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THE DISASTERS OF SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT

[1578-1579 A.D.]

While the queen and her adventurers were dazzled by the glittering prospects of mines of gold in the frozen regions of the remote north, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, with a sounder judgment and a better knowledge, watched the progress of the fisheries, and formed healthy plans for colonisation. It was not difficult for Gilbert to obtain a liberal patent (June 11th, 1578), formed according to the tenor of a previous precedent, and to be of perpetual efficacy, if a plantation should be established within six years. To the people who might belong to his colony, the rights of Englishmen were promised; to Gilbert, the possession for himself or his assigns of the soil which he might

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SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT
(1539-1583)

discover, and the sole jurisdiction, both civil and criminal, of the territory within two hundred leagues of his settlement, with supreme executive and legislative authority. Thus the attempts at colonisation, in which Cabot and Frobisher had failed, were renewed under a patent that conferred every immunity on the leader of the enterprise, and abandoned the colonists themselves to the mercy of an absolute proprietary.

Under this patent, Gilbert began to collect a company of volunteer adventurers, contributing largely from his own fortune to the preparation. Jarrings and divisions ensued, before the voyage was begun; many abandoned what they had inconsiderately undertaken; the general and a few of his assured friends - among them his step-brother, Walter Raleigh [in command of the Falcon] - put to sea in 1579; one of his ships was lost; and misfortune compelled the remainder to return. The vagueness of the accounts of this expedition is ascribed to a conflict with a Spanish fleet, of which the issue was unfavourable to the little squadron of emigrants. Gilbert attempted to keep his patent alive by making grants of lands. None of his assigns succeeded in establishing a colony; and he was himself too much impoverished to renew his efforts.

But the pupil of Coligny was possessed of an active genius, which delighted in hazardous adventure. To prosecute discoveries in the New World, lay the foundation of states, and acquire immense domains, appeared to the daring enterprise of Raleigh as easy designs, which would not interfere with the pursuit of favour and the career of glory in England. Before the limit of the charter had expired, Gilbert, assisted by his brother, equipped a new squadron. The fleet embarked under happy omens; the commander, on the eve of his departure, received from Elizabeth a golden anchor guided by a lady, a token of the queen's regard; a man of letters from Hungary accompanied the expe

[1578-1579 A.D.]

dition; and some part of the United States would have then been colonised, had not the unhappy projector of the design been overwhelmed by a succession of disasters. Two days after leaving Plymouth (June 13th), the largest ship in the fleet, which had been furnished by Raleigh, who himself remained in England, deserted, under a pretence of infectious disease, and returned into harbour. Gilbert was incensed, but not intimidated. He sailed for Newfoundland; and, entering St. Johns, he summoned the Spaniards and Portuguese, and other strangers, to witness the feudal ceremonies by which he took possession of the country for his sovereign. A pillar, on which the arms of England were infixed, was raised as a monument; and lands were granted to the fishermen in fee, on condition of the payment of a quit-rent. The "mineral-man" of the expedition, an honest and religious Saxon, was especially diligent; it was generally agreed that "the mountains made a show of mineral substance"; as there were so many foreign vessels in the vicinity, the precious ore was carried on board the larger ship with such mystery that the dull Portuguese and Spaniards suspected nothing of the matter.

The colony being thus apparently established, Sir Humphrey Gilbert embarked in his small frigate, the Squirrel, which was, in fact, a miserable bark of ten tons; and, taking with him two other ships, proceeded on a voyage of discovery to the southward. One of these vessels, the Delight, was soon after wrecked among the shoals near Sable Island; and of above one hundred men on board, only twelve escaped. Among those who perished were the historian and the mineralogist of the expedition; a circumstance which preyed upon the mind of Sir Humphrey, whose ardent temper fondly cherished the hope of fame and of inestimable riches. He now determined to return to England; but as his little frigate, as she is called, appeared wholly unfit to proceed on such a voyage, he was entreated not to venture in her, but to take his passage in the Golden Hinde. To these solicitations the gallant knight replied, "I will not forsake my little company going homeward, with whom I have passed so many storms and perils.' When the two vessels had passed the Azores, Sir Humphrey's frigate was observed to be nearly overwhelmed by a great sea; she recovered, however, the stroke of the waves, and immediately afterwards the general was observed by those in the Hinde, sitting abaft with a book in his hand, and calling out, "Courage, my lads! we are as near heaven by sea as by land!" The same night this little bark, and all within her, were swallowed up in the sea, and never more heard of. Such was the unfortunate end of the brave Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who may be regarded as the father of western colonization, and who was one of the chief ornaments of the most chivalrous age of English history.ff

DUTCH EXPLORERS: HUDSON'S DISCOVERIES

Producing almost no grain of any kind, Holland had the best supplied granary of Europe: without fields of flax, it had an infinite number of weavers of linen: destitute of flocks, it became the centre of all woollen manufactures; and the country which had not a forest, built more ships than all Europe besides. Their enterprising mariners displayed the flag of the republic from Southern Africa to the Arctic circle. "The ships of the Dutch," said Raleigh, "outnumber those of England and ten other kingdoms.' War for liberty became unexpectedly a guaranty of opulence; Holland gained the commerce of Spain by its maritime force; it secured the wealth of the Indies by traffic. Lisbon and Antwerp were despoiled; Amsterdam, the depot of the mer

H. W.-VOL. XXII. 2K

[1581-1602 A.D.]

chandise of Europe and of the East, was esteemed beyond dispute the first commercial city of the world.

Within two years of the Union of Utrecht, that is, in 1581, Bath, an Englishman who had five times crossed the Atlantic, proposed to the States to conduct four ships of war to America. The adventure was declined by the government; but no obstacles were offered to private enterprise. Ten years afterwards, William Usselinx, who had lived some years in Castile, Portugal, and the Azores, proposed a West India Company; but the dangers of the undertaking were still too appalling. It was not till 1597 that voyages to the New World were actually undertaken. In that year, Bikker of Amsterdam, and Leyen of Enkhuisen, each formed a company to traffic with the West Indies. The commerce was continued with such success, that, after years of discussion, a plan for a West India Company was reduced to writing, and communicated to the states general, 1600.

As years rolled away, the progress of English commerce in the west awakened the attention of the Dutch. England and Holland had been allies in the contest against Spain; had both spread thei. sails on the Indian seas; had both become competitors for possessions in America. In the same year in which Smith embarked for Virginia, vast designs were ripening among the Dutch. Their merchants had perused every work which shed light on the western world, had gathered intelligence from the narratives of sailors; and now they planned a privileged company, which should count the states general among its stockholders, and possess, exclusively, the liberty of approaching America from Newfoundland to the straits of Magellan, and Africa from the tropics to the Cape of Good Hope. Principalities might easily be won from the Spaniards, whose scattered citadels protected but a

narrow zone.

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The party which desired peace with Spain, and which counted Grotius and Olden Barneveldt among its ornaments, for a long time succeeded in repressing the energy of hope, and defeating every effort at Batavian settlements in the west.

While the negotiations with Spain postponed the formation of a West India Company, the Dutch found their way to the United States through another channel. The first efforts of the Dutch merchants to share in the commerce of Asia were accompanied with a desire to search for a northwest passage; and the ill success of Cabot and Frobisher, of Willoughby and Davis, did but animate the Netherlands to a generous rivalry. Twice in the sixteenth century [as described in our history of Holland,] did they seek a passage by the north, and vainly coasted along Nova Zembla and Muscovy. Again did the envoy of Amsterdam descend within ten degrees of the pole, passing a winter in Nova Zembla, rendered horrible by famine, by the ferocity of polar beasts of prey, and by ice; the ship was frozen in hopelessly; in two little vessels the wretched crew hardly escaped. The voyages of the Dutch were esteemed without a parallel, for their daring.

The establishment of an East India Company, March 20th, 1602, with the exclusive right to commerce beyond the Cape of Good Hope on the one side, and beyond the straits of Magellan on the other, with all powers requisite for conquests, colonisation, and government, covered the seas of Asia with fleets of Indiamen.

Meantime Europe had not relinquished the hope of a nearer passage to Asia; and Denmark took its place among the states whose ships vainly toiled for the discovery. No sooner was the failure known than a company of London merchants, excited by the immense profits of voyages to the East,

[1607-1609 A.D.]

contributed the means for a new attempt; and Henry Hudson was the chosen leader of the expedition. Sailing to the north in 1607, with his only son for his companion, he coasted the shores of Greenland, and hesitated whether to attempt the circumnavigation of that country, or the passage across the pole. What though he came within eight degrees of the pole, thus surpassing every earlier navigator? After renewing the discovery of Spitzbergen, vast masses of ice compelled his return. But the zeal of Hudson could not be quenched; and the next year beheld him once more engaged in a voyage, and cherishing the deceitful hope that, through the icy seas which divide Spitzbergen from Nova Zembla, he might find a path to the genial clime of southern Asia.

The failure of two expeditions daunted the enterprise of Hudson's employers; they could not daunt the courage of the great navigator, who was destined to become the rival of Smith and of Champlain. He longed to tempt once more the dangers of the northern seas; and, repairing to Holland, he offered, in the service of the Dutch East India Company, to explore the icy wastes in search of the coveted passage. The voyage of Smith to Virginia stimulated desire; the Zealanders, fearing the loss of treasure, objected; but by the influence of Balthazar Moucheron, the directors for Amsterdam resolved on equipping a small vessel of discovery; and on the fourth day of April, 1609, the Half Moon, or Crescent, commanded by Hudson, and manned by a mixed crew of Englishmen and Hollanders, his only son being of the number, set sail for the Northwestern Passage.

Masses of ice impeded the navigation towards Nova Zembla; Hudson, who had examined the maps of John Smith of Virginia, turned to the west; and passing beyond Greenland and Newfoundland, and running down the coast of Acadia, he anchored, probably, in the mouth of the Penobscot. Then, following the track of Gosnold, he came upon the promontory of Cape Cod, and, believing himself its first discoverer, gave it the name of New Holland. Long afterwards it was claimed as the northeastern boundary of New Netherlands. From the sands of Cape Cod, he steered a southerly course till he was opposite the entrance into the bay of Virginia, August 18th, where Hudson remembered that his countrymen were planted. Then turning again to the north, he discovered the Delaware Bay, examined its currents and its soundings, and, without going on shore, took note of the aspect of the country.

On the third day of September, almost at the time when Champlain was invading New York from the north, less than five months after the truce with Spain, which gave the Netherlands a diplomatic existence as a state, the Half Moon anchored within Sandy Hook, September 4, 1609, and from the neighbouring shores, that were crowned with "goodly oakes," attracted frequent visits from the natives. After a week's delay, Hudson sailed through the Narrows, September 11th, and at the mouth of the river anchored in a harbour which was pronounced to be very good for all winds. Of the surrounding lands, the luxuriant grass, the flowers, the trees, the grateful fragrance, were admired. Ten days were employed in exploring the river; the first of Europeans, Hudson went sounding his way above the Highlands, till at last the Half Moon had sailed some miles beyond the present city of Hudson, and a boat had advanced a little beyond Albany. Frequent intercourse was held with the astonished natives of the Algonquin race; and the strangers were welcomed by a deputation from the Mohawks. Having completed

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['In speaking of Hudson's discovery of the river that bears his name, it is of course to be remembered that Verrazano had anchored in the bay of New York and seen the grandissima riviera nearly a century before Hudson, who, however, was the first to explore it.]

[1610 A.D.] his discovery, Hudson descended the stream to which time has given his name; and on the fourth day of October, about the season of the return of John Smith to England, he set sail for Europe, leaving once more to its solitude the land, that his imagination, anticipating the future, described as "the most beautiful" in the world.

The history of a country is always modified by its climate, and, in many of its features, is determined by its geographical situation. The region which Hudson had discovered possessed on the seaboard a harbour unrivalled in its advantages; having near its eastern boundary a river that admits the tide far into the interior; extending to the chain of the great lakes, which have their springs in the heart of the continent; containing within its limits the sources of large rivers that flow to the gulf of Mexico and to the bays of Chesapeake and of Delaware; inviting to extensive internal intercourse by natural channels, of which, long before Hudson anchored off Sandy Hook, even the warriors of the Five Nations availed themselves in their excursions to Quebec, to the Ohio, or the Susquehanna; with just sufficient difficulties to irritate, and not enough to dishearten-New York united most fertile lands with the highest adaptation to foreign and domestic commerce.

A happy return voyage brought the Half Moon into Dartmouth. Hudson forwarded to his Dutch employers a brilliant account of his discoveries; but he never revisited the lands which he eulogized; and the Dutch East India Company refused to search further for the Northwest Passage.

Meantime ambition revived among the English merchants; a company was formed, and Hudson again entered, April 17th, 1610, the northern seas in search of a path to the Pacific. Passing Iceland, and Greenland, and Frobisher's Straits, he sailed, August 2nd, into the straits which bear his own name, and where he had been preceded by none but Sebastian Cabot. As he emerged from the passage and came upon the wide gulf, he believed that his object had been gained. How great was his disappointment when he found himself embayed! As he sailed to and fro along the coast, it seemed a labyrinth without end; still confident of ultimate success, the inflexible mariner resolved on wintering in the bay, that he might perfect his discovery in the spring. At length the late and anxiously-expected spring burst forth; but it opened in vain for Hudson. Provisions were exhausted: he divided the last bread among his men, and prepared for them a bill of return; and “he wept as he gave it them." Believing himself almost on the point of succeeding where Spaniards, and English, and Danes, and Dutch, had failed, he left his anchoring-place to steer for Europe.

For two days the ship was encompassed by fields of ice, and the discontent of the crew broke forth into mutiny. Hudson was seized June 21st, 1610, and, with his only son and seven others, four of whom were sick, was thrown into the shallop. Seeing his commander thus exposed, Philip Staffe, the carpenter, demanded and gained leave to share his fate; and just as the ship made its way out of the ice, on the longest summer's day, in a latitude where the sun hardly went down, and twilight ceased only with the dawn, the shallop was cut loose. What became of Hudson? Did he die miserably of starvation? Did he reach land to perish from the fury of the natives? Was he crushed between ribs of ice? The returning ship encountered storms, by which, it is probable, Hudson was overwhelmed. Alone, of the great mariners of that day, he lies buried in America; the gloomy waste of waters which bears his name is his tomb and his monument.i

John Fiske thus vividly sums up the life and achievements of Hudson: "In all that he attempted he failed, and yet he achieved great results that

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