1609.] HUDSON'S RETURN TO ENGLAND. 357 of the great river which she had been the first vessel to ascend; her disorderly crew were little inclined for any fresh adventures; and disputes, which continued even after she set sail, had begun, as to her next destination. As she again weighed anchor and sailed across the upper bay, whose shores may have begun already to show the bright colors of autumn foliage, officers and crew wrangled over their plans for the future. The Dutch mate desired to winter in Newfoundland, and explore Davis' Straits during the next spring; the crew" threatened savagely" if they were not taken back to Europe; and Hudson feared their violence, and wished besides to carry the news of his discoveries at once to Holland. It was not until the yacht had passed through the Kills on her outward route, and had dropped below Sandy Hook, that a compromise was at last effected. It was decided to make first of all for the British Islands, and two days later they were well out at sea upon an eastern course. The voyage was prosperous; and on the seventh of November the ship lay safely in Dartmouth Harbor, her turbulent sailors contented for the time, and her master sending his report to the Amsterdam directors of the Dutch East India Company. Hudson's return. November, 1609. His deten land. Hudson had of course intended to go in person to his employers, as soon as he should reach a European port; but he was not permitted to do so. In spite of the frequency with which, at that period, men entered foreign service, the obligations of nationality were arbitrarily enforced when any advantage was to be gained thereby; and the English government saw that they had let a tion in Engman of too great ability enter the employ of their energetic neighbors. When the news of the Half Moon's arrival was received in London an order was issued forbidding her captain to leave the country, and reminding him and the Englishmen on his vessel that they owed their services to their own nation. Hudson entered again the employ of the Muscovy Company, to whose efforts his success seems to have given new energy; and in the spring of 1610 he sailed on his last and fatal voyage to the northwest, to be abandoned by his brutal crew among the ice-fields of the great and desolate bay which bears his name and was the last of his discoveries. The Half Moon was detained for months at Dartmouth, and was only permitted to return to Amsterdam in July of the year of her captain's departure. Indifference to their Hudson's discovery was received in the Netherlands in a way characteristic of the people. It had opened to the government of the States General a broad and fertile territory, untouched of the Dutch before by any European nation, and undoubtedly their own American by right of first occupation; yet this seems to have been only a secondary consideration in their minds. Territorial increase seemed discoveries. |