Henry Hudson Part 1

Henry Hudson.

by Thomas A. Janvier.

PREFACE

It is with great pleasure that I include in this volume contemporary Hudson doc.u.ments which have remained neglected for three centuries, and here are published for the first time. As I explain more fully elsewhere, their discovery is due to the painstaking research of Mr. R.G. Marsden, M.A. My humble share in the matter has been to recognize the importance of Mr. Marsden's discovery; and to direct the particular search in the Record Office, in London, that has resulted in their present reproduction.

I regret that they are inconclusive. We still are ignorant of what punishment was inflicted upon the mutineers of the "Discovery"; or even if they were punished at all.

The primary importance of these doc.u.ments, however, is not that they establish the fact--until now not established--that the mutineers were brought to trial; it is that they embody the sworn testimony, hitherto unproduced, of six members of Hudson's crew concerning the mutiny. Asher, the most authoritative of Hudson's modern historians, wrote: "p.r.i.c.kett is the only eye-witness that has left us an account of these events, and we can therefore not correct his statements whether they be true or false." We now have the accounts of five additional eye-witnesses (p.r.i.c.kett himself is one of the six whose testimony has been recovered), and all of them, so far as they go, substantially are in accord with p.r.i.c.kett's account. Such agreement is not proof of truth. The newly adduced witnesses and the earlier single witness equally were interested in making out a case in their own favor that would save them from being hanged. But this new evidence does ent.i.tle p.r.i.c.kett's "Larger Discourse" to a more respectful consideration than that dubious doc.u.ment heretofore has received. Save in matters affected by this fresh material, the following narrative is a condensation of what has been recorded by Hudson's authoritative biographers, of whom the more important are: Samuel Purchas, Hessel Gerritz, Emanuel Van Meteren, G.M. Asher, Henry C. Murphy, John Romeyn Brodhead, and John Meredith Read.

T.A.J.

New York, _July_ 16, 1909.

THE ILl.u.s.tRATIONS

No portrait of Hudson is known to be in existence. What has pa.s.sed with the uncritical for his portrait--a dapper-looking man wearing a ruffed collar--frequently has been, and continues to be, reproduced. Who that man was is unknown. That he was not Hudson is certain.

Lacking Hudson's portrait, I have used for a frontispiece a photograph, especially taken for this purpose, of the interior of the Church of Saint Ethelburga: the sole remaining material link, of which we have sure knowledge, between Hudson and ourselves. The drawing on the cover represents what is very near to being another material link--the replica, lately built in Holland, of the "Half Moon," the ship in which Hudson made his most famous voyage.

The other ill.u.s.trations have been selected with a strict regard to the meaning of that word. In order to throw light on the text, I have preferred--to the ventures of fancy--reproductions of t.i.tle-pages of works on navigation that Hudson probably used; pictures of the few and crude instruments of navigation that he certainly used; and pictures of ships virtually identical with those in which he sailed.

The copy of Wright's famous work on navigation that Hudson may have had, and probably did have, with him was of an earlier date than that (1610) of which the t.i.tle-page here is reproduced. This reproduction is of interest in that it shows at a glance all of the nautical instruments that Hudson had at his command; and of a still greater interest in that the map which is a part of it exhibits what at that time, by exploration or by conjecture, was the known world. To the making of that map Hudson himself contributed: on it, with a previously unknown a.s.surance, his River clearly is marked.

The inadequate indication of his Bay probably is taken from Weymouth's chart--the chart that Hudson had with him on his voyage.

A curious feature of this map is its marking--in defiance of known facts--of two straits, to the north and to the south of a large island, where should be the Isthmus of Panama.

The one seemingly fanciful picture, that of the mermaids, is not fanciful--a point that I have enlarged upon elsewhere--by the standard of Hudson's times. Hudson himself believed in the existence of mermaids: as is proved by his matter-of-fact entry in his log that a mermaid had been seen by two of his crew.

A BRIEF LIFE OF HENRY HUDSON

HENRY HUDSON

I

If ever a compelling Fate set its grip upon a man and drove him to an accomplishment beside his purpose and outside his thought, it was when Henry Hudson--having headed his ship upon an ordered course northeastward--directly traversed his orders by fetching that compa.s.s to the southwestward which ended by bringing him into what now is Hudson's River, and which led on quickly to the founding of what now is New York.

Indeed, the late Thomas Aquinas, and the later Calvin, could have made out from the few known facts in the life of this navigator so pretty a case in favor of Predestination that the blessed St.

Augustine and the worthy Arminius--supposing the four come together for a friendly dish of theological talk--would have had their work cut out for them to formulate a countercase in favor of Free Will.

It is a curious truth that every important move in Hudson's life of which we have record seems to have been a forced move: sometimes with a look of chance about it--as when the directors of the Dutch East India Company called him back and hastily renewed with him their suspended agreement that he should search for a pa.s.sage to Cathay on a northeast course past Nova Zembla, and so sent him off on the voyage that brought the "Half Moon" into Hudson's River; sometimes with the fatalism very much in evidence--as when his own government seized him out of the Dutch service, and so put him in the way to go sailing to his death on that voyage through Hudson's Strait that ended, for him, in his mutineering crew casting him adrift to starve with cold and hunger in Hudson's Bay. And, being dead, the same inconsequent Fate that harried him while alive has preserved his name, and very n.o.bly, by anchoring it fast to that River and Strait and Bay forever: and this notwithstanding the fact that all three of them were discovered by other navigators before his time.

Hudson sought, as from the time of Columbus downward other navigators had sought before him, a short cut to the Indies; but his search was made, because of what those others had accomplished, within narrowed lines. In the century and more that had pa.s.sed between the great Admiral's death and the beginning of Hudson's explorations one important geographical fact had been established: that there was no water-way across America between, roughly, the lat.i.tudes of 40 South and 40 North. Of necessity, therefore--since to round America south of 40 South would make a longer voyage than by the known route around the Cape of Good Hope--exploration that might produce practical results had to be made north of 40 North, either westward from the Atlantic or eastward from the North Sea.

Even within those lessened limits much had been determined before Hudson's time. To the eastward, both Dutch and English searchers had gone far along the coast of Russia; pa.s.sing between that coast and Nova Zembla and entering the Kara Sea. To the westward, in the year 1524, Verazzano had sailed along the American coast from 34 to 50 North; and in the course of that voyage had entered what now is New York Bay. In the year 1598, Sebastian Cabot had coasted America from 38 North to the mouth of what now is Hudson's Strait.

Frobisher had entered that Strait in the year 1577; Weymouth had sailed into it nearly one hundred leagues in the year 1602; and Portuguese navigators, in the years 1558 and 1569, probably had pa.s.sed through it and had entered what now is Hudson's Bay.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FAC-SIMILE OF t.i.tLE-PAGE OF A SEA HANDBOOK OF HUDSON'S TIME]

As the result of all this exploration, Hudson had at his command a ma.s.s of information--positive as well as negative--that at once narrowed his search and directed it; and there is very good reason for believing that he actually carried with him charts of a crude sort on which, more or less clearly, were indicated the Strait and the Bay and the River which popularly are regarded as of his discovery and to which have been given his name. But I hold that his just fame is not lessened by the fact that his discoveries, nominally, were rediscoveries. Within the proper meaning of the word they truly were his dis-coveries: in that he did un-cover them so effectually that they became known clearly, and thereafter remained known clearly, to the world.

II

Because of his full accomplishment of what others essayed and only partially accomplished, Hudson's name is the best known--excepting only that of Columbus--of all the names of explorers by land and sea. From Purchas's time downward it has headed the list of Arctic discoverers; in every history of America it has a leading place; on every map of North America it thrice is written large; here in New York, which owes its founding to his exploring voyage, it is uttered--as we refer to the river, the county, the city, the street, the railroad, bearing it--a thousand times a day.

And yet, in despite of this familiarity with his name, our certain knowledge of Hudson's life is limited to a period (April 19, 1607-June 22,1611) of little more than four years. Of that period, during which he did the work that has made him famous, we have a partial record--much of it under his own hand--that certainly is authentic in its general outlines until it reaches the culminating tragedy. At the very last, where we most want the clear truth, we have only the one-sided account presented by his murderers: and murderers, being at odds with moral conventions generally, are not, as a rule, models of veracity. And so it has fallen out that what we know about the end of Hudson's life, save that it ended foully, is as uncertain as the facts of the earlier and larger part of his life are obscure.

An American investigator, the late Gen. John Meredith Read, has gone farthest in unearthing facts which enlighten this obscurity; but with no better result than to establish certain strong probabilities as to Hudson's ancestry and antecedents. By General Read's showing, the Henry Hudson mentioned by Hakluyt as one of the charter members (February 6, 1554-5) of the Muscovy Company, possibly was our navigator's grandfather. He was a freeman of London, a member of the Skinners Company, and sometime an alderman.

He died in December, 1555, according to Stow, "of the late hote burning feuers, whereof died many olde persons, so that in London died seven Aldermen in the s.p.a.ce of tenne monthes." They gave that departed worthy a very n.o.ble funeral! Henry Machyn, who had charge of it, describes it in his delightful "Diary" in these terms: "The xx day of December was bered at Sant Donstones in the Est master Hare Herdson, altherman of London and Skynner, and on of the masters of the gray frere in London with men and xxiiij women in mantyl fresse [frieze?] gownes, a herse [catafalque] of wax and hong with blake; and there was my lord mare and the swordberer in blake, and dyvers oder althermen in blake, and the resedew of the althermen, atys berying; and all the masters, boyth althermen and odur, with ther gren staffes in ther hands, and all the chylders of the gray frersse, and iiij in blake gownes bayring iiij gret stayffes-torchys bornying, and then xxiiij men with torchys bornying; and the morrow iij ma.s.ses songe; and after to ys pla.s.se to dener; and ther was ij goodly whyt branches, and mony prestes and clarkes syngying." Stow adds that the dead alderman's widow, Barbara, caused to be set up in St. Dunstan's to his memory--and also to that of her second husband, Sir Richard Champion, and prospectively to her own--a monument in keeping with their worldly condition and with the somewhat mixed facts of their triangular case. This was a "very faire Alabaster Tombe, richly and curiously gilded, and two ancient figures of Aldermen in scarlet kneeling, the one at the one end of the tombe in a goodly arch, the other at the other end in like manner, and a comely figure of a lady between them, who was wife to them both."

The names have been preserved in legal records of three of the sons--Thomas, John and Edward--of this eminent Londoner: who flourished so greatly in life; who was given so handsome a send-off into eternity; and who, presumably, retains in that final state an undivided one-half interest in the lady whose comely figure was sculptured upon his tomb. General Read found record of a Henry Hudson, mentioned by Stow as a citizen of London in the year 1558, who may also have been a son of the alderman; of a Captain Thomas Hudson, of Limehouse, who had a leading part in an expedition set forth "into the parts of Persia and Media" by the Muscovy Company in the years 1577-81; of a Thomas Hudson, of Mortlake, who was a friend of Dr. John Dee, and to whom references frequently are made in the famous "Diary" such as the following: "March 6 [1583]. I, and Mr. Adrian Gilbert and John Davis did mete with Mr. Alderman Barnes, Mr. Townson, and Mr. Young, and Mr. Hudson abowt the N.W.

voyage." Concerning a Christopher Hudson--who was in the service of the Muscovy Company as its agent and factor at Moscow from about the year 1553 until about the year 1576--the only certainty is that he was not a son of the Alderman. There is a record of the year 1560 that "Christopher Hudson hath written to come home ...

considering the death of his father and mother"; and, as the Alderman died in the year 1555, and as his remarried widow was alive in the year 1560, this is conclusive. Being come back to England, this Christopher rose to be a person of importance in the Company; as appears from the fact that he was one of a committee (circa 1583) appointed to confer with "Captain Chris. Carlile ...

upon his intended discoveries and attempt into the hithermost parts of America."

[Ill.u.s.tration: APPARATUS FOR CORRECTING ERRORS OF THE COMPa.s.s.

FROM "CERTAINE ERRORS IN NAVIGATION." LONDON, 1610]

General Read thus summarized the result of his investigations: "We have learned that London was the residence of Henry Hudson the elder, of Henry Hudson his son, and of Christopher Hudson, and that Captain Thomas Hudson lived at Limehouse, now a part of the Metropolis; while Thomas Hudson, the friend of Dr. John Dee, resided at Mortlake, then only six or seven miles from the City ... By reference to a statement made by Abakuk p.r.i.c.kett, in his 'Larger Discourse,' it will be found that Henry Hudson the discoverer also was a citizen of London and had a house there."

From all of which, together with various minor corroborative facts, he draws these conclusions: That Henry Hudson the discoverer was the descendant, probably the grandson, of the Henry Hudson who died while holding the office of Alderman of the City of London in the year 1555; that he "received his early training, and imbibed the ideas which controlled the purposes of his after life, under the fostering care of the great Corporation [the Muscovy Company] which his relatives had helped to found and afterwards to maintain"; that he entered the service of that Company as an apprentice, in accordance with the then custom, and in due course was advanced to command rank.

That is the net result of General Read's most laboriously painstaking investigations. The facts for which he searched so diligently, and so longed to find, he did not find. In a foot-note he added: "The place and date of Hudson's birth will doubtless be accurately ascertained in the course of the examinations now being made in England under my directions. The result of these researches I hope to be able to present to the public at no distant day." That note was written nearly fifty years ago, and its writer died long since with his hope unrealized.

But while General Read failed to accomplish his main purpose, he did, as I have said, more than any other investigator has done to throw light on Hudson's ancestry, and on his connection with the Muscovy Company in whose service he sailed. Our navigator may or may not have been a grandson of the alderman who cut so fine a figure in the City three centuries and a half ago; but beyond a reasonable doubt he was of the family--so eminently distinguished in the annals of discovery--to which that alderman, one of the founders of the Muscovy Company, and Christopher Hudson, one of its later governors, and Captain Thomas Hudson, who sailed in its service, all belonged. And, being akin to such folk, the natural disposition to adventure was so strong within him that it led him on to accomplishments which have made him the most ill.u.s.trious bearer of his name.

III

"Anno, 1607, Aprill the nineteenth, at Saint Ethelburge, in Bishops Gate street, did communicate with the rest of the parishioners, these persons, seamen, purposing to goe to sea foure days after, for to discover a pa.s.sage by the North Pole to j.a.pan and China.

First, Henry Hudson, master. Secondly, William Colines, his mate.

Thirdly, James Young. Fourthly, John Colman. Fiftly, John Cooke.

Sixtly, James Beubery. Seventhly, James Skrutton. Eightly, John Pleyce. Ninthly, Thomas Barter. Tenthly, Richard Day. Eleventhly, James Knight. Twelfthly, John Hudson, a boy."

With those words Purchas prefaced his account of what is known--because we have no record of earlier voyages--as Hudson's first voyage; and with those words our certain knowledge of Hudson's life begins.

St. Ethelburga's, a restful pause in the bustle of Bishopsgate Street, still stands--the worse, to be sure, for the clutter of little shops that has been built in front of it, and for incongruous interior renovation--and I am very grateful to Purchas for having preserved the sc.r.a.p of information that links Hudson's living body with that church which still is alive: into which may pa.s.s by the very doorway that he pa.s.sed through those who venerate his memory; and there may stand within the very walls and beneath the very roof that sheltered him when he and his ship's company partook of the Sacrament together three hundred years ago. Purchas, no doubt, could have told all that we so gladly would know of Hudson's early history. But he did not tell it--and we must rest content, I think well content, with that poetic beginning at the chancel rail of St. Ethelburga's of the strong life that less than four years later came to its epic ending.