The passage across the Atlantic was without any incident worthy of record. The vessel was fortunate in encountering no gales or rough seas. The leisure of Groseilliers and Captain Gillam was employed chiefly in discussing the most advantageous landfall, and in drawing up plans for a settlement for fort-building and for trade with the tribes. By the 4th of August they sighted Resolution Isle, at the entrance of Hudson's Straits. They continued fearlessly on their course. During their progress the shores on either hand were occasionally visible; and once a squall compelled them to go so near land as to descry a band of natives, the like of whom for bulk and singularity of costume, Groseilliers and the captain had never clapped eyes upon. They were right in judging these to be Esquimaux.
The "Nonsuch" in the Bay.
On the seventh day of their passage amongst those narrow channels and mountains of ice which had chilled the enthusiasm and impeded the progress of several daring navigators before them, the forty-two souls on board the Nonsuch were rewarded with a sight of Hudson's Bay.[9]
Already, and long before the advent of the Nonsuch, Hudson's Bay had a history and a thrilling one.
In 1576 Sir Martin Frobisher made his first voyage for the discovery of a passage to China and Cathay by the north-west, discovering and entering a strait to which he gave his name. In the following year he made a second voyage, "using all possible means to bring the natives to trade, or give him some account of themselves, but they were so wild that they only studied to destroy the English." Frobisher remained until winter approached and then returned to England. A further voyage of his in 1578-79 made no addition to the knowledge already derived.
Six years later Captain John Davis sailed from Dartmouth, and in that and succeeding voyages reached the Arctic circle through the straits bearing his name. He related having found an open sea tending westward, which he hoped might be the passage so long sought for; but the weather proved too tempestuous, and, the season being far advanced, he likewise returned to a more hospitable clime. After this there were no more adventures in this quarter of the world until 1607, when Captain Hudson explored as far north as 80 degrees 23 minutes. On his third voyage, two years later, he proceeded a hundred leagues farther along the strait, and arriving at the Bay resolved to winter there.
Hudson was preparing for further exploration when Henry Green, a profligate youth, whom he had taken into his house and preserved from ruin by giving him a berth on board without the knowledge of the owners, conspired with one Robert Ivett, the mate, whom Captain Hudson had removed, to mutiny against Hudson's command. These turned the captain, with his young son John, a gentleman named Woodhouse, who had accompanied the expedition, together with the carpenter and five others, into a long-boat, with hardly any provisions or arms. The inhuman crew suffered all the hardships they deserved, for in a quarrel they had with the savages Green and two of his companions were slain. As for Ivett, who had made several voyages with Hudson, and was the cause of all the mischief, he died on the passage home. Habbakuk Prickett, one of the crew, who wrote all the account we have of the latter part of the voyage, was a servant of Sir Dudley Diggs. Probably his master's influence had something to do with his escape from punishment.
Henry Hudson's fate.
This was the last ever seen or heard, by white men, of Henry Hudson, and there is every likelihood that he and the others drifted to the bottom of the Bay and were massacred by the savages.
In the year of Hudson's death Sir Thomas Button, at the instigation of that patron of geographical science, Prince Henry, pursued the dead hero's discoveries. He passed Hudson's Straits and, traversing the Bay, settled above two hundred leagues to the south-west from the straits, bestowing upon the adjacent region the name of New Wales. Wintering in the district afterwards called Port Nelson, Button made an investigation of the boundaries of this huge inland sea, from him named Button's Bay.