Hudson Tercentenary
AN HISTORICAL RETROSPECT
REGARDING THE OBJECT AND QUEST OF AN ALL-WATER ROUTE FROM EUROPE TO INDIA; THE OBSTACLES IN THE WAY; AND ALSO HUDSON’S VOYAGE TO AMERICA IN 1609 AND SOME OF ITS RESULTS
BY
FRANK CHAMBERLAIN
ALBANY
J. B. LYON COMPANY, PRINTERS
1909
COPYRIGHT 1909
By Frank Chamberlain
HUDSON TERCENTENARY
Let us turn back the pages of history and take a cursory view of what gave the wonderful stimulus to maritime adventure; and what so long delayed the discovery of the western world by the Europeans.
Civilized mankind scarcely secures the necessaries of life before the desire for the luxuries springs up and is cherished.
For untold centuries all of eastern Asia forbade the entrance of foreigners into its territories. To Europeans it was an unknown land.
In the year 326 B. C. Alexander the Great marched his conquering Macedonian legions against the myriads of Asiatic troops, subdued them and marched on to the Hindus, where he “improvised a fleet” for his army, sailed down that river, called Sacred, to the Indian ocean. Astonished at the wealth of the country and having amassed precious gems and hundreds of millions of dollars he returned loaded with his treasures up the Euphrates, to that most wonderful city of ancient times, Babylon, where he died. He opened the western doors of India, which exposed its great wealth, excited the avarice of the small number of Greeks who knew of his exploits; and for centuries it was the Europeans’ Eldorado, which ultimately, by its luxury and effeminacy, undermined western manhood and led to the decay of Greece and Rome.