THE SEARCH FOR THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE 239 



His first voyage was made in 1607, under the direction of the 

 Muscovy Company; and the order he received was straightforward 

 and simple in the extreme: "Go direct to the North Pole." And 

 this order he attempted to carry out in a small decked boat, with a 

 crew of ten men and a boy ! He steered due north along the shores 

 of Spitzbergen, until he reached latitude 80 degrees 23 minutes; 

 and then, for want of provisions, and owing to the approach of 

 winter, was forced to return. When we consider the perilous char- 

 acter of the navigation of these northern seas, we cannot but marvel 

 as we record that Hudson's little barque arrived safely in the 

 Thames, on the I5th of September. 



In the following year he sailed again, but took a northeasterly 

 direction towards Nova Zembla. His ship was somewhat larger, 

 and his crew numbered fourteen men. But he ascended no higher 

 than 75 degrees, and returned to England in August. 



His third voyage, in 1609, was made in the Dutch service and 

 led to unintended results. At first he made for the northeast, but 

 being baffled by the ice-drifts, he sailed west, and touched the 

 American coast in the neighborhood of New York Bay. He dis- 

 covered the noble river which still bears his name and on whose 

 banks the Dutch afterwards established a colony. Among their 

 descendants long flourished strange legends of Hudson and his 

 men. "It was affirmed," says Washington Irving, "that the great 

 Hendrik Hudson, the first discoverer of the river and country, kept 

 a kind of vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the 'Half- 

 Moon' ; being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes of his enter- 

 prise, and keep a guardian eye upon the river and the great city 

 called by his name." 



In 1610 he made his fourth and last voyage, in a vessel of 

 fifty-eight tons, stored and provisioned for six months. Frobisher 

 Strait was gained on the 1st of June. Then came a desperate 

 struggle against floating ice and contrary winds ; but Hudson kept 

 perseveringly to the westward, passed through the strait now known 



