Henry Hudson. Edward Butts
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as suddenly as it had rolled in, the fog lifted, and beyond the bay the storm died down. Soon after, Hudson looked on with relief as the shore party launched the gig and rowed back to the Hopewell. The sailors cheered them as they climbed aboard. Hudson was delighted by the report Colman made to him, and the specimens the men had collected.
Colman said that it had been comfortably warm on the island, and there were two streams of fresh, clear water. They had seen flocks of geese, and tracks made by bears, foxes, and other animals. The men had picked up many deer antlers, whalebones, and the skull of a “morse” (walrus) that still had the tusks. They also had a rock, which Hudson was certain was pure coal.
Hudson could hardly believe his good fortune. Walrus tusks, like whales’ teeth, were as valuable as ivory. Everything the Muscovy Company would need to support a whaling station was right here! Fresh water, wild game, and if he was right about the coal, a source of fuel!
Having marked Whale Bay’s position on his chart, Hudson weighed anchor and set sail that evening. July was half over, and he still had not reached the North Pole. He sailed north of the Spitzbergens to 80 degrees 23’, the farthest north any European was known to have ventured up to that time. He could not find a break in the pack ice that blocked his way. Hudson wrote in his log, “Everywhere there is an abundance of ice compassing us about by the north and joining to the land.” There was no way through to the Pole. Some of the men wanted to turn back for England.
But Hudson was not about to give up. He told the crew they were going to sail south, go around the Spitzbergens, and then up the east side of the islands and try again. There were grumblings from the crew, but Hudson ignored them.
For ten days the Hopewell followed an erratic course down the west side of the islands. Hudson had to constantly shift direction as the crew battled heavy winds, driving rain, and thick fog. On July 27, the crew of the Hopewell faced near disaster.
Throughout the voyage, whenever the ship was within sight of ice, Hudson wisely kept his distance. The Hopewell was a stout little ship, but a collision with the granite-like ice could have cracked her hull open like an eggshell. For several days, as they tacked back and forth, the crew saw no ice. Then the day came that none of them would ever forget.
The Hopewell was shrouded in fog, rain was falling, and the wind was light. The sea was calm, but the ship rose and fell on a heavy swell. Visibility was nil, so Hudson ordered reduced sails. As the ship was carried along on the swells, a low rumbling noise came out of the grey murk. It sounded like waves striking a shore. But Hudson knew they were not near enough to any land to hear the crash of surf.
Map of the Spitzbergen Islands.
The noise grew louder, and Hudson realized that the swells were carrying the Hopewell toward the source. Could there be yet another uncharted island out in the fog? Hudson shouted to the helmsman to alter course. He sent men aloft to put out more sail. But without a good breeze the sails were useless. All attempts to change the ship’s direction with the whipstaff were to no avail.
The sound of crashing surf became thunderous. One sailor shouted for God’s mercy. Another voice cursed Hudson for leading them to their doom.
Then, through a fleeting window in the fog, Hudson saw the ice pack! It looked as solid and menacing as a wall of rock. Huge rollers were smashing against it in explosions of white foam and spray. The growls and groans of the ice slabs grinding against each other were like a din from hell. The Hopewell was heading straight for that ice, carried along like a piece of driftwood.
Hudson sensed panic spreading through the crew. “Launch the gig!” he ordered.
Colman cried, “Captain, there isn’t enough room in the gig for all of us, and what chance …”
Hudson cut him off. “Don’t question my orders, Mr. Colman,” he barked angrily. “Launch the gig! We’re not abandoning ship! I want a line fastened to the bow, with the other end to the gig. Put your six strongest rowers in the gig. Do it, man! Now!”
Colman thought the plan was hopeless, but with the ice looming ever closer, he obeyed the captain. When the gig was in the water with six strong oarsmen in it, Colman started to climb over the rail to take his place in the little boat’s stern. Hudson pushed him aside.
“Get to the quarterdeck, Mr. Colman,” Hudson ordered. “We’ll tow her out of danger. You keep her steady.”
Hudson climbed into the gig and told the rowers, “Now lads, if you want to see England again, put your backs to it.”
Soon the gig was in front of the Hopewell, and the rope between them was stretched taut. The prow of the ship came around as the rowers warped her to starboard. But they seemed to be making no headway against the ceaseless movement of the swells.
Hudson told the men to row harder, and they did. But what was their strength against the power of the sea? The Hopewell was getting closer to the grinding jaws of ice, dragging the gig and its struggling rowers.
From his place on the quarterdeck Colman saw that the ship had been drawn into the outer fringes of the ice pack. White slabs bumped against the hull. They were like teeth that threatened to chew the timbers into splinters. Colman sent men to the rails to push the ice away with pikes and oars. The mate also said a silent prayer, because he was certain that the Hopewell and all her company would soon be at the bottom of the sea.
In the gig, Hudson urged the men on. But chunks of ice surrounded the boat and got in the way of the oars. The rowers lost their rhythm as each man struggled to get his oar in the water without striking ice. The thunder of the surf was almost deafening. Then the line that attached the gig to the ship went slack. “Captain!” one man cried in alarm. “They’ve cut us loose!”
Standing on the Hopewell’s quarterdeck, Colman looked up in thankful astonishment as the sails billowed. “God has answered my prayer!” he said to himself. A strong wind had suddenly blown in from the northwest. The sails that Hudson had ordered unfurled now bloomed full, and the Hopewell surged forward, away from the ice. The line to the gig had fallen slack because the ship was overtaking the boat. Soon the men who had tried so heroically to tow the ship clambered aboard and hauled in the gig. Later, when the ice and its horrific noise were far behind, Hudson made an entry in his log.
If not for the delivery by God of a northwest by west wind — a wind not commonly found on this voyage — it would have been the end of our voyage. May God give us thankful hearts for so great a deliverance.
Hudson had to admit defeat. It was not possible to sail past the North Pole to reach China. When he announced to the crew that they were returning to England, the men raised such a loud cry of joy that seabirds near the ship were frightened away.
But Hudson’s course did not take the Hopewell directly home. He made a four hundred-mile detour to the west, and discovered a previously uncharted island, which he called Hudson’s Tutches. Today it is called Jan Mayen Island.
Hudson’s journal offers no explanation as to why he went so far off course. It’s not likely that bad weather was the cause. It could be that Hudson intended to spend a winter on the coast of Greenland, and then sail west to seek the Northwest Passage through the Furious Overfall. If that was his plan, one thing could have prevented him from following it. His men refused to go!
It will never be known if Hudson’s crew threatened mutiny on his first important voyage, and demanded that he take them home. They had been to what was then considered the ends of the earth, and had fulfilled the obligations they had agreed to when they signed aboard. If Hudson did indeed try to push his men into a voyage of discovery to the west, he would have been demanding too much of them. On September 15, the Hopewell docked at Tilbury on the River Thames.