Introduction

Abstract

In having his name given to portions of the New World, in a manner which is certain to transmit through all time his right to be considered their first European discoverer, Hudson has been more fortunate than any other navigator except Vespucius, who has the exclusive honor of having the name of a continent identified with his own, and yet more fortunate even than he, in regard that his claim to the discovery is not a subject of dispute. Hudson’s Bay and Hudson River, two points of great geographical interest, attest his intrepidity as an explorer and indicate precisely the regions which he first fully made known to the civilized world; while there is neither gulf nor stream, island nor mainland to carry down to posterity the name of its discoverer for Columbus or Cabot or Verrazzano or Gomez or Cartier; and a single spot suffices to perpetuate their names for Davis, Magellan, Champlain, and others who have made discoveries along the American continent. But although the skill and daring of Hudson have been thus perpetuated beyond the lot of his fellows, in monuments more lasting than men could otherwise devise, his antecedents and personal history, are, on the other hand, less known than those of most of the other navigators just named.