From the standpoint of the East India Company, Hudson's quest upon our coast and into our river—the most fruitful of all his adventurings, since the planting of our city was the outcome of it—was a failure. Hessel Gerritz (1613) wrote: "All that he did in the west in 1609 was to exchange his merchandise for furs in New France." And Hudson himself, no doubt, rated his great accomplishment—on which so large a part of his fame rests enduringly—as a mere waste of energy and of time. I hope that he knows about, and takes a comforting pride in—over there in the Shades—the great city which owes its founding to that seemingly bootless voyage!
[4] From Mr. Brodhead's "History of the State of New York" I reproduce the following note, that tells of the little "Half Moon's" dismal ending: "The subsequent career of the 'Half Moon' may, perhaps, interest the curious. The small 'ship book,' before referred to, which I found, in 1841, in the Company's archives at Amsterdam, besides recording the return of the yacht on the 15th of July, 1610, states that on the 2d of May, 1611, she sailed, in company with other vessels, to the East Indies, under the command of Laurens Reael; and that on the 6th of March, 1615, she was 'wrecked and lost' on the island of Mauritius."
IX
What happened to Hudson when he reached Dartmouth has been recorded; and, broadly, why it happened. Hessel Gerritz wrote that "he ... returned safely to England, where he was accused of having undertaken a voyage to the detriment of his own country." Van Meteren wrote: "A long time elapsed, through contrary winds, before the Company could be informed of the arrival of the ship [the "Half Moon">[ in England. Then they ordered the ship and crew to return [to Holland] as soon as possible. But when they were going to do so, Henry Hudson and the other Englishmen of the ship were commanded by government there not to leave England but to serve their own country." Obviously, international trade jealousies were at the root of the matter. Conceivably, as I have stated, the Muscovy Company, a much interested party, was the prime mover in the seizure of Hudson out of the Dutch service. But we only know certainly that he was seized out of that service: with the result that he and Fate came to grips again; and that Fate's hold on him did not loosen until Death cast it off.
Hudson's fourth, and last, voyage was not made for the Muscovy Company; but those chiefly concerned in promoting it were members of that Company, and two of them were members of the first importance in the direction of its affairs. The adventure was set forth, mainly, by Sir Dudley Digges, Sir Thomas Smith, and Master John Wolstenholme—who severally are commemorated in the Arctic by Smith's Sound, Cape Digges, and Cape Wolstenholme—and the expedition got away from London in "the barke 'Discovery'" on April 17, 1610.
Purchas wrote a nearly contemporary history of this voyage that included three strictly contemporary documents: two of them certainly written aboard the "Discovery"; and the third either written aboard the ship on the voyage home, as is possible, or not long after the ship had arrived in England.
The first of these documents is "An Abstract of the Journal of Master Henry Hudson." This is Hudson's own log, but badly mutilated. It begins on the day of sailing, April 17th, and ends on the ensuing August 3d. There are many gaps in it, and the block of more than ten months is gone. The missing portions, presumably, were destroyed by the mutineers.
The second document is styled by Purchas: "A Note Found in the Deske of Thomas Wydowse, Student in the Mathematickes, hee being one of them who was put into the Shallop." Concerning this poor "student in the mathematickes" Prickett testified before the court: "Thomas Widowes was thrust out of the ship into the shallop, but whether he willed them take his keys and share his goods, to save his life, this examinate knoweth not." Practically, this is an assurance that he did make such an offer; and his despairing resistance to being outcast is implied also in the pathetic note following his name in the Trinity House list of the abandoned ones: "put away in great distress." There is nothing to show how he happened to be aboard the "Discovery," nor who he was. Possibly he may have been a son of the "Richard Widowes, goldsmith," who is named in the second charter (1609) of the Virginia Company. His "Note"—cited in full later on—exhibits clearly the evil conditions that obtained aboard the "Discovery"; and especially makes clear that Juet's mutinous disposition began to be manifested at a very early stage of the voyage.