1610.]

HUDSON FROZEN IN.

45

whirling sea, he penetrated into Hudson's Bay, exulting in the belief that he had found the longsought passage to the Pacific. Doomed to disappointment by reaching at length the southern limit of the bay, he shaped his course northward. Difficulties occurring soon after between himself and his crew, made it necessary for him to cashier both the mate and the boatswain, and advance others to their offices. Disheartened and perplexed at finding himself embayed, he wasted the remainder of the summer in unavailing efforts to discover an outlet to this great inland sea. Sailing to and fro, and with not more than six months' provisions on board, the season became so far advanced, that on the 1st of November, he was compelled to moor his ship in a small cove, where, in ten days, it was completely frozen in. Here they remained, arctic prisoners, until June, 1611.

In the mean time, the difficulties between Hudson and his crew had increased. For the first few months they subsisted principally on wild fowl; but when these were gone, many of the men fell sick, and the others, emaciated by want of food, searched the surrounding country, and ate with avidity even the most loathsome things to appease their hunger. At the breaking up of the ice, they received, for the first time, a visit from one of the natives, who, after obtaining some presents, promised to return in a few days; but

although anxiously expected, he never came back. Seeing the woods on fire to the south and southwest, Hudson embarked in the shallop with eight men, in the hope of obtaining such supplies from the Indians as would enable him to prosecute his voyage. Disappointed in his endeavours to come up with them, for they fled before him, he returned disconsolately to his vessel, and prepared to leave the dreary and inhospitable region which he had wasted seven months in examining.

Dividing among his crew the last remaining bread, amounting only to a pound for each man, he wept while he gave it to them. Quitting his winter harbour about the middle of June, he steered north-west from the mouth of the bay; but meeting with ice, and baffled by contrary winds, was soon after compelled to come to an anchor.

During the week he was thus detained, the discontent which had for a long time existed among his crew, broke out into open mutiny. Headed by his deposed mate, Henry Green, the mutineers, at daybreak on the 21st of June, seized Hudson, his youthful son, and six seamen, and thrust them into the shallop. A fine moral incident now occurred. Philip Staffe, the carpenter, -a man of a brave, hopeful spirit, and generally beloved-after attempting in vain to turn the conspirators from their purpose, determined, in opposition to their wishes, to share the fate of his commander, whatever that fate might be. The

1610.]

HUDSON ABANDONED.

47

wind proving favourable about this time, the anchor was weighed, and as soon as the ship, having at her stern the shallop, had become partially free from the surrounding ice, the rope was cut, and Hudson and his eight companions were mercilessly abandoned, to be swallowed up by the waters of that wild arctic bay which they were the first to discover, to meet a lingering death by starvation, or to fall victims to the fury of the savages, whose fires had been discovered to the south-west. Not one of them was ever heard of after.

This cold-blooded act on the part of the mutineers was destined to meet with a signal retribution. After beating about for a month, and barely escaping shipwreck on three several occasions, they at length reached, on the 19th of July, the vicinity of Cape Diggs, where they fell in with a number of savages in seven canoes. Being welcomed with a great show of hospitality, and apprehending no treachery, Green, Wilson, and Thomas, the chief conspirators, went ashore the next day, unarmed, to meet the savages, some of whom had gathered on the beach, while others were dancing and gesticulating on the hills beyond. Two others of the mutineers, Perce and Moter, landed at the same time, and ascended the rocks to gather sorrel. The boat was left in charge of one Prickett, a lame man, who had only been passively implicated in the desertion of Hud

son and his unfortunate companions. While this guard was seated at the stern, some savages came out from an ambush near by, the leader of whom sprang upon Prickett and wounded him in several places; but the latter, having succeeded in drawing a Scotch dagger, stabbed the savage with so direct an aim that he fell dead on the boat. At this juncture, Green and Wilson, beset on all sides, came staggering across the beach, and tumbled into the boat, mortally wounded. Moter sprang from the rocks into the sea. Perce, badly hurt, fought with a hatchet his way to the boat, pushed it from the shore, and helped Moter in. A cloud of arrows was now poured in upon the fugitives, by one of which Green was shot dead. Wilson and the other wounded, with the exception of Prickett, died the same day, leaving only one of the ringleaders alive, and he perished miserably by famine before the ship reached England.

Such was the tragic end of Henry Hudson, the renowned arctic discoverer, and the first explorer of the great river of New York, and such the fate of the principal mutineers.

It was not until after the lapse of several years, that the United Provinces laid formal claim to the country watered by the Hudson and its tributaries; but in the mean time, a profitable traffic in furs had been carried on with the natives, the ships of the Dutch often wintering at Albany, or

1614.]

TRADING-HOUSES ERECTED.

49

Beaverwyck, as it soon came to be called, where they exchanged with the Iroquois, or Five Nations, guns, ammunition, blankets, and trinkets, for the beaver and other valuable skins which were then obtained abundantly in that region.

The first voyage, undertaken in 1610, proving extremely lucrative, led to an extension of the traffic. The Iroquois, bitterly hostile to the French settlement in Canada, cemented a close friendship with the Dutch; while the Manhattans, though the hereditary foes to the Mohawks, the most important of the Five Nations, so far relaxed their enmity toward the Netherlanders as to permit them to erect trading-houses on their island.

In 1614, Captain Argall, the kidnapper of Pocahontas, while returning from an expedition against the French settlement at Port Royal, discovered a few rude warehouses and huts on the island of Manhattan, and compelled the traders by whom they were occupied to acknowledge the authority of England. The few Dutch residing on the island, being too weak to resist, sought safety by submission; but soon as Argall had taken his departure, they again hoisted their own flag.

A few months previous to this, the States General of the Netherlands, having granted to such as should discover new lands an exclusive trade to them for four successive voyages, a company