Lights and Shadows of New York Life | Page 5

placing her head down stream; and this fact, coupled with
the assurances of the natives who came out to the Half Moon in their
canoes, that the river flowed from far beyond the mountains, convinced
him that the stream flowed from ocean to ocean, and that by sailing on
he would at length reach India--the golden land of his dreams.
Thus encouraged, he pursued his way up the river, gazing with
wondering delight upon its glorious scenery, and listening with
gradually fading hope to the stories of the natives who flocked to the
water to greet him. The stream narrowed, and the water grew fresh, and
long before he anchored below Albany, Hudson had abandoned the
belief that he was in the Northwest passage. From the anchorage, a
boat's crew continued the voyage to the mouth of the Mohawk. Hudson
was satisfied that he had made a great discovery--one that was worth
fully as much as finding the new route to India. He was in a region
upon which the white man's eye had never rested before, and which
offered the richest returns to commercial ventures. He hastened back to
New York Bay, took possession of the country in the name of Holland,
and then set sail for Europe. He put into Dartmouth in England, on his
way back, where he told the story of his discovery. King James I.
prevented his continuing his voyage, hoping to deprive the Dutch of its
fruits; but Hudson took care to send his log-book and all the ship's
papers over to Holland, and thus placed his employers in full
possession of the knowledge he had gained. The English at length
released the Half Moon, and she continued her voyage to the Texel.

The discovery of Hudson was particularly acceptable to the Dutch, for
the new country was rich in fur-bearing animals, and Russia offered a
ready market for all the furs that could be sent there. The East India
Company, therefore, refitted the Half Moon after her return to Holland,
and despatched her to the region discovered by Hudson on a fur trading
expedition, which was highly successful. Private persons also
embarked in similar enterprises, and within two years a prosperous and
important fur trade was established between Holland and the country
along the Mauritius, as the great river discovered by Hudson had been
named, in honor of the Stadtholder of Holland. No government took
any notice of the trade for a while, and all persons were free to engage
in it.
Among the adventurers employed in this trade was one Adrian Block,
noted as one of the boldest navigators of his time. He made a voyage to
Manhattan Island in 1614, then the site of a Dutch trading post, and had
secured a cargo of skins with which he was about to return to Holland,
when a fire consumed both his vessel and her cargo, and obliged him to
pass the winter with his crew on the island. They built them log huts on
the site of the present Beaver street, the first houses erected in New
York, and during the winter constructed a yacht of sixteen tons, which
Block called the Onrust--the "Restless." In this yacht Block made many
voyages of discovery, exploring the coasts of Long Island Sound, and
giving his name to the island near the eastern end of the sound. He soon
after went back to Europe.
Meanwhile, a small settlement had clustered about the trading post and
the huts built by Block's shipwrecked crew, and had taken the name of
New Amsterdam. The inhabitants were well suited to become the
ancestors of a great nation. They were mainly Dutch citizens of a
European Republic, "composed of seven free, sovereign States"--made
so by a struggle with despotism for forty years, and occupying a
territory which their ancestors had reclaimed from the ocean and
morass by indomitable labor. It was a republic where freedom of
conscience, speech, and the press were complete and universal. The
effect of this freedom had been the internal development of social
beauty and strength, and vast increment of substantial wealth and

power by immigration. Wars and despotisms in other parts of Europe
sent thousands of intelligent exiles thither, and those free provinces
were crowded with ingenious mechanics, and artists, and learned men,
because conscience was there undisturbed, and the hand and brain were
free to win and use the rewards of their industry and skill. Beautiful
cities, towns, and villages were strewn over the whole country, and
nowhere in Europe did society present an aspect half as pleasing as that
of Holland. Every religious sect there found an asylum from
persecution and encouragement to manly effort, by the kind respect of
all. And at the very time when the charter of the West India Company
was