H. Gerritsz seized the opportunity, occasioned by the interest in Hudson’s voyage and his fate, to promulgate his views of the greater chance of finding a northwest passage to India, rather than a northeast one; and in the little collection of tracts edited by him, produced first in the Dutch edition of 1612, he gives but a very brief narrative of Hudson’s voyage, which is printed on the reverse of the map showing his discoveries,—the maps, which he gives, both of the world and of the north parts of America being the chief arguments of his book, the latter map being also reproduced by Asher. The original Dutch edition is extremely scarce, but four or five copies being known. A reproduction of it in 1878 by Kroon, through the photo-lithographic process, consists of 200 copies, and contains also, under the general title of Detectio freti Hudsoni, a reproduction of the Latin edition of 1613, with an English version by F. J. Millard, and an Introductory Essay on the origin and design of this collection, which, besides Gerritsz’s tract, includes others by Massa and De Quir. Sabin’s Dictionary, viii. 33,489; Asher’s Hudson, p. 267.
In the enlarged Latin translation, ordinarily quoted as the Detectio freti Hudsoni of 1612, Gerritsz inverted the order of the several tracts, giving more prominence to Hudson, as May’s expedition to the northeast had in the mean time returned unsuccessful. Huth Catalogue, ii. 744, shows better than Brunet, iii. 358, the difference between this 1612 and the 1613 editions. H. C. Murphy’s Henry Hudson in Holland. The Carter-Brown Catalogue, ii. 131, gives this little quarto the following title: Descriptio ac delineatio Geographica detectionis freti sive, Transitus ad Occasum, suprà terras Americanas in Chinam atq: Iaponem ducturi, Recens investigati ab M. Henrico Hudsono Anglo, etc., and cites the world in two hemispheres as among the three maps which it contains. A copy in Mr. Henry C. Murphy’s collection has a second title, which shows that Vitellus and not Gerritsz made the Latin translation. This other title reads: Exemplar Libelli ... super Detectione quintæ Orbis terrarum partiscui Australiæ Incognitæ nomen est: item Relatio super Freto per M. Hudsonum Anglum quæsito, ac in parte dedecte supra Provincias Terræ Novæ, novæque Hispaniæ, Chinam, et Cathaiam versus ducturo ... Latine versa ab R. Vitellio, Amstelodami ex officina Hessilii Gerardi. Anno 1612. Speaking of this little tract and the share which Gerritsz had in it, Asher, in his Henry Hudson the Navigator, says, “Around it grew in a very remarkable manner the most interesting of the many collections of voyages and travels printed in the early part of the sixteenth century.”
In a second Latin edition, 1613, Gerritsz again remodelled his additions, and gave a further account of May’s voyage. Huth Catalogue, ii. 744; Carter-Brown Catalogue, ii. 152; Tièle, Mémoire bibliographique, 1867, no. 153; Muller’s Essai d’une bibliographie néerlando-russe, 1859, p. 71.
To some copies of this second edition Gerritsz added a short appendix of two leaves, Sig. G, which is reprinted in the Kroon reproduction, and serves to make some bibliographers reckon a third Latin edition. There are in the Lenox Library six copies of the original, representing the different varieties of the Dutch and Latin texts. One of the copies in Harvard College Library has these two additional leaves, which are also in the copy in the Carter-Brown Library, whose Catalogue, ii. 152, says that the fac-simile reprint by Muller must have been made from a copy with different cuts and ornamental capitals and tail-pieces, as these are totally different from those of the Carter-Brown copy. The map of the world was repeated in this edition.
The original Dutch text has been reprinted in several later collections of voyages, published in Holland. The English translation in Purchas is incomplete and incorrect; and that of Millard, as well as the English generally in the Kroon reprint, could have been much bettered by a competent native proof-reader.
German versions appeared in De Bry and in Megiser’s Septentrio novantiquus, p. 438, both in 1613; and in 1614 in Hulsius, part xii.
There is a French translation in the Receuil d’Arrests of 1720.