p25  I

Henry Hudson

"Land! Land!" The shout came from a Dutch sailor hugging the topmast with one arm, his eyes shaded against the midday sun by a calloused palm held to his forehead. Almost at the same time a cry was heard below him on the foredeck, where an English sailor with a leaded line was taking soundings. "Five fathoms — three fathoms — two fathoms —," he called out. Then came the captain's command from the poopdeck in English, repeated in the Dutch language by the first mate, also in the stern. "Drop anchor! Haul in main topsail! Lower sprits!" The little vessel shuddered as her bottom timbers scraped into the sandbank, her masts bending as the wind billowed her sails and fought to push her free from the hidden barrier. Before the captain's command could be obeyed, a strong gale carried her off the bank and well beyond into deeper and safer waters as suddenly as she had run aground.

Tacking this way and that to avoid stranding again, the vessel, actually a yacht of 60 tons burden although her silhouette resembled the shallow-bottomed Vlie boats seen in the Zuider‑Zee, luffed slowly into the estuary that as yet had no European name. So came Henry Hudson in the Half Moon on August 28, 1609 to Delaware Bay. He anchored after reaching a place described in the ship's log as "the Point," which may have been present‑day Cape Henlopen. The sand bars, visible above the surface of the water, and the shoals, which suddenly appeared in what seemed to be deep water, made a course upstream too  p26 dangerous to pursue further without a shallop to lead the way. Furthermore, Hudson was soon convinced that the objective of the voyage did not lie within this shoaly waterway whose current pressed outward to the sea. He steered the vessel southeast again, rounded the opposite cape, and set his course north in the Atlantic, the banners of Holland and the East India Company streaming in the wind from her masts.

How did Henry Hudson, an English navigator, come to be sailing a Dutch ship? How did a voyage that had started in a northerly direction from Holland more than seven months before bring him to these as yet uncharted New World waters? What was the purpose of the voyage? Why had it taken seven months to reach Delaware Bay? In the answers to these questions lies an exciting story of adventure, daring, and intrigue that has been told before but which bears telling again in the year that marks the 350th anniversary of the voyage.

The quest during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for a shorter all‑water route to the riches of the East Indies — its gold, gems, ivory, spices, and fabrics — excited interest in Holland, then one of the world's greatest sea powers, as it did among the other leading maritime nations of Europe — England, Portugal, France, Spain, Sweden, and Denmark. Among the early navigators who sought this all‑water passage were Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, and Giovanni da Verrazano, in the employ respectively of Spain, England, and France. Instead of finding a new trade route to the Indies, they, and other explorers, discovered new lands in the western world over which a struggle for possession by the European nations would be waged for many years to come. It was the quest for the undiscovered route that brought Hudson to Delaware Bay. He had made two previous voyages in search of it, one in 1607 and the second in 1608, under the auspices of businessmen in England, the country of his birth. He  p27 had sailed to the 81st degree of north latitude in the polar region, where few, if any, sea captains had been before. He had not found the passage to the East, but he had won a reputation as a brave and skillful mariner who had faced and conquered the dangers of the arctic seas.

Based on Hudson's third voyage, Holland, or the United Netherlands, to use a more inclusive word,⁠1 would lay claim to lands in America from Cape Cod to and including Delaware Bay and River. Although this claim would be made for many years to come, it is now certain that Hudson was actually not the "discoverer" of these regions. In the words of one of Hudson's biographers, Hudson River, Hudson Bay, and Hudson Straits had "repeatedly been visited and even drawn on maps and charts long before he set out on his voyages."⁠2 Such a statement could not be made about Delaware River and Bay, since there are no maps or charts prior to Hudson's visit on which this waterway is unmistakably delineated. It is likely — but by no means certain — that the explorer Verrazano in 1524 may have visited Delaware Bay,⁠3 but the so‑called "Velasco Map" of 1610 is the earliest map extant on which Delaware Bay is shown, and this was made after Hudson's voyage. Ironically the "Velasco Map" is an English, not a Dutch, map; furthermore, it is  p28 but a copy of the missing original.⁠4 The map proper was made in 1610 by an anonymous surveyor (possibly John Daniel); the copy is called the "Velasco Map" because it was acquired and sent to Spain by the Spanish ambassador in London, Alonzo de Velasco. By good fortune it was preserved in the Spanish National Archives.

Hudson's employment in the interests of the United Netherlands was solely a business proposition so far as the Dutch were concerned. Certain Dutch merchants, who in 1602 had formed a trade monopoly in Holland with their enormously wealthy East India Company and its six branches or Chambers, learned of Hudson's experience and daring and saw in him a man who might serve their commercial purposes. The directors of the Amsterdam Chamber invited him to come to Holland for an interview. After hearing the account of his two previous arctic voyages from his own lips and listening to his theories about the certainty of a northern route, they engaged him for his third voyage, pla­cing under his command de Halve Maen ("the Half Moon"), one of the Company's many vessels. His crew consisted of sixteen or eighteen Dutch and English sailors.⁠5

Hudson was in Holland for about four months conferring with the directors. Conversation was of necessity carried on through interpreters; Hudson's native tongue was English and he never mastered the Dutch language. A contract was drawn up, supplementary written instructions prepared, and the Half Moon rigged and provisioned for a voyage to what is now the Arctic Ocean in further search of a northeast route to the Orient. Negotiations  p29 were no sooner brought to a head and the contract readied for execution than intelligence reached the Amsterdam merchants that Pierre Jeannin, Minister of Henry IV of France, was making approaches to Hudson to enter French service on a similar mission. The brevity of the contract and its general tone suggests an element of haste on the part of his Dutch sponsors to forestall the efforts of their competitors to engage the navigator. The contract with Hudson was signed by only two members of the Amsterdam Chamber. Normally, the other Chambers would all have been represented before such an important instrument was made official, but the situation evidently demanded prompt action to block the French from engaging Hudson. The decisive action taken by the directors indicates that Hudson's abilities were considerable and that those with whom he came in contact recognized these qualities. The Amsterdam merchants were hard-headed business men, and they doubtless subjected Hudson to close questioning, and carefully examined his record, before engaging him.

On April 6, 1609, Hudson sailed under Dutch colors through the strait called the Texel into the open sea, never again to be seen in Holland. He returned from the voyage, to be sure, after an absence of about eight months, but pressure from a discontented crew took him to England instead of Holland. On November 7, 1609, he brought the Half Moon to anchor in the English port of Dartmouth. During his absence he had initially gone north as instructed toward Novaya Zemlya, two arctic islands now owned by the Soviet Union. There, on May 14, he found ice blocking his passage, whereupon, and contrary to what is known of his written instructions, he reversed his course and turned westerly toward Newfoundland, finally touching a point of what is now the Maine coast. Then he sailed south to Cape Cod, where he made a landing, and from there he continued south to the coast of present‑day Virginia and the mouth of Chesapeake Bay. He did not, however, stop at the Virginia  p30 settlement to see his countrymen, although he must have known exactly where they were. This would indicate he did not want his presence in American waters to be known to the English. From the Chesapeake he sailed to Delaware Bay and finally went up along the seacoast to the Hudson River, which he explored with sufficient thoroughness to convince him that it, like the shoal-filled Delaware, was not the passage to the Orient he sought.

After anchoring at Dartmouth on his return, he sent a message to Holland, notifying the directors of his presence in England and proposing to them that he "go out again for a search in the northwest, and that, besides the pay and what they already had in the ship, fifteen hundred florins should be laid out for an additional supply of provisions. He also wanted six or seven of his crew exchanged for others and their number raised to twenty. . . ."⁠6 In terms of attaining the stated objective, the voyage was a failure, but Hudson was now convinced more than ever that success lay through one of the waterways crossing the land mass of the New World.

Meanwhile, the English authorities forbade Hudson and the English members of the crew to return to Holland or to continue in Dutch service. Keen rivalry existed between England and Holland, not only to find new trade routes, but to control existing markets. The authorities saw the inconsistence of allowing a mariner with Hudson's experience to serve the interests of a principal competitor. Furthermore, Hudson now had very valuable information in his possession; viz., an account of his voyage, with navigation courses detailed and reference to the lands he had visited, as well as charts and maps which he had drawn.

Before departing, Hudson had contracted with the directors to "give over his journals, courses, charts and all that he encounters on the voyage, without holding anything back," and they were anxious to receive these data. But Hudson's detention  p31 in England prevented him from laying his accounts and reports before his employers. Evidently he was able to send a "brief summary" to Holland of his discoveries on the voyage, perhaps accompanied by a rough draft of a map, but it was well known in diplomatic circles that the Dutch had not received their full due from the Englishman. A Spanish diplomat wrote secretly to his king from Brussels on December 2, 1611, "Juan Hudson who some time ago was sent from there by our East India Company to the north, and has since arrived here in England and did not give a full report to his employers."⁠7

Hudson's journal eventually fell into Dutch hands, but it no doubt had also been scanned by the English. Moreover, the voyage must have been talked about by the English members of his crew and the details disclosed to English authorities long before the directors of the East India Company heard the full story. Since there is no record of Hudson's map in contemporary Dutch references, it is possible that the completed map never reached Holland.

Hudson made a final voyage to America in 1610, under English auspices, in the vessel Discovery — this is usually termed his "fourth" voyage. He was still searching for the northern passage. On this voyage his crew mutinied, setting Hudson, his son John, and seven others adrift in a small boat in what is now Hudson Bay. Neither he nor his companions were ever heard of again.⁠8

This, in brief, is the story of Henry Hudson's quest for the passage, beginning in 1607 with his appearance on the pages of history as a captain in the employ of the English Muscovy Company, and ending in 1610 with his tragic disappearance, again in English service. Between these two dates occurred his third  p32 voyage, an adventure which is extremely important in the history of New Netherland. In the very brief period of three years Henry Hudson played so prominent a role on the stage of world history that his name lives on as one of the great seventeenth‑century navigators and explorers. There is every reason to believe that his fame is well deserved; that within him burned the flame of a true explorer; that he was fired with zeal to broaden man's horizons; that his adventures influenced world history long after his death. He was not a mere adventurer, but a thoughtful student of geography well versed in the latest cartographical knowledge of his time.

Information about the third voyage must be obtained from the writings of others, since the whereabouts of Hudson's own account is still not known. In 1625, when he wrote his history of the New World, Johan de Laet had access to it, from which he quoted several passages verbatim, but none of these applies directly to Delaware Bay. De Laet describes in his own words Hudson's entry into Delaware Bay; the possibility exists that this information may be a paraphrase of Hudson's journal:

The logbook of the elderly, cynical Robert Juet of Limehouse, one of the mates on the Half Moon on two earlier voyages (and a ringleader in the mutiny on the Discovery), was first published in 1625. It contains an account of the third voyage, including the earliest description of Delaware Bay written in the English language. Juet wrote as follows:

 p34  So far as is now known, only two other contemporary published works made reference, all too briefly, to Hudson's third voyage: a 1611 supplement of a history by Emanuel van Meteren and the so‑called Hudson Tract of 1612‑1613, published by Hessel Gerritsz, the official cartographer of the East India Company.⁠11 Both appeared shortly after Hudson's fourth and final voyage when it was hoped he was still alive. The latter discloses an important item of information: during his negotiations with the directors of the Amsterdam Chamber, Hudson requested of Peter Plancius, Flemish theologian and an outstanding geographer, then living in Amsterdam, and received from him, a copy of the manuscript journal of George Weymouth containing an account of that Englishman's two New World voyages, one in 1602 and the other in 1605.

The van Meteren history also adds an item of significance: the author states that before Hudson departed on the third voyage he had come into possession of "letters and maps which a certain Captain [John] Smith had sent him from Virginia and by which he indicated to him a sea leading into the western ocean by the north of the southern English colony." Neither in John Smith's own writings nor in other contemporary sources is there positive evidence that Smith had been in direct personal contact with Hudson. However, such contact between the two men could have occurred prior to Smith's departure for Virginia, December 20, 1606. As of that time, which was three years prior to Hudson's negotiations with the Dutch, Smith had no data from personal experience since he had not yet been in America. Of course, the executives of the London Virginia Company were possessed with  p35 the thought of a northwest passage to the Indies via the New World. This idea intrigued Smith as it did Hudson, Thomas Hood, and other English navigators and geographers of the period, and with doubtless a subject of much discussion among navigators.⁠12

In 1608, Smith, who was then in Virginia, had forwarded to the Treasurer and Council of Virginia in London a letter and drafts of a "Mappe of the bay and rivers." On September 10, 1608, Don Pedro de Zuñiga sent secretly to Philip III of Spain from England a copy of a map of Virginia which had come into his possession through a leak in English communications. The historian Brown states that he is convinced Hudson had a copy of this chart with him before he went to Holland.⁠13 As van Meteren wrote, Smith may have been in communication with Hudson, and this could have occurred through messengers who returned from Virginia some time after Smith's arrival there in the spring of 1607, possibly Captain Newport or Captain Francis Nelson. One thing is certain: Smith could not have given Hudson any information about the Delaware — he evidently didn't know of its existence; never explored it; never showed it on his maps.

The authors have been unable to find in Smith's writings any positive statement of acquaintance­ship with Henry Hudson; this does not mean they were strangers. Smith makes the following reference to Hudson in his "The Description of New England," which suggests he held him in high regard: "Beyond whose bounds, America doth stretch many thousand miles; into the frozen partes whereof, one Master Hutson an English Mariner,  p36 did make the greatest discouerie of any Christian I know of, where he vnfortunately died."

Van Meteren was in a position to obtain accurate information; he was the Dutch consul in London and wrote in England his account of Hudson within two years after the third voyage. Some of the dates and places mentioned in his history could only have been obtained from a member of the crew, possibly from the first mate, a Dutchman. The fact that Hudson had in his possession communications and a map from Smith, as well as the Weymouth journal, all dealing with America, when he sailed from Holland, is of significance because his contract with the directors obliged him to sail north. Later in the voyage he turned the prow of the Half Moon westward toward the New World, which was not even mentioned in the contract. From the little that is known about the written instructions given him, which are also missing, nothing was said in them about his going to America. Indeed, there is reason to believe that these instructions expressly directed him to think of discovering no other routes except the one in the north, and if this could not be accomplished, another route would be the subject of consideration for a later voyage upon his return from the north.

Despite the contract and the written instructions, Hudson had prepared himself for a sortie in another direction. This is further illustrated by a note in the aforementioned Hudson Tract which states that he had left a copy of his map in Plancius' possession. On this map, we are told, Hudson had plotted a route to the west in pursuance of the theory that there was an opening through the lands of the New World to the southern seas. He apparently believed that entrance to this water passage was either immediately above the London Company Virginia colony, in the vicinity of the 40th parallel, or still farther north near the 60th parallel at the entrance of present Hudson Straits. His third voyage took him to the region of the 40th parallel without attaining  p37 his goal; his fourth and final voyage saw him entering the straits and bay which now bear his name, and there being cast adrift and deserted by a mutinous crew.

It can be argued that Hudson did not deliberately disobey the instructions or disregard the contract, but that when ice prevented his reaching Novaya Zemlya he exercised a shipmaster's discretionary power to employ his vessel and crew to the best advantage of the owners, consistent with the original aim of the voyage. The record of events proves that, with or without the knowledge and consent of his employers, Hudson was fully prepared for a voyage to the New World, even though his contract directed him to go elsewhere. The sequence of events suggests a number of questions for which there are no ready answers. Was Hudson guilty of deception by using the facilities of the Dutch to pursue his own theories of geography? Did the Dutch intend him to go to the New World, but, in order to conceal the true aims of the voyage from both the English and Spanish, deliberately phrase a misleading contract? Was the contract drawn up in good faith, but did the directors of the East India Company have an understanding with Hudson that permitted him to sail westward if he could not pass eastward through the arctic waters?

To Hudson's credit it must be said that he was mindful of the interests of his Dutch employers. The 1613 edition of the Hudson Tract states that he exchanged merchandise in the New World for animal pelts "in order that he might get some profit for our country and the directors." Does not the fact that Hudson had merchandise to trade with the Indians indicate that the directors had supplied him with goods for this purpose? Or would he have carried the same kind of merchandise for trade in the Orient in the event of his finding the northern passage? The disclosure by Hudson on his return that the lands he had visited abounded in fur‑bearing animals was of especial interest to the Dutch merchants.  p38 This was certainly one of the tangible accomplishments of the voyage, and within a short time certain of the merchants would organize companies for the sole purpose of exploiting this new avenue of commerce. Still later, a West India Company would be formed (patterned after the East India Company) which would turn its attention to the New World to exploit the fur trade and to lay down commercial colonies. This organization would use as a basis for its claim to lands in America the argument that it had inherited the "discoveries" from an English navigator in Dutch employ. For years to follow, the Dutch would refer to Hudson when pressed by other nations, particularly the English, to justify their commercial activities in America as though his third voyage gave them inalienable land rights.

At the time Hudson embarked from Holland no one realized that this would be the first step in the founding of a New Netherland in America. This was a consequence not planned or anticipated; in fact, had Hudson faithfully followed the letter of the written contract he would not have sailed westward to America but would have returned to Holland after encountering ice in northern waters. Thus, the United Netherlands' claim to New World lands might have been preëmpted by others; the Dutch fur trade would never have got its start; the New Netherland would never have existed, and an early chapter of America's political and cultural history, including that of the Delaware Valley, would have been entirely different.

* * * * *

The contract that follows, translated from a copy of the missing original, was found by Henry Cruse Murphy, United States minister at the Hague, during a search of the records of the Dutch East India Company in the Royal Archives. It was appended to an unpublished history of the company written by Pierre van Dam, legal counselor from 1652 until his death in 1706. Murphy translated the contract into English and published  p39 it at the Hague in 1859 in a booklet which is now rare. In 1909, on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the year of Hudson's third voyage, the booklet was repainted at the Hague under the title Henry Hudson in Holland, with notes and documentation by Wouter Nijhoff.⁠14 To date, Murphy's has been the only English translation of the contract, and the 1909 edition is almost as scarce in America as the 1859 printing.

It seems appropriate that the contract should be retranslated, reprinted, annotated, and reassessed in the light of information that has become available since 1909. The new English translation by Dunlap does not differ substantially from Murphy's, thus strengthening certain conclusions that Murphy drew, to which reference will be made. Any account of the Dutch settlements on the South River⁠15 — or on the Hudson for that matter — has its beginning with Hudson's voyage, and an examination of the contract is a logical introduction to the chapters to follow containing data on the New Netherland not available to Murphy at the time he made his translation. In the light of these newer data, the Hudson contract stands out in sharper perspective today than ever before. It is not the contract alone that is of such importance, but rather the series of events it set in motion, culminating in the Dutch settlements on the Hudson and Delaware Rivers.

---

The Author's Notes:

1 People of Dutch, Walloon, and Flemish or Belgian ancestry lived in the seventeen provinces called the New Netherlands or Low Countries. In 1576, the ten Walloon and Flemish provinces abandoned the struggle against Spain, and were thereafter known as the Spanish Netherlands. The remaining seven Dutch provinces, viz., Holland, Zeeland, Guelderland, Utrecht, Overyssel, Friesland, and Groningen, joined together by compact in what became known as the Union of Utrecht. They renounced Spanish allegiance and declared themselves an independent nation called the United Netherlands. The terms "Dutch" or "Netherlands" used in this volume apply to this united nation.

2 G. M. Asher, Henry Hudson, the Navigator, Hakluyt Society, London, 1860.

3 For discussion of Verrazano's discoveries, see Winsor, 4:6. A translation of Verrazano's account of his voyage appears in Colls. N. Y. Hist. Soc., 2nd Series, 1:41‑67.

4 Iconography, 2: C. Pl. 22 and C. Pl. 22A. A partial reproduction showing Delaware Bay appears in H. G. Richards, A Book of Maps of Cape May, Cape May N. J., 1954, p8. A full reproduction is in Alexander Brown, The Genesis of the United States, 1890, 1: opp. p456.

5 Lambrechtsen, who had access to West India Company papers, now missing, said there were sixteen in the crew (Colls. N. Y. Hist. Soc., 2nd Series, 1:85. Van Meteren, a contemporary of Hudson, said there were "18 or 20 men" in the crew.

6 Van Meteren in Narratives, Jameson, p8.

7 Iconography, 2:44.

8 For an account of the trial of the mutineers, see Llewelyn Powys, Henry Hudson, New York, 1928, p193.º

9 Excerpts from de Laet are quoted in Narratives, Jameson, pp36‑60.

10 Samuel Purchas, Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes, James Mac Lehose & Sons edition, Glasgow (pub. Macmillan Company, New York, 1906), 13:359‑360.

11 H. C. Murphy, Henry Hudson in Holland, with notes by Wouter Nijhoff, The Hague, 1909. Nijhoff introduces what he states is the original Latin version of that part of van Meteren's history relating to Hudson. There were at least two Dutch and two Latin editions of the history. For an English translation of pertinent passages, see Narratives, Jameson, pp6‑8. Excerpts from the Hudson Tract of Gerritsz are also given by Nijhoff.

12 In the Instructions of 1606, issued by the London Virginia Company, it is urged that the leaders seek out a safe port on a navigable river, and in choosing a river, "make choice of that which bendeth most toward the North-west for that way you shall soonest find the other sea." (Smith's Travels, Arber-Bradley, 1910 edition, 1:xxxiii).

13 Brown, op. cit., 1:183‑184; see also Ben C. McCary, John Smith's Map of Virginia, Williamsburg, 1957.

14 A. J. F. van Laer reviewed this publication in the American Historical Review, 15 (January, 1910), 418‑419. He stated without reservation that Murphy's 1859 booklet "stands as the best treatise on Hudson's third voyage and the circumstances which led to the exploration of the Hudson River." Another excellent discussion of Hudson and his voyage is John Meredith Read, Jr., A Historical Inquiry Concerning Henry Hudson, Albany 1866.

15 The Delaware was so called by the Dutch, not because it coursed south, "but because it is the most southerly river of New Netherland" (PA, 2nd Series, 5:151).

16 Dutch writers used several versions of Hudson's name, which often gave the impression that he was a Dutchman. De Laet, for example, in his 1625 history call the mariner Hendrick Hutson. "Ten year calculation" means that the charter permitted stockholders to withdraw capital at the end of a ten‑year term.

17 Hondius, a Fleming by birth, had previously lived in London and had learned to speak English. He was a capable artist and an engraver of maps. Perhaps he had met Hudson in England. In their discussions preparatory to the voyage, Hudson doubtless gave him information about his previous voyages which Hondius used on his map of the polar regions. It is ironical that no portrait or likeness of Hudson is known, although his friend Hondius had executed bronze statues and engraved pictures of many prominent persons of his time. Hondius also gave Hudson an English translation of a Dutch version of old Norse sailing directions to guide him; see B. F. De Costa, Sailing Directions of Henry Hudson Prepared for Use in 1608 from the Old Danish of Ivar Bardsen, Albany, Joel Munsell, 1869.

18 In Francis Burke Brandt's The Majestic Delaware, Philadelphia, 1929, p52, appears an engraving of 1604 showing a battle between six Spanish and seven Dutch vessels, one of which is believed to be the Half Moon. Brandt states that in 1909 a replica of the Half Moon, built by the people of Holland according to existing plans for her sister ship, the Hope, was presented to the Hudson-Fulton Celebration Committee.

19 Only two of the names of the crew on the third voyage are known, Robert Juet and John Colman. The latter, a mate on former voyages, was killed by the Indians in the Hudson River; cf. Chapter 5.

20 The two islands then called Nova Sembla, or Nova Zembla ("New Land"), or as they are called today by the Russians, Novaya Zemlya, contain respectively •20,000 and 15,000 square miles. They were uninhabited until about 1877. Hudson had landed here on his second voyage (Purchas, op. cit.).

21 Murphy translates this as, "and if it is possible return immediately, etc." We believe that "speedily" is more precise than "immediately," although "afterwards," "directly," "in the near future" could have been meant. The shade of meaning is important, because the words "if feasible" could have given Hudson certain freedom to explore elsewhere.

22 The sum of 800 guilders may seem inadequate when measured against today's standard of value, since it represents only about $320. However, in 1626, Isaac de Rasière, as secretary of the New Netherland colony, a position of importance and responsibility, was paid an annual salary of 100 guilders, plus a commission of one stiver (about 2c) for each beaver and otter skin that passed through his hands (van Laer, p191). Gerrit Fongersz, assistant commis, was paid 288 guilders a year (ibid., p199). In 1642, Johannes Megapolensis was paid 1000 florins (same as guilders) for three years employment as pastor at Rensselaerwick (Narratives, Jameson, p165). All things considered, the amount paid Hudson does not seem inconsiderable.

23 Hudson's wife's name was Katherine, and they had three sons, Oliver, the eldest, John, and Richard. Oliver was married and had a daughter at the time the contract was signed (Read, op. cit.). John was his father's companion on his travels, and on the fourth voyage was one of the party set adrift. Three years after Hudson's disappearance, Katherine applied to the East India Company to aid the youngest son, Richard. He was employed and rose high in the Company's service. He died in 1648, leaving several children (Powys, op. cit., p187).

24 The amount of the promised award is not stated, but a bounty of 80,000 livres was offered by the States General to the first discoverer of the northeast passage (see Jeannin's letter, Murphy, op. cit.).

25 This clause was apparently inserted to prevent Hudson from accepting employment in French or any other service provided the Dutch wanted his service to continue.

26 Dirck van Os was one of the organizers of the first Dutch expedition to the East Indies. He, Jan Poppe, and seven other merchants were associated in a firm called the Company of Foreign Parts, which had established a fort at Amboyna before the Dutch East India Company was organized. An engraved portrait of van Os appears as a frontispiece in the original Murphy edition of 1859. Van Os, Poppe, and Arent ten Grotenhuys were commissioned to write the contract (Murphy, op. cit., p142).

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