Henry Hudson by Thomas A. Janvier

Mr. Henry C. Murphy -- to whose searchings in the archives of Holland we owe so much -- found at The Hague a manuscript history of the East India Company, written by P. van Dam in the seventeenth century, in which a copy of Hudson's contract with the Company is preserved. The contract reads as follows:

"On this eighth of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and nine, the Directors of the East India Company of the Chamber of Amsterdam of the ten years reckoning of the one part, and Master Henry Hudson, Englishman, assisted by Jodocus Hondius[1], of the other part, have agreed in manner following, to wit: That the said Directors shall in the first place equip a small vessel or yacht of about thirty lasts [60 tons] burden, well provided with men, provisions and other necessaries, with which the above named Hudson shall, about the first of April, sail in order to search for a passage by the north, around the north side of Nova Zembla, and shall continue thus along that parallel until he shall be able to sail southward to the latitude of sixty degrees. He shall obtain as much knowledge of the lands as can be done without any considerable loss of time, and if it is possible return immediately in order to make a faithful report and relation of his voyage to the Directors, and to deliver over his journals, log-books, and charts, together with an account of everything whatsoever which shall happen to him during the voyage without keeping anything back.