318 HUDSOiY HONORED IN NEW YORK 



northern "passage." This new vessel, the Discovery — seventy tons — was 

 manned by Hudson, his 1 8-year-old son John and twenty-two other ad- 

 venturers. She sailed from England on April 17, 1610, In July she entered 

 what was afterward known as Hudson's straits, and on Aug. 2 entered Hud- 

 son's bay. For three months Hudson explored that vast body of water. Then 

 in November he and his men went into winter quarters on its south shore. 



Hudson was a great and fearless navigator. But he was not a born ruler 

 of men. This had earlier been shown by the mutinous behavior of his crews. 

 Now, camped on the frozen coast of a northern bay, short of food, fearful of 

 dying in that bleak wilderness, his men again broke into furious mutiny. 



Hudson tried to pacify them by argument and entreaty, instead of enforc- 

 ing his authority. He also divided among them the last fragments of the ship's 

 provisions. He even wept loudly and publicly over their mutinous conduct. 

 All this served to make the crew the more contemptuous of Hudson's authority. 



Illness, starvation and mutiny wore away the long northern winter. When 

 spring at last arrived the men clamored to start for Europe. Hudson deemed 

 the ship too badly provisioned and the ice floes too thick for a safe passage 

 so early in the season. Whereat the mutineers seized Hudson on the morn- 

 ing of June 21, 161 1, as he came on deck from his cabin, bound him and 

 threw him into a small boat. They thrust his son John into the boat after 

 him, and then proceeded to throw seven of the weakest, sickest sailors over 

 the side of the ship into the cranky little craft to keep the fallen hero company. 



While almost the whole crew had mutinied, yet those who found them- 

 selves condemned by their stronger brethren to share their commander's fate 

 resisted fiercely. In the free fight that ensued up and down the deck four 

 men were killed. 



At last the boat with its nine helpless occupants was cut loose from the 

 ship. A kettle, a gun, some ammunition and a little food were tossed to the 

 fugitives, and the Discovery sailed away for England, leaving Hudson and 

 his sick fellow outcasts floating helpless upon the water in a frail boat. The 

 mutineers fought among themselves on the way home. All ringleaders were 

 killed or died of hunger and disease. Of the twenty-four who had left Eng- 

 land, only eight returned alive. In the Discovery, in 16 16, Baffin's Bay was 

 discovered. 



What became of Hudson and his eight men? A relief expedition found 

 no trace of them. Did they perish, or — as old traditions say — were they 

 adopted into some Indian tribe ? Hudson's fate is as mysterious as his orig^in. 



