Henry Hudson | Page 4

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."
[Illustration: APPARATUS FOR CORRECTING ERRORS OF THE
COMPASS. 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 Prickett, 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 illustrious 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 passage by the North Pole to Japan 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