Henry Hudson | Page 7

according to the reasons of
his science, and from the information given him, ... that there must be
in the northern parts a passage corresponding to the one found near the
south pole by Magellan.... The Englishman also reports that, having
been to the north as far as 80 degrees, he has found that the more
northwards he went, the less cold it became."
[Illustration: "HOW THE EARTH IS ROUND" FAC-SIMILE OF
PAGE "THE ARTE OF NAVIGATION" LONDON. EDITION 1596]
Hudson's name is not mentioned by Jeannin, but as no other navigator
had been so far north as 80°, there can be no doubt as to who "the
Englishman" was. The letter goes on to urge that the French king
should undertake the "glorious enterprise" of searching for a northerly
passage to the Indies, and that he should undertake it openly: as "the
East India Company will not have even a right to complain, because the
charter granted to them by the States General authorizes them to sail
only around the Cape of Good Hope, and not by the north." But Jeannin
adds that Le Maire "does not dare to speak about it to any one, because
the East India Company fears above everything to be forestalled in this
design."
Precisely that fear on the part of the East India Company did undercut
the French envoy's plans. In a postscript to his letter he adds: "This
letter having been terminated, and I being ready to send it to your
Majesty, Le Maire has again written to me.... Some members of the
East India Company, who had been informed that the Englishman had

secretly treated with him, had become afraid that I might wish to
employ him for the discovery of the passage. For this reason they have
again treated with him about his undertaking such an expedition in the
course of the present year. The directors of the Amsterdam Chamber
have written to the other chambers of the same Company to request
their approval; and should the others refuse, the Amsterdam Chamber
will undertake the expedition at their own risk."
In point of fact, the other chambers did refuse (although, before Hudson
actually sailed, they seem to have ratified the agreement made with
him); and the Amsterdam Chamber, single-handed, did set forth the
voyage.
In view of the fact that the French project in a way was realized, a
curiously subtle interest attaches to Jeannin's showing of how narrow
were the chances by which Hudson missed being taken into the French
service, and was taken into that of the Dutch. A French ship, under the
command of a captain whose name has not been preserved, did sail for
the North--almost precisely a month later than Hudson's sailing--on
May 5, 1609. Beyond the bare fact that such a voyage was made,
nothing is known about it: whence the inference is a reasonable one
that it produced no new discoveries. But suppose that Hudson had
commanded; and, so commanding, had not sailed that unknown
captain's useless course but had brought his French ship into what now
are our bay and our river; and that the French, not the Dutch, had
founded the city here that now is--but by those hair-wide chances might
not have been--New York?

V
Mr. Henry C. Murphy--to whose searchings in the archives of Holland
we owe so much--found at The Hague a manuscript history of the East
India Company, written by P. van Dam in the seventeenth century, in
which a copy of Hudson's contract with the Company is preserved. The
contract reads as follows:

"On this eighth of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand six
hundred and nine, the Directors of the East India Company of the
Chamber of Amsterdam of the ten years reckoning of the one part, and
Master Henry Hudson, Englishman, assisted by Jodocus Hondius[1], of
the other part, have agreed in manner following, to wit: That the said
Directors shall in the first place equip a small vessel or yacht of about
thirty lasts [60 tons] burden, well provided with men, provisions and
other necessaries, with which the above named Hudson shall, about the
first of April, sail in order to search for a passage by the north, around
the north side of Nova Zembla, and shall continue thus along that
parallel until he shall be able to sail southward to the latitude of sixty
degrees. He shall obtain as much knowledge of the lands as can be
done without any considerable loss of time, and if it is possible return
immediately in order to make a faithful report and relation of his
voyage to the Directors, and to deliver over his journals, log-books, and
charts, together with an account of everything whatsoever which shall
happen to him during the voyage