n who had been in the East Indies could not bear,
caused quarrels among the crew, they being partly English, partly
Dutch; upon which the captain, Henry Hudson, laid before them two
propositions. The first of these was, to go to the coast of America
to the latitude of forty degrees. This idea had been suggested to
him by some letters and maps which his friend Captain Smith had
sent him from Virginia, and by which he informed him that there was
a sea leading into the western ocean to the north of the southern
English colony [Virginia]. Had this information been true
(experience goes as yet to the contrary), it would have been of
great advantage, as indicating a short way to India. The other
proposition was to direct their search to Davis's Straits. This
meeting with general approval, they sailed on the 14th of May, and
arrived, with a good wind, at the Faroe Islands, where they stopped
but twenty-four hours to supply themselves with fresh water. After
leaving these islands they sailed on till, on the 18th of July,
they reached the coast of Nova Francia under 44 degrees.... They
left that place on the 26th of July, and kept out at sea till the
3d of August, when they were again near the coast in 42 degrees of
latitude. Thence they sailed on till, on the 12th of August, they
reached the shore under 37 deg. 45'. Thence they sailed along the shore
until we [sic] reached 40 deg. 45', where they found a good entrance,
between two headlands, and thus entered on the 12th of September
into as fine a river as can be found, with good anchoring ground on
both sides."

That river, "as fine as can be found," was our own Hudson.

Van Meteren's account of the voyage, although not published until
the year 1614, was written very soon after Hudson's return--the
slip that he makes in using "we" points to the probability that he
copied directly from Hudson's log--and in it we have all that we
ever are likely to know about the causes which led to the change in
the "Half Moon's" course. For my own part, I believe that Hudson
did precisely what he had wanted to do from the start. The
prohibitory clause in his instructions, forbidding him to go upon
other than the course laid down for him, pointedly suggests that he
had expressed the desire--natural enough, since he twice had
searched vainly for a passage by Nova Zembla--to search westward
instead of eastward for a water-way to the Indies. As Van Meteren
states, authoritatively, he was encour