From the description of Allefonsce, it is evident that the “great fresh-water river” is the Hudson, described five years before by Oviedo, out of the Map of Chaves, as the River of St. Anthony, while the “island of sand” was Sandy Hook.[9]
Turning from the manuscript of Allefonsce to the printed cosmography, we discover that the latter is only an abridgement, it being simply said that after leaving Norombega, the coast turns to the south-southeast to a cape which is high land (Cape Cod), and has a great island and three or four small isles. New York and the entire coast south have no mention. The manuscript, however, suffices for our purpose and proves that the coast was well known.
It has been already stated that it would be impossible to say when the first Englishman visited this region; yet in the year 1567-8, evidence goes to prove that one David Ingram, an Englishman, set ashore with a number of companions in the Bay of Mexico, journeyed on foot across the country to the river St. John, New Brunswick, and sailed thence for France. Possibly he was half crazed by his sufferings, yet there can be little doubt that he crossed the continent and passed through the State of New York, traveling on the Indian paths and crossing many broad rivers. If the story is true, Ingram is the first Englishman known to have visited these parts.
In April, 1583, Captain Carline wrote out propositions for a voyage “to the latitude of fortie degrees or thereabouts, of that hithermost part of America,” and, in 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert had this region under consideration, Hakluyt observing on the margin of his “Divers Voyages” that this was “the Countrey of Sir H. G. Uoyage.” Hays says in his account of the region, that “God hath reserved the same to be reduced unto Christian civility by the English nation” and, also that “God would raise him up an instrument to effect the same.” All this is very interesting in connection with English claims and enterprise. In the same year the French were active on the coast, and one Stephen Bellinger, of Rouen, sailed to Cape Breton, and thence coasted southwesterly six hundred miles “and had trafique with the people in tenne or twelve places.” Thus the French were moving from both the north and the south towards this central region; but we cannot say how far south Bellinger actually came, as there is nothing to indicate his mode of computation. It is not improbable that he knew and profited by the rich fur-trade of the Hudson.
In 1598 and there about, we find it asserted that the Dutch were upon the ground, for, in the year 1644, the Committee of the Dutch West India Company, known as the General Board of Accounts, to whom numerous documents and papers have been intrusted, made a lengthy report, which they begin as follows: “New Netherland, situated in America, between English Virginia and New England, extending from the South [Delaware] river, lying in 34½ degrees to Cape Malabat, in the latitude of 41½ degrees, was first frequented by the inhabitants of this country in the year 1598, and especially by those of the Greenland Company, but without making any fixed settlements, only as a shelter in winter. For which they built on the North [Hudson] and the South [Delaware] rivers there two little forts against the attacks of the Indians.” Mr. Brodhead says that the statement “needs confirmation.” Still it is somewhat easy to understand why a statement of this kind coming from such a body should require confirmation; but the Committee had no reason for misstating the facts, and ought to have been accurately informed. Yet if confirmation is insisted upon, we are prepared to give it, such as it is, from an English and, in fact, an unexpected source. Our authority is no less a personage than Governor Bradford, of Plymouth Colony, whose office and inclinations led him to challenge all unfounded claims that might be put forth by the Dutch. Nevertheless, writing to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, the father of New England colonization, who likewise was hostile to the pretensions of the Dutch, Bradford says, under date of June 15, 1627, that the Dutch on the Hudson “have used trading there this six-or-seven-and-twenty years, but have begun to plant of later time, and now have reduced their trade to some order.” Bradford lived in Holland in 1608, and had abundant opportunities for knowing everything relating to Dutch enterprise. It is perfectly well known that the Plymouth Colonists of 1620 intended to settle at the Hudson, though circumstances directed them to the spot pointed out by Dermer in 1619, when in the service of Gorges. Thus, about seventeen years before the Committee of 1644 reported, Governor Bradford, an unwilling, but every way competent and candid witness, carried back the Dutch occupancy, under the Greenland Company, to the year 1600. Besides, on the English map of the voyage of Linschoten, 1598, there is a dotted trail from the latitude of the Hudson, 40° N. to the St. Lawrence, showing that the route was one known and traveled at that time. It is evident, from a variety of considerations, that both the Dutch and French resorted to the Hudson at this period to engage in the trade. Linschoten was one of the best informed of Dutch writers, and probably understood the significance of the representation upon his map. The probability is that this route was known a long time before, and that it may be indicated by Cartier, who, when in Canada, 1534, was told of a route by the way of the river Richelieu, to a country a month’s distance southward, supposed to produce cinnamon and cloves, which Cartier thought the route to Florida. Champlain, writing in Canada, says that, in the year previous, certain French who lived on the Hudson were taken prisoners when out on an expedition against the northern Indians, and were liberated, on the ground that they were friends of the French in Canada. This agrees with the report of the Labadists, who taught that a French child, Jean Vigné, was born here in 1614. Evidently the French had been on the ground in force for some years, and were able to make expeditions against the savages. Very likely the French were here quite as early as the Hollanders.
There seems to be, however, another curious piece of confirmation, which comes from the writings of the celebrated Father Isaac Jogues, who was in New Amsterdam during the year 1646. In a letter written on August 3d of that year, he says that the Dutch were here, “about fifty years” before, while they began to settle permanently only about “twenty years” since. The latter statement is sufficiently correct, as 1623 was the year when a permanent colony was established by the Dutch. The former statement carries us back to the date of the “Greenland Company.”
So far as present evidence goes, it is perhaps unnecessary to say anything more in vindication of the statement of the Dutch Committee of 1644, claiming that representatives of the Greenland Company wintered here in 1598. Nevertheless, as a matter of interest, and to show how well the Hudson was known at this time by both Dutch and English, we may quote from the English translation of the Dutch narrative of Linschoten, which clearly describes the coast. He says: “There is a countrey under 44 degrees and a halfe, called Baccalaos.” This country of Baccalaos reached nine hundred miles, that is, from the Cape de Baccalaos [Cape Race] to Florida.
The distances are given approximately, of course, by Linschoten, being on the decimal system, but they distinctly mark the principal divisions of the coast and fix the fact beyond question that the Hudson was perfectly well known.
On the general subject it may be said, that the record of the “Greenland Company” is not satisfactory, yet the word “Greenland” at that time had a very general use, and all that the Committee of Accounts may have meant by the phrase was, that a company or association engaged in the fur and fish trade, which for centuries, even, had been prosecuted at the north, had sent some ships to this region in 1598. There is certainly nothing unreasonable in this supposition, the coast being so well known. Various adventurers of whom we know nothing doubtless came and went unobserved, being in no haste to publish the source from which they derived such a profitable trade in peltries. The Committee of Accounts either falsified deliberately or followed some old tradition. Why may not a tradition be true?
We turn next to examine a map recently brought to notice and which is of unique value. Formerly the map usually pointed out as the oldest seventeenth century map of this region was the Dutch “Figurative” Map, which was found by Mr. Brodhead in the Dutch archives. We have now, however, an earlier map of 1610, which was prepared from English data for James I., a copy finding its way to Philip III., by Velasco, March 22, 1611. Sandy Hook, though without name, is delineated about as it appears in later maps, while Long Island is shown as a part of the main, with no indication of the Sound, though Cape Cod and the neighboring islands are well delineated, and Verrazano’s Island of “Luisa” appears as “Cladia,” the mother of Francis I. Clearly at this time neither Block nor any other Dutch navigator had passed through Hell Gate into Long Island Sound.