Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 28.djvu/153

 buried in Scrayingham churchyard, Yorkshire, on 21 Dec. He married in 1828 Elizabeth, daughter of James Nicholson, by whom he had a large family.



HUDSON, HENRY (d. 1611), navigator, was not improbably, as has been conjectured, the grandson of Henry Hudson or Herdson, alderman of London, who helped to found the Muscovy Company in 1555, and died in the same year. This older Henry Hudson left many sons and kinsmen, whose names sometimes appear as Hoddesdon and Hogeson, and who all seem to have been interested in or connected with the Muscovy Company. Hudson, the navigator, is first mentioned as appointed in 1607 to command the Hopeful in a voyage set forth by the same company 'to discover the pole.' On 19 April he and the crew of the Hopeful, twelve men all told, communicated together in the church of St. Ethelburge in Bishopsgate, 'purposing to go to sea four days after.' One of the little party was Hudson's son John, who seems to have been then a lad of sixteen or eighteen; from which it may be judged that Hudson was born before rather than after 1570. The chief aim of this voyage was, in accordance with the proposal made by [q.v.] eighty years before, to sail across the pole to the 'islands of spicery.' Hudson sailed from Gravesend on 1 May, and struck the east coast of Greenland in lat. 69°-70°, on 13 June; then continuing a northerly course, he again sighted the coast in lat. 73°, and named the land Cape Hold with Hope. Forced eastwards by the continuous icy barrier between Greenland and Spitzbergen, he followed the line of this barrier and came on the 28th to Prince Charles Island; thence he groped his way to the northward and along the coast of Spitzbergen, naming Hakluyt's Headland as he passed. On 13 July he was, by observation, in lat. 80° 23'. After struggling towards the north for three days longer, ignorant that he was being swept back by a southerly current, he described the land as trending far to the north beyond 82°. This remark is a test of the error in his reckoning, for the most northerly land in the Spitzbergen group is in 80° 45'. He satisfied himself, however, that there was in that quarter no passage to the pole; so, after again trying the ice barrier, he turned southwards, and discovering on his way an island then named 'Hudson's Touches,' but since identified with Jan Mayen, he arrived in the Thames on 15 Sept.

Thorne's scheme for a short and easy passage across the north pole being thus proved impracticable, Hudson, in the following year, and still in the service of the Muscovy Company, repeated the attempt which had been made by Willoughby, Barentz, and others of less note, to find a passage by the north-east. On 22 April 1608, with a crew of fifteen all told, including himself and his son John, he dropped down the river, and rounded the North Cape on 3 June. After coasting along the ice in lat. 74°-75° till the 24th, in hope of passing to the north of Novaya Zemlya, he turned to the south-east, and on the 26th sighted the land, apparently near North Goose Cape. His idea was now to pass by the Waigatz or Kara Strait, and so double 'the north cape of Tartaria,' when, as he supposed, he would find himself within easy sailing of the Pacific. The Waigatz was, however, impassable, and on 6 July, after riding out a heavy gale at anchor, 'we weighed,' he says, 'and set sail and stood to the westward, being out of hope to find passage by the north-east.' For a few days longer he endeavoured to examine Willoughby Land [see ], but the description and position of it were too vague to permit any certain identification of it, either then or now. On the 12th he stood away to the westward; on the 18th was again off the North Cape, and anchored off Gravesend on 26 Aug.

During the following winter Hudson entered into negotiations with the Dutch East India Company, and in their service he sailed from Amsterdam on 25 March 1609 with two ships, the Good Hope and Half Moon, he himself in the latter. His primary intention was again to attempt the passage through the Waigatz as in the former year; but off the coast of Novaya Zemlya his crew, consisting mostly of Dutchmen, refused to go on, and compelled him to turn back; the Good Hope is heard of no more and would seem to have made straight for Holland, while