13 writer (to me unknown) describes as follows: “The tourist with only a slight stretch of the fancy may find Loch Katrine nestled among the mountains of our own Highlands; in the Catskills may be seen from Sunset Mountain of Arran; and 73 in the Palisades, the Giant’s Causeway of Ireland.” He divides the Hudson river into five stretches, reaches or divisions, representing five distinct characteristics, namely: Grandeur, Repose63, Sublimity64, The Picturesque59, and Beauty.
1. The Palisades, an unbroken wall of rock for fifteen miles—Grandeur.
2. The Tappanzee, surrounded by the sloping hills of Nyack, Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow—Repose.
3. The Highlands, where the Hudson for twenty miles plays “hide and seek” with hills “rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun”—Sublimity.
4. The Hillsides, for miles above and below Poughkeepsie—The Picturesque.
5. The Catskills, on the west, throned in queenly dignity—Beauty.
George William Curtis, the great traveler, the close observer, the perfect gentleman, pronounced the Hudson grander than the Rhine, and Thackeray, in his “Virginians,” has given the Hudson the verdict of beauty.
To New Yorkers it is a river dear, for there is scarcely a single settlement along its banks, from its origin to the sea, which has not some interesting tradition, some notable historic event, to relate.
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dissuade
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| v.劝阻，阻止 | |
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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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inscriptions
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| （作者）题词( inscription的名词复数 )； 献词； 碑文； 证劵持有人的登记 | |
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corruption
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ascend
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gale
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gulf
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vessel
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vessels
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fortified
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inundated
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dealing
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quaint
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perpetuated
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distinguished
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tract
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predecessors
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conclusively
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applied
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commonwealth
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nautical
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outfit
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preservative
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mighty
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drawn
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territorial
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retrospect
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discrepancy
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ascertained
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adverse
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latitude
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jersey
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replenished
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gales
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intercourse
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ashore
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leisurely
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grandeur
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variegated
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hospitable
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autocrat
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detention
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outlet
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mutinous
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degenerate
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incite
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deposed
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scanty
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destined
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remarkable
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commemorate
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| vt.纪念，庆祝 | |
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benefactor
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motive
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naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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bestow
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| v.把…赠与，把…授予；花费 | |
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58
advent
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| n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临 | |
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59
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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60
picturesqueness
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61
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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62
illustrating
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| 给…加插图( illustrate的现在分词 )； 说明； 表明； （用示例、图画等）说明 | |
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63
repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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64
sublimity
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| 崇高，庄严，气质高尚 | |
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