Lights and Shadows of New York Life

On the morning of the 1st of May, 1607, there knelt at the chancel of the old church of St. Ethelburge, in Bishopsgate street, London, to receive the sacrament, a man of noble and commanding presence, with a broad intellectual forehead, short, close hair, and a countenance full of the dignity and courtly bearing of an honorable gentleman. His dress bespoke him a sailor, and such he was. Immediately upon receiving the sacrament, he hastened from the church to the Thames, where a boat was in waiting to convey him to a vessel lying in the stream. But little time was lost after his arrival on board, and soon the ship was gliding down the river. The man was an Englishman by birth and training, a seaman by education, and one of those daring explorers of the time who yearned to win fame by discovering the new route to India. His name was Henry Hudson, and he had been employed by “certain worshipful merchants of London” to go in search of a North-east passage to India, around the Arctic shores of Europe, between Lapland and Nova Zembla, and frozen Spitzbergen. These worthy gentlemen were convinced that since the effort to find a North-west passage had failed, nothing remained but to search for a North-east passage, and they were sure that if human skill or energy could find it, Hudson would succeed in his mission.