IIUDSON, HENRY, is eminent among those early navigators who sought a shorter passage to China than the circuitous route round the Cape of Good Hope. Nothing is known of him before 1607, when he was employed by some London merchants to command a ship fitted out to prosecute that object. In that year he advanced along the eastern coasts of Greenland beyond the 80th degree of,latitude before ho was stopped by the ice. In 1608 he kept more to the east, and in a lower latitude ' • but he was unable to get to the eastward of Nova Zembla. In 1609 he tried again the north-eastern route ; and being again unsuccessful, bore away for America, along the coast of which he ran down as far as Chesapeake Bay, whence he returned to England. Not yet discouraged, and still finding persons willing to adventure their money in the lottery of maritime discovery, he undertook a fourth voyage, in hopes of discovering a north-western passage, in April 1610. In the course of June and July he sailed through the Strait, and discovered the Bay, both of which have since been called after his name, and hoped for a time that the much coveted object was attained ; but finding that great inland sea to be but a bay, he resolved to winter in the southern part of it, hoping to pursue his discoveries.in the spring. The insufficiency of provisions however
exposed him and his companions to great hardship, and at last proved fatal to his scheme. The men became discontented and insubordinate; Hudson on the other hand seems to have lost his temper • and at last, while they were in the Strait on the voyage home, some Of the boldest of the mutineers seized the captain and eight of his staunchest followers, and sent them adrift in an open boat, and they were never afterwards heard of. It may give a juster notion of the hardihood of these old sailors, to know that in his first voyage his crew consisted of ten men and a boy; his last and largest ship's complement was only twenty-three men. For an account of his adventures, see Purchas'e 'Pilgrims,' and Harris's Voyages: He has a full article in the Biog. Britann.'