Hudson’s Third Voyage 1609, Discovery of Hudson River
Near Anthony’s Nose, the wind is compressed with the force of a huge bellows, and the ship anchored in shelter from the eddying gale. Signal fires had rallied the mountain tribes. As the ship lay wind-bound on the night of October 1, the Indians floating about in their dugouts grew daring. One climbed the rudder and stole Juet’s clothes through the cabin window. Juet shot him dead red-handed in the act, and gave the alarm to the rest of the crew. With a splash, the Indians rushed for shore, paddling and swimming, but a boat load of white men pursued to regain the plunder. A swimmer caught Juet’s boat to upset it. The ship’s cook slashed the Indian’s arm off, and he sank like stone. It was now dark, but Hudson slipped down stream away from danger. Near Harlem River the next afternoon, a hundred hostiles were seen ambushed on the east bank. Led by the guides who had escaped going up stream, two canoes glided under The Half Moon’s rudder and let fly a shower of arrows. Much as Hudson must have disliked to open his powder magazines to mutineers, arms were handed out. A spatter of musketry drove the Indians a gunshot distant. Three savages fell. Then there was a rally of the Indians to shoot from shore near what is now Riverside Drive. Hudson trained his cannon on them. Two more fell. Persistent as hornets, out they sallied in canoes. This time Hudson let go every cannon on that side. Twelve savages were killed.
The Half Moon then glided past Hopoghan (Hoboken) to safer anchorage on the open bay. It was October 4th before she passed through the Narrows to the Sea. Here, the mutiny reached a climax. Hudson could no more ignore threats. The Dutch refused to steer the ship to Holland, where punishment would await them. Juet advised wintering in Newfoundland, where there would be other Englishmen, but Hudson allayed discontent by promising not to send the guilty men to Holland if they would steer the ship to England; and to Dartmouth in Devon she came on November 7, 1609.
What was Hudson’s surprise to learn he had become an enormously important personage! The Muscovy Gentlemen of London did not purpose allowing his knowledge of the passage toward the Pole to pass into the service of their rivals, the Dutch. Hudson was forbidden to leave his own country and had to send his report to Holland through Van Meteren, the consul. The Half Moon returned to Holland and was wrecked a few years later on her way to the East Indies. It is to be hoped Hudson’s crew went down with her. The odd thing was—while Hudson was valued for his knowledge of the Polar regions, the discovery of Hudson River added not one jot to his fame. In fact, one historian of that time declares: “Hudson achieved nothing at all in 1609. All he did was to exchange merchandise for furs.” Nevertheless, the merchants of Amsterdam were rigging out ships to establish a trading factory on the entrance of that newly discovered river. Such was the founding of New York. Money bags sneer at the dreamer, but they are quick to transmute dreams into gold, though three hundred years were to pass before any of the gold drawn from his dreams was applied toward erecting to Hudson a memorial.
CHAPTER IV
1610
HUDSON’S FOURTH VOYAGE
Three years almost to a day from the time he set out to pursue his Phantom Dream along an endless Trail, Hudson again set sail for the mystic North. This time the Muscovy Gentlemen did not send him as a company, but three members of that company—Smith, Wolstenholme and Digges—supplied him with the bark, The Discovery. In his crew of twenty were several of his former seamen, among whom was the old mate, Juet. Provisions were carried for a year’s cruise. One Coleburne went as adviser; but what with the timidity of the old crew and the officious ignorance of the adviser stirring up discontent by fault-finding before the boat was well out of Thames waters—Hudson was obliged to pack Coleburne back on the first craft met home-bound. The rest of the crew comprised the usual proportion of rogues impressed against their will for a voyage, which regular seamen feared.