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his course to the northernmost point of Europe, which he doubled and then pushed westward, along the northern coast of that continent. Fearful was his wrestle with the ice, and the cold was most intense. His crew, part Dutch and part English, had not lived well together from the beginning; "but when difficulty and suffering had soured the temper of both parties, all the crew became discontented, and demanded to have the course of the vessel changed to more temperate climates. Captain Hudson, a man too gentle and yielding for the situation, instead of silencing this clamor at the pistol's mouth, and putting the mutineers in irons (the old Portuguese fashion), parleyed with the men, and agreed, at last, to sail over to the coast of America, and try for a break in that continent. Hudson had been acquainted with Captain John Smith, of Virginia, and had received from him maps and charts of the coast of North America, as well as verbal explanations.

To this change of course, extorted by a sulky and mutinous crew, Captain Hudson owes the immortality of his name. Haying reached the coast of America in July, 1609, he crept along the shore, until he discovered the gap so familiar to New Yorkers, now called the Narrows, which conducted him into New York harbor, and thence into the Hudson River. He sailed up this majestic stream as far as the head of navigation, and explored it in a boat many miles more, to a point, probably, as high as Troy. Much time having been consumed in this exploration, he had difficulty in procuring provisions, and his crew were again in a mutinous disposition. He had a world of trouble with them, as every captain will have who has not in him the true spirit of a master, and he thought it best to return to Europe. He reached home in November, having been gone seven months.

Despite the perils and difficulties of those three voyages, Hudson was as eager as ever to renew the quest, and again offered his services to the English company for whom he had first sailed to the North. They agreed to provide him with a ship, but demanded that he should take with him, as mate, a man named Colebrune, who was supposed to be a navigator of great skill. Colebrune came on board while the ship was getting

ready for sea, and Hudson perceived that if that man sailed with him the ship would have two captains. Instead of stating the case frankly to the owners of the ship, and requiring them to choose between him and his rival, and say which of the two should stay behind, he got rid of Colebrune by a stratagem. The ship being ready for sea, and lying at Blackwell, seven miles below London, Captain Hudson sent Colebrune to the city with a letter; and, as soon as the unsuspecting mate was well on his way, the captain hoisted his anchors, slipped out of the Thames and put to sea. This act lessened the respect of the crew for him, weakened his authority, and gave a pretext for mutiny.

It was about the middle of April, 1610, that he set sail on this his last and lamentable voyage. He had not been a month at sea before he discovered that his crew were plotting to remove him from command, alleging as a reason that the sending away of Colebrune was an act equivalent to usurpation. He managed, though with difficulty, to suppress this conspiracy; and, after two months of voyaging, he reached that wide opening into North America which leads to what is now called Hudson's Bay, the largest bay of the whole continent. He now thought that he had accomplished the great object. He supposed that this was the long-sought passage to the Pacific. We can imagine his disappointment when, after sailing into the great bay as far as he could go, and coasting around its sides for nearly three months, he was compelled at last to come to the conclusion that this vast interior sea had no outlet into the Pacific.

It was now near the first of October, and the ice was hemming him in. It was, indeed, already too late for the ship to regain the Atlantic, and he saw himself obliged to winter in that region of desolation, with a crew in the worst possible temper with him and with one another. Their provisions were running low, and it was only by incessant hunting of wild birds and animals that the crew were saved from starvation. Eight months rolled wearily by before the ice showed signs of break ing up. June came in, and the icy surface began to heave.

By the middle of June the ice was loose around the ship, and Captain Hudson prepared for the voyage home.

Something told him that he should never see his native land again; and, before sailing, he made his dispositions, as if in expectation of a speedy death. It was doubtful in the extreme

if the provisions left would keep them alive till they could reach England, and, accordingly, he divided the remaining biscuit equally among the men. He gave to each of them a certificate of his services, and a statement of the wages due to him. During these last preparations he was sometimes so affected by the ruinous failure of all his endeavors, and so touched with compassion for the sufferings of his crew, that he was often seen to shed tears.

There was a captain's party and an opposition party among the crew. Those who adhered to the captain were his son (who was only a boy), Mr. Woodhouse (a scientific volunteer), and five sailors, eight persons in all, among whom there was scarcely a man who was not lame and weak from the scurvy. The party hostile to the captain consisted of fourteen men, most of whom were still in tolerable health. The chief of this faction was a young man, named Henry Green, a protegé of Hudson, who owed all to the captain's bounty, and whose life he had saved. This man excited his comrades to revolt, and wrought them up to commit one of the most hellish crimes on record.

It was June 21, 1611. The ship was all ready to begin her homeward voyage. The water of Hudson's Bay, as far as the eye could reach, was covered with fragments of floating ice. The sails of the ship were hoisted, and one of her boats was floating at her side. At a signal, the fourteen mutineers rose upon the faithful eight, seized them, thrust them into the boat, threw in some ammunition, a fowling piece, an iron pot, and a bag of meal. That done, they cast off the rope, made all sail, and left the captain, his boy, and his friends, to their fate. Nothing was ever heard of them. Doubtless they all perished miserably within a few days; for at that season birds cannot be found in the frozen regions. The mutineers knew this well;

for, in that very month, a party had been out hunting eight days without getting a single ounce of food.

A few days after, Green and his chief abettor were killed in a fight with some Indians. Another of the chief mutineers died of hunger. A miserable remnant of the crew, emaciated to the last degree, reached England in September, where two of their number revealed what had been done. I cannot discover whether or not the mutineers were punished for their perfidy after they reached England.

In the following spring, two vessels were sent out by the same company, for the twofold object of rescuing Hudson and his party, and of continuing the search for a passage through the continent. Neither of these objects were accomplished, nor was any trace discovered of the abandoned mariners. The foul treachery of which Hudson was the victim probably rescued his discovery from oblivion; since, had not he and his seven comrades been destroyed, it is certain that the whole ship's company would have died of starvation before they could have navigated their vessel across the Atlantic. Thus, one mutiny made him the discoverer of the Hudson River, and another, which cost him his life, preserved to mankind his discovery of Hudson's Bay.

JAQUES CARTIER.

READER, do you happen to know why the great river of Canada was named the St. Lawrence? Probably not. But let me assure you, that knowledge of that seemingly unimportant description is not to be despised, for the whole history of America is contained in the names on its map. The man that could open the map of the western continent, and, putting his finger on every name, tell why and when it received that name, would know the history of America better than any man has ever known it, or will ever know it. Take this word Lawrence, for example, which occurs on the map of North America forty-four times.

Probably thirty-five of the places named Lawrence, Lawrenceville, or Lawrenceburg, were so named in honor of Captain James Lawrence, whose dying words thrilled every patriotic heart in the war of 1812. Others were named after the great Boston merchants, Amos and Abbott Lawrence. The river St. Lawrence received that designation because the day on which the gulf into which it empties was discovered, was the day dedicated in the Roman Catholic Church to the memory of the martyr, St. Lawrence. Thus, in that single name is summed up: 1. The history of the discovery of Canada; 2. The history of the war of 1812; 3. The history of American manufactures; 4. The history and genius of the Catholic Church.

Gold lured the Spaniards to South America and Mexico; but the humbler bait which attracted the French to Northern America was codfish. In Catholic countries there are so many days on which meat may not, and fish may be, eaten, that fish is an article of very great importance; and this was perhaps the reason why the French, as early as 1525, only thirty-three years

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