Part 3

It is evident from the foregoing that never did a shipmaster get away to sea with more explicit orders than those which were given to Hudson as to how his voyage was, and as to how it was not, to be made. On his obedience to those orders, which essentially were a part of his contract, depended the obligation of the directors to pay him for his services; and farther depended--a consideration that reasonably might be expected to touch him still more closely--their obligation to bestow a solatium upon his wife and children in the event of his death. And yet, with those facts clearly before him, he did precisely what he had contracted, and what in most express terms he was ordered, not to do.

Hudson sailed from the Texel in the "Half Moon" (possibly accompanied by a small vessel, the "Good Hope," that did not pursue the voyage) on March 27-April 6, 1609; and for more than a month--until he had doubled the North Cape and was well on toward Nova Zembla--went duly on his way. Then came the mutiny that made him change, or that gave him an excuse for changing, his ordered course.

The log that has been preserved of this voyage was kept by Robert Juet; who was Hudson's mate on his second voyage, and who was mate again on Hudson's fourth voyage--until his mutinous conduct caused him to be deposed. What rating he had on board the "Half Moon" is not known; nor do we know whether he had, or had not, a share in the mutiny that changed the ship's course from east to west. With a suspicious frankness, he wrote in his log: "Because it is a journey usually knowne I omit to put downe what passed till we came to the height of the North Cape of Finmarke, which we did performe by the fift of May (stilo novo), being Tuesday." To this he adds the observed position on May 5th, 71° 46' North, and the course, "east, and by south and east," and continues: "After much trouble, with fogges sometimes, and more dangerous ice. The nineteenth, being Tuesday, was close stormie weather, with much wind and snow, and very cold. The wind variable between the north north-west and north-east. We made our way west and by north till noone."

His abrupt transition from the fifth to the nineteenth of May covers the time in which the mutiny occurred. Practically, his log begins almost on the day that the ship's course was changed. In the smooth concluding paragraph of this same log, to be cited later, he passes over unmentioned the mutiny that occurred on the homeward voyage. Judging him by the facts recorded in the accounts of the voyage into Hudson's Bay, it is a fair assumption that in both of these earlier mutinies Juet had a hand.

I wish that we could find the bond that held Hudson and Juet together. That Juet could write, and that he understood the science of navigation--although those were rare accomplishments among seamen in his time--fail sufficiently to account for Hudson's persistent employment of him. For my own part, I revert to my theory of fatalism. It is my fancy that this "ancient man"--as he is styled by one of his companions--was Hudson's evil genius; and I class him with the most finely conceived character in Marryat's most finely conceived romance: the pilot Schriften, in "The Phantom Ship." Just as Schriften clung to the younger Van der Decken to thwart him, so Juet seems to have clung to Hudson to thwart him; and to take--in the last round between them--a leading part in compassing Hudson's death.

One authority, and a very good authority, for the facts which Juet suppressed concerning the third voyage is the historian Van Meteren: who obtained them, there is good reason for believing, directly from Hudson himself. In his "Historie der Niederlanden" (1614) Van Meteren wrote: "This Henry Hudson left the Texel the 6th of April, 1609, and having doubled the Cape of Norway the 5th of May, directed his course along the northern coasts toward Nova Zembla. But he there found the sea as full of ice as he had found it in the preceding year, so that he lost the hope of effecting anything during the season. This circumstance, and the cold which some of his men who had been in the East Indies could not bear, caused quarrels among the crew, they being partly English, partly Dutch; upon which the captain, Henry Hudson, laid before them two propositions. The first of these was, to go to the coast of America to the latitude of forty degrees. This idea had been suggested to him by some letters and maps which his friend Captain Smith had sent him from Virginia, and by which he informed him that there was a sea leading into the western ocean to the north of the southern English colony [Virginia]. Had this information been true (experience goes as yet to the contrary), it would have been of great advantage, as indicating a short way to India. The other proposition was to direct their search to Davis's Straits. This meeting with general approval, they sailed on the 14th of May, and arrived, with a good wind, at the Faroe Islands, where they stopped but twenty-four hours to supply themselves with fresh water. After leaving these islands they sailed on till, on the 18th of July, they reached the coast of Nova Francia under 44 degrees.... They left that place on the 26th of July, and kept out at sea till the 3d of August, when they were again near the coast in 42 degrees of latitude. Thence they sailed on till, on the 12th of August, they reached the shore under 37° 45'. Thence they sailed along the shore until we reached 40° 45', where they found a good entrance, between two headlands, and thus entered on the 12th of September into as fine a river as can be found, with good anchoring ground on both sides."

That river, "as fine as can be found," was our own Hudson.

Van Meteren's account of the voyage, although not published until the year 1614, was written very soon after Hudson's return--the slip that he makes in using "we" points to the probability that he copied directly from Hudson's log--and in it we have all that we ever are likely to know about the causes which led to the change in the "Half Moon's" course. For my own part, I believe that Hudson did precisely what he had wanted to do from the start. The prohibitory clause in his instructions, forbidding him to go upon other than the course laid down for him, pointedly suggests that he had expressed the desire--natural enough, since he twice had searched vainly for a passage by Nova Zembla--to search westward instead of eastward for a water-way to the Indies. As Van Meteren states, authoritatively, he was encouraged to search in that direction by the information given him by Captain John Smith concerning a passage north of Virginia across the American continent--a notion that Smith probably derived in the first instance from Michael Lok's planisphere, which shows the continent reduced to a mere strip in about the latitude of the river that Hudson found; and that he very well might have conceived to be confirmed by stories about a great sea not far westward (the great lakes) which he heard from the Indians.

But the starting point of this geographical error is immaterial. The important fact is that Hudson entertained it: and so was led to offer for first choice to his mutinous crew that they should "go to the coast of America in the latitude of forty degrees." His readiness with that proposition, when the chance to make it came, confirms my belief that his own desire was to sail westward, and that he made the most of his opportunity. And the essential point, after all, is not whether the mutiny forced him to change, or merely gave him an excuse for changing, his ordered course: it is that he was equal to the emergency when the mutiny came, and so controlled it that--instead of going back, defeated of his purpose, to Holland--he deliberately took the risk of personal loss that attended breaking his contract and traversing his orders, and continued on new lines his exploring voyage. It is indicative of Hudson's character that he met that cast of fate against him most resolutely; and most resolutely played up to it with a strong hand.

VII

As the direct result of breaking his orders, Hudson was the discoverer of our river--to which, therefore, his name properly has been given--and also was the first navigator by whom our harbor effectively was found. I use advisedly these precisely differentiating terms. On the distinctions which they make rests Hudson's claim to take practical precedence of Verrazano and of Gomez, who sailed in past Sandy Hook nearly a hundred years ahead of him; and of those shadowy nameless shipmen who in the intervening time, until his coming, may have made our harbor one of their stations--for refitting and watering--on their voyages from and to Portugal and Spain.

The exploring work of John and of Sebastian Cabot, who sailed along our coast, but who missed our harbor, does not come within my range: save to note that Sebastian Cabot pretty certainly was one of the several navigators, including Frobisher and Davis, who entered Hudson's Strait before Hudson's time.

Verrazano was an Italian, sailing in the French service. Gomez was a Portuguese, sailing in the Spanish service. Both sought a westerly way to the Indies, and both sought it in the same year--1524. Verrazano has left a report of his voyage, written immediately upon his return to France; and with it a vaguely drawn chart of the coasts which he explored. (It is my duty to add that certain zealous historians have denounced his report as a forgery, and his chart as a "fake"--a matter so much too large for discussion here that I content myself with expressing the opinion that these charges have not been sustained.) Gomez has left no report of his voyage, but a partial account of it may be pieced together from the maritime chronicles of his time. He also charted, with an approximate accuracy, the lands which he coasted; and while his chart has not been preserved in its original shape, there is good reason for believing that we have it embodied in the planisphere drawn by Juan Ribero, geographer to Charles V., in the year 1529. On that planisphere the seaboard of the present states of Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island is called "the land of Estevan Gomez."

Lacking the full report that Gomez presumably made of his voyage, and lacking the original of his chart, it is impossible to decide whether he did or did not pass through the Narrows and enter the Upper Bay. Doctor Asher holds that he did make that passage; and adds: "It is certain that the later Spanish seamen who followed in his track in after years were familiar with the [Hudson] river, and called it the Rio de Gamas." In support of this strong assertion he cites the still-extant "Rutters," or "Routiers," of the period--the ocean guide-books showing the distances from place to place, marking convenient stations for watering and refitting, and describing the entrances to rivers and to harbors--"from which we learn," he declares, "that the Rio de Gamas, the name then regularly applied to the Hudson on the charts of the time, was one of these stages between New Foundland and the colonies of Central America."

In regard to Verrazano--admitting his report to be genuine--the fact that he did pass through the Narrows into the Upper Bay is not open to dispute. He therefore must have seen--as, a little later, Gomez may have seen--the true mouth of Hudson's river eighty-five years before Hudson, by actual exploration of it, made himself its discoverer. But Verrazano, by his own showing, came but a little way into the Upper Bay--which he called a lake--and he made no exploration of a practical sort of the harbor that he had found.

It is but simple justice to Verrazano and to Gomez to put on record here, along with the story of Hudson's effective discovery, the story of their ineffective finding. Fate was against them as distinctly as it was with Hudson. They came under adverse conditions, and they came too soon. Back of the explorer in the French service there was not an alert power eager for colonial expansion. Back of the explorer in the Spanish service there was a power so busied with colonial expansion on a huge scale--in that very year, 1524, Cortes was completing his conquest of Mexico, and Pizarro was beginning his conquest of Peru--that a farther enlargement of the colonization contract was impossible.

Therefore we may fall back upon the assured fact--in which I see again the touch of fatalism--that not until Hudson came at the right moment, and at the right moment gave an accurate account of his explorations to a power that was ready immediately to colonize the land that he had found, were our port and our river, notwithstanding their earlier technical discovery, truly discovered to the world. As for the river, it assuredly is Hudson's very own.

VIII

From Juet's log I make the following extracts, telling of the "Half Moon's" approach to Sandy Hook and of her passage into the Lower Bay:

"The first of September, faire weather, the wind variable betweene east and sooth; we steered away north north west. At noone we found our height [a little north of Cape May] to bee 39 degrees 3 minutes.... The second, in the morning close weather, the winde at south in the morning. From twelve untill two of the clocke we steered north north west, and had sounding one and twentie fathoms; and in running one glasse we had but sixteene fathoms, then seventeene, and so shoalder and shoalder untill it came to twelve fathoms. We saw a great fire but could not see the land. Then we came to ten fathoms, whereupon we brought our tacks aboord, and stood to the eastward east south east, foure glasses. Then the sunne arose, and we steered away north againe, and saw the land [the low region about Sandy Hook] from the west by north to the north west by north, all like broken islands, and our soundings were eleven and ten fathoms. Then we looft in for the shoare, and faire by the shoare we had seven fathoms. The course along the land we found to be north east by north. From the land which we had first sight of, untill we came to a great lake of water [the Lower Bay] as we could judge it to be, being drowned land, which made it to rise like islands, which was in length ten leagues. The mouth of that land hath many shoalds, and the sea breaketh on them as it is cast out of the mouth of it. And from that lake or bay the land lyeth north by east, and we had a great streame out of the bay; and from thence our sounding was ten fathoms two leagues from the land. At five of the clocke we anchored, being little winde, and rode in eight fathoms water.... This night I found the land to hall the compasse 8 degrees. For to the northward off us we saw high hils [Staten Island and the Highlands]. For the day before we found not above two degrees of variation. This is a very good land to fall with, and a pleasant land to see.

"The third, the morning mystie, untill ten of the clocke. Then it cleered, and the wind came to the south south east, so wee weighed and stood to the northward. The land is very pleasant and high, and bold to fall withal. At three of the clocke in the after noone, we came to three great rivers [the Raritan, the Arthur Kill and the Narrows]. So we stood along to the northermost [the Narrows], thinking to have gone into it, but we found it to have a very shoald barre before it, for we had but ten foot water. Then we cast about to the southward, and found two fathoms, three fathoms, and three and a quarter, till we came to the souther side of them; then we had five and sixe fathoms, and anchored. So wee sent in our boate to sound, and they found no lesse water than foure, five, sixe, and seven fathoms, and returned in an houre and a halfe. So we weighed and went in, and rode in five fathoms, oze ground, and saw many salmons, and mullets, and rayes, very great. The height is 40 degrees 30 minutes."

That is the authoritative account of Hudson's great finding. I have quoted it in full partly because of the thrilling interest that it has for us; but more to show that the record of his explorations--the "Half Moon's" log being written throughout with the same definiteness and accuracy--gave what neither Gomez nor Verrazano gave: clear directions for finding with certainty the haven that he, and those earlier navigators, had found by chance. On that fact, and on the other fact that his directions promptly were utilized, rests his claim to be the practical discoverer of the harbor of New York.

For more than a week the "Half Moon" lay in the Lower Bay and in the Narrows. Then, on the eleventh of September, she passed fairly beyond Staten Island and came out into the Upper Bay: and Hudson saw the great river--which on that day became his river--stretching broadly to the north. I can imagine that when he found that wide waterway, leading from the ocean into the heart of the continent--and found it precisely where his friend Captain John Smith had told him he would find it, "under 40 degrees"--his hopes were very high. The first part of the story being confirmed, it was a fair inference that the second part would be confirmed; that presently, sailing through the "strait" that he had entered, he would come out, as Magellan had come out from the other strait, upon the Pacific--with clear water before him to the coasts of Cathay.

That glad hope must have filled his heart during the ensuing fortnight; and even then it must have died out slowly through another week--while the "Half Moon" worked her way northward as far as where Albany now stands. Twice in the course of his voyage inland--on September 14th, when his run was from Yonkers to Peekskill--he reasonably may have believed that he was on the very edge of his great discovery. As the river widened hugely into the Tappan Sea, and again widened hugely into Haverstraw Bay, it well may have seemed to him that he was come to the ocean outlet--and that in a few hours more he would have the waters of the Pacific beneath his keel. Then, as he passed through the Southern Gate of the Highlands, and thence onward, his hope must have waned--until on September 22d it vanished utterly away. Under that date Juet wrote in his log: "This night, at ten of the clocke, our boat returned in a showre of raine from sounding the river; and found it to bee at an end for shipping to goe in."

That was the end of the adventure inland. Juet wrote on the 23d: "At twelve of the clocke we weighed, and went downe two leagues"; and thereafter his log records their movements and their doings--sometimes meeting with "loving people" with whom they had friendly dealings; sometimes meeting and having fights with people who were anything but loving--as the "Half Moon" dawdled slowly down the stream. By the 2d of October they were come abreast of about where Fort Lee now stands. There they had their last brush with the savages, killing ten or twelve of them without loss on their own side.

After telling about the fight, Juet adds: "Within a while after wee got downe two leagues beyond that place and anchored in a bay [north of Hoboken], cleere from all danger of them on the other side of the river, where we saw a very good piece of ground [for anchorage]. And hard by it there was a cliffe [Wiehawken] that looked of the colour of a white greene, as though it were either copper or silver myne. And I thinke it to be one of them, by the trees that grow upon it. For they be all burned, and the other places are greene as grasse. It is on that side of the river that is called Manna-hata. There we saw no people to trouble us, and rode quietly all night, but had much wind and raine."

In that entry the name Manna-hata was written for the first time, and was applied, not to our island but to the opposite Jersey shore. The explanation of Juet's record seems to be that the Indians known as the Mannahattes dwelt--or that Juet thought that they dwelt--on both sides of the river. That they did dwell on, and that they did give their name to, our island of Manhattan are facts absolutely established by the records of the ensuing three or four years.

During October 3d the "Half Moon" was storm-bound. On the 4th, Juet records "Faire weather, and the wind at north north west, wee weighed and came out of the river into which we had runne so farre." Thence, through the Upper Bay and the Narrows, and across the Lower Bay--with a boat out ahead to sound--they went onward into the Sandy Hook channel. "And by twelve of the clocke we were cleere of all the inlet. Then we took in our boat, and set our mayne sayle and sprit sayle and our top sayles, and steered away east south east, and south east by east, off into the mayne sea."