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.  They were not mistaken in their man, for in two successive voyages he did all that mortal could do to penetrate the ice fields beyond the North Cape, but without success.  An impassable barrier of ice held him back, and he was forced to return to London to confess his failure.  With unconquerable hope, he suggested new means of overcoming the difficulties; but while his employers praised his zeal and skill, they declined to go to further expense in an undertaking which promised so little, and the “bold Englishman, the expert pilot, and the famous navigator” found himself out of employment.  Every effort to secure aid in England failed him, and, thoroughly disheartened, he passed over to Holland, whither his fame had preceded him.

The Dutch, who were more enterprising, and more hopeful than his own countrymen, lent a ready ear to his statement of his plans, and the Dutch East India Company at once employed him, and placed him in command of a yacht of ninety tons, called the Half Moon, manned by a picked crew.  On the 25th of March, 1609, Hudson set sail in this vessel from Amsterdam, and steered directly for the coast of Nova Zembla.  He succeeded in reaching the meridian of Spitzbergen; but here the ice, the fogs, and the fierce tempests of the North drove him back, and turning to the westward, he sailed past the capes of Greenland, and on the 2nd of July was on the banks of Newfoundland.  He passed down the coast as far as Charleston Harbor, vainly hoping to find the North-west passage, and then in despair turned to the northward, discovering Delaware Bay on his voyage.  On the 3rd of September he arrived off a large bay to the north of the Delaware, and passing into it, dropped anchor “at two cables’ length from the shore,” within Sandy Hook.  Devoting some days to rest, and to the exploration of the bay, he passed through The Narrows on the 11th of September, and then the broad and beautiful “inner bay” burst upon him in all its splendor, and from the deck of his ship he watched the swift current of the mighty river rolling from the north to the sea.  He was full of hope now, and the next day continued his

progress up the river, and at nightfall cast anchor at Yonkers.  During the night the current of the river turned his ship around, placing her head down stream; and this fact, coupled with the assurances of the natives who came out to the Half Moon in their canoes, that the river flowed from far beyond the mountains, convinced him that the stream flowed from ocean to ocean, and that by sailing on he would at length reach India—the golden land of his dreams.

Thus encouraged, he pursued his way up the river, gazing with wondering delight upon its glorious scenery, and listening with gradually fading hope to the stories of the natives who flocked to the water to greet him.  The stream narrowed, and the water grew fresh, and long before he anchored below Albany, Hudson had abandoned the belief that he was in the Northwest passage.  From the anchorage, a boat’s crew continued the voyage to the mouth of the Mohawk.  Hudson was satisfied that he had made a great discovery—one that was worth fully as much as finding the new route to India.  He was in a region upon which the white man’s eye had never rested before, and which offered the richest returns to commercial ventures.  He hastened back to New York Bay, took possession of the country in the name of Holland, and then set sail for Europe.  He put into Dartmouth in England, on his way back, where he told the story of his discovery.  King James I. prevented his continuing his voyage, hoping to deprive the Dutch of its fruits; but Hudson took care to send his log-book and all the ship’s papers over to Holland, and thus placed his employers in full possession of the knowledge he had gained.  The English at length released the Half Moon, and she continued her voyage to the Texel.

The discovery of Hudson was particularly acceptable to the Dutch, for the new country was rich in fur-bearing animals, and Russia offered a ready market for all the furs that could be sent there.  The East India Company, therefore, refitted the Half Moon after her return to Holland, and despatched her to the region discovered by Hudson on a fur trading expedition, which was highly successful.  Private persons also embarked in similar enterprises, and within two years a prosperous and important

fur trade was established between Holland and the country along the Mauritius, as the great river discovered by Hudson had been named, in honor of the Stadtholder of Holland.  No government took any notice of the trade for a while, and all persons were free to engage in it.

Among the adventurers employed in this trade was one Adrian Block, noted as one of the boldest navigators of his time.  He made a voyage to Manhattan Island in 1614, then the site of a Dutch trading post, and had secured a cargo of skins with which he was about to return to Holland, when a fire consumed both his vessel and her cargo, and obliged him to pass the winter with his crew on the island.  They built them log huts on the site of the present Beaver street, the first houses erected in New York, and during the winter constructed a yacht of sixteen tons, which Block called the Onrust—the “Restless.”  In this yacht Block made many voyages of discovery, exploring the coasts of Long Island Sound, and giving his name to the island near the eastern end of the sound.  He soon after went back to Europe.

Meanwhile, a small settlement had clustered about the trading post and the huts built by Block’s shipwrecked crew, and had taken the name of New Amsterdam.  The inhabitants were well suited to become the ancestors of a great nation.  They were mainly Dutch citizens of a European Republic, “composed of seven free, sovereign States”—made so by a struggle with despotism for forty years, and occupying a territory which their ancestors had reclaimed from the ocean and morass by indomitable labor.  It was a republic where freedom of conscience, speech, and the press were complete and universal.  The effect of this freedom had been the internal development of social beauty and strength, and vast increment of substantial wealth and power by immigration.  Wars and despotisms in other parts of Europe sent thousands of intelligent exiles thither, and those free provinces were crowded with ingenious mechanics, and artists, and learned men, because conscience was there undisturbed, and the hand and brain were free to win and use the rewards of their industry and skill.  Beautiful cities, towns, and villages were strewn over the whole country, and nowhere

in Europe did society present an aspect half as pleasing as that of Holland.  Every religious sect there found an asylum from persecution and encouragement to manly effort, by the kind respect of all.  And at the very time when the charter of the West India Company was under consideration, that band of English Puritans who afterward set up the ensign of free institutions on the shores of Massachusetts Bay, were being nurtured in the bosom of that republic, and instructed in those principles of civil liberty that became a salutary leaven in the bigotry which they brought with them.