“And in case the Directors think proper to prosecute and continue the same voyage, it is stipulated and agreed with the before named Hudson that he shall make his residence in this country with his wife and children, and shall enter into the employment of no other than the Company, and this at the discretion of the Directors, who also promise to make him satisfied and content for such farther service in all justice and equity.  All without fraud or evil intent.  In witness of the truth, two contracts are made hereof ... and are subscribed by both parties and also by Jodocus Hondius as interpreter and witness.”

[Footnote 1:  Hondius, an eminent map-engraver of the time, was a Fleming, who, being driven from Flanders by the Spanish cruelties, made his home in Amsterdam, where he died in the year 1611.]

[Illustration:  FAC-simile of title-page of A sea handbook of Hudson’s time]

Of Hudson’s sailing orders no copy has been found; but an abstract of them has been preserved by Van Dam in these words:  “This Company, in the year 1609, fitted out a yacht of about thirty lasts burden and engaged a Mr. Henry Hudson, an Englishman, and a skilful pilot, as master thereof:  with orders to search for the aforesaid passage by the north and north-east above Nova Zembla toward the lands or straits of Amian, and then to sail at least as far as the sixtieth degree of north latitude, when if the time permitted he was to return from the straits of Amian again to this country.  But he was farther ordered by his instructions to think of discovering no other route or passages except the route around the north and north-east above Nova Zembla; with this additional proviso that, if it could not be accomplished at that time, another route would be the subject of consideration for another voyage.”

It is evident from the foregoing that never did a shipmaster get away to sea with more explicit orders than those which were given to Hudson as to how his voyage was, and as to how it was not, to be made.  On his obedience to those orders, which essentially were a part of his contract, depended the obligation of the directors to pay him for his services; and farther depended—­a consideration that reasonably might be expected to touch him still more closely—­their obligation to bestow a solatium upon his wife and children in the event of his death.  And yet, with those facts clearly before him, he did precisely what he had contracted, and what in most express terms he was ordered, not to do.

VI

Hudson sailed from the Texel in the “Half Moon” (possibly accompanied by a small vessel, the “Good Hope,” that did not pursue the voyage) on March 27-April 6, 1609; and for more than a month—­until he had doubled the North Cape and was well on toward Nova Zembla—­went duly on his way.  Then came the mutiny that made him change, or that gave him an excuse for changing, his ordered course.