•250 



Expedition of the Alert to 



Very likely the crafty old sailor managed to persuade the Indians or 

 Eskimos, with whom his lot was cast, that he was a great " medicine- 

 man." With his knowledge of astronomy and the natural sciences, it 

 would have been easy for him to impose upon these credulous and con- 

 fiding people, who would, on account of his acquirements and seem- 

 ingly supernatural powers, have looked upon him as a being of divine 

 and sacred origin. Quite likely he settled down to a life of ease and 

 luxury, — from an Eskimo point of view, — married a select assort- 

 ment of chiefs' daughters, and became the father of numerous chubby, 

 long-haired children. Possibly, he became a great hunter and a 

 renowned chief. Certain it is that, if his life was spared, his fearless 

 and active master-mind must have made him a prominent man among 

 those savage peoples. 



Whether his fate was like the one I have outlined or not, I was 

 accustomed to amuse myself last summer by speculating on the possi- 

 bility, when I met any of the natives on the shores of the Bay, of their 

 being descendants of Hudson; whether I should not address them as 

 Mr. and Mrs. Hudson, the Misses Hudson, etc. It was awe inspiring 

 to one brought up to regard with respect the blue blood of bi-centen- 

 nial Albany, to think that these not altogether attractive-looking 

 people were the descendants of the man who discovered the river which 

 made Albany possible, and who was famous before the first Knicker- 

 bocker of this city baked his marbles or fried his indigestible oley- 

 kocl<s. It was something of a shock, however, to see the possible Mr. 

 and Mrs. Hudson devouring, with great relish, a hearty meal of raw 

 bear's meat, more indigestible, one would think, than either the mar- 

 bles or the oley-koeks; or to see the potential Hudson children with 

 their mouths full of feathers, which indicated that their animal 

 economy was in process of absorbing the flesh of the birds which those 

 feathers had formerly adorned. 



Little more was heard of Hudson's Bay, after Hudson's last voyage, 

 until 1662, when D< gi 1 11c i dd to have sailed into it. 



Couture and Duquet took possession the following year in the name 

 of the King of France; in 1668, Eadisson, a Frenchman, and Gillam, 

 an Englishman, from New England, built a trading fort, and, lastly, 

 in 1670, came the first establishment of the Hudson's Bay Company. 

 From that date until the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, the Bay became 

 the theater of sanguinary conflicts; many a hero there won fame for 

 deeds renoAvned in story; the navies of England and France made it 

 the field of many a fight, and the forts on its shores were time and 



