280 HUDSON. 



a.d. a new plan, which was to search for Willoughby's 

 Land ; but we hear nothing more of this, as he 

 put to sea, and made the best of his way to 

 England, where he arrived on the 26th of August, 

 having on the passage formed one or two new 

 schemes, such as that of exploring Lumley's Inlet, 

 and " Davis' furious overfall," which were as 

 speedily given up. In fact, Hudson appears to 

 have been of a restless ambitious turn of mind, 

 and not being governed by any precise instruc- 

 tions, to have thought himself at liberty to put 

 in execution any schemes which his fertile imagi- 

 nation might suggest. With all this, however, 

 he was an indefatigable, courageous, zealous, and 

 scientific navigator. He seems to have thought 

 his little vessel, which could not have been much 

 bigger than a modern fishing boat, equal to any 

 service ; and upon a single voyage in such 

 a vessel, with ten or fifteen men only, to have 

 planned for himself work which might well 

 have formed the occupation of two or three 

 regular expeditions. His scientific attainments 

 do him credit; he w T as the first who had ever 

 attempted to observe the dip of the needle on 

 board a ship ; and his Journal commences with 

 a remark, which shows that he was before his 

 contemporaries in science. " My courses," he 

 observes, " were by a com passe that the needle 



