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Indians knew nothing about-therefore, they did not | before been ignorant; and as he has most sources of improve the talents Providence had bestowed on happiness who has most wants to be gratified, they them therefore, they were careless stewards-there- were doubtlessly rendered a much happier race of fore, they had no right to the soil-therefore, they beings. deserved to be exterminated.

But the most important branch of civilization, and which has most strenuously been extolled by the zealous and pious fathers of the Romish Church, is the introduction of the Christian faith. It was truly a sight that might well inspire horror, to behold these savages stumbling among the dark mountains of paganism, and guilty of the most horrible ignorance of religion. It is true, they neither stole nor defrauded, they were sober, frugal, continent, and faithful to their word; but though they acted right habitually it was all in vain, unless they acted so from precept. The new comers, therefore, used every method to in duce them to embrace and practise the true religion except indeed that of setting them the example. But notwithstanding all these complicated labours for their good, such was the unparalleled obstinacy of these stubborn wretches, that they ungratefully refused to acknowledge the strangers as their benefactors, and persisted in disbelieving the doctrines they endeavoured to inculcate; most insolently alleging. that from their conduct, the advocates of Christianity did not seem to believe in it themselves. Was not this too much for human patience?—would not one suppose that the benign visitants from Europe, provoked at their incredulity, and discouraged by their stiff-necked obstinacy, would for ever have abandoned their shores, and consigned them to their original ignorance and misery?-But no-so zealous were they to effect the temporal comfort and eternal salvation of these pagan infidels, that they even proceeded from the milder means of persuasion, to the more painful and troublesome one of persecution, let loose among them whole troops of fiery monks and furious bloodhounds --purified them by fire and sword, by stake and fagot; in consequence of which indefatigable measures, the cause of Christian love and In entering upon a newly-discovered, uncultivated charity was so rapidly advanced, that in a very few country, therefore, the new comers were but taking years not one-fifth of the number of unbelievers expossession of what, according to the aforesaid doc-isted in South America that were found there at the trine, was their own property-therefore, in opposing time of its discovery. them, the savages were invading their just rights, in- What stronger right need the European settlers fringing the immutable laws of Nature, and coun-advance to the country than this? Have not whole teracting the will of Heaven-therefore, they were nations of uninformed savages been made acquainted guilty of impiety, burglary, and trespass on the case, with a thousand imperious wants and indispensable therefore, they were hardened offenders against comforts, of which they were before wholly ignoGod and man-therefore, they ought to be extermi-rant? Have they not been literally hunted and nated.

It is true, the savages might plead that they drew all the benefits from the land which their simple wants required--they found plenty of game to hunt, which, together with the roots and uncultivated fruits of the earth, furnished a sufficient variety for their frugal repasts;-and that as Heaven merely designed the earth to form the abode, and satisfy the wants of man; so long as those purposes were answered, the will of Heaven was accomplished.-But this only proves how undeserving they were of the blessings around them-they were so much the more savages, for not having more wants; for knowledge is in some degree an increase of desires, and it is this superiority, both in the number and magnitude of his desires, that distinguishes the man from the beast. Therefore, the Indians, in not having more wants, were very unreasonable animals; and it was but just that they should make way for the Europeans, who had a thousand wants to their one, and, therefore, would turn the earth to more account, and by cultivating it, more truly fulfil the will of Heaven. Besides-Grotius and Lauterbach, and Puffendorff, and Titus, and many wise men beside, who have considered the matter properly, have determined that the property of a country cannot be acquired by hunting, cutting wood, or drawing water in it-nothing but precise demarcation of limits, and the intention of cultivation, can establish the possession. Now, as the savages (probably from never having read the authors above quoted) had never complied with any of these necessary forms, it plainly followed that they had no right to the soil, but that it was completely at the disposal | of the first comers, who had more knowledge, more wants, and more elegant, that is to say, artificial desires than themselves.

smoked out of the dens and lurking-places of ignorance and infidelity, and absolutely scourged into the right path?-Have not the temporal things, the vain baubles and filthy lucre of this world, which were too apt to engage their worldly and selfish thoughts, been benevolently taken from them? and have they not, instead thereof, been taught to set their affections on things above?-And finally, to use the words of a reverend Spanish father, in a letter to his superior in Spain-“Can any one have the presumption to say, that these savage pagans have yielded any thing more than an inconsiderable recompense to their benefactors, in surrendering to them a little pitiful tract of this dirty sublunary planet, in exchange for a glorious inheritance in the

But a more irresistible right than either that I have mentioned, and one which will be the most readily admitted by my reader, provided he be blessed with bowels of charity and philanthropy, is the right acquired by civilization. All the world knows the lamentable state in which these poor savages were found-not only deficient in the comforts of life, but what is still worse, most piteously and unfortunately blind to the miseries of their situation. But no sooner did the benevolent inhabitants of Europe behold their sad condition, than they immediately went to work to meliorate and improve it. They introduced among them rum, gin, brandy, and the other comforts of life-and it is astonishing to read how soon the poor savages learned to estimate these bless-kingdom of heaven!" ings-they likewise made known to them a thousand Here, then, are three complete and undeniable remedies, by which the most inveterate diseases are alleviated and healed; and that they might comprehend the benefits and enjoy the comforts of these medicines, they previously introduced among them the diseases which they were calculated to cure. By these, and a variety of other methods was the condition of these poor savages wonderfully improved; they acquired a thousand wants, of which they had

sources of right established, any one of which was more than ample to establish a property in the newly-discovered regions of America. Now, so it has happened in certain parts of this delightful quarter of the globe, that the right of discovery has been so strenuously asserted-the influence of culti vation so industriously extended, and the progress of salvation and civilization so zealously prosecuted,

that, what with their attendant wars, persecutions, oppressions, diseases, and other partial evils that often hang on the skirts of great benefits-the savage aborigines have, somehow or another, been utterly annihilated-and this all at once brings me to a fourth right, which is worth all the others put together. For the original claimants to the soil being all dead and buried, and no one remaining to inherit or dispute the soil, the Spaniards, as the next imme-along their sea-coasts in canoes; and the disparity diate occupants, entered upon the possession as clearly as the hangman succeeds to the clothes of the malefactor-and as they have Blackstone,* and all the learned expounders of the law on their side, they may set all actions of ejectment at defianceand this last right may be entitled the RIGHT BY EXTERMINATION, or, in other words, the RIGHT BY

GUNPOWDER.

and civilize our globe. Neither would the prodigy of sailing in the air and cruising among the stars be a whit more astonishing and incomprehensible to us, than was the European mystery of navigating floating castles, through the world of waters, to the simple savages. We have already discovered the art of coasting along the aerial shores of our planet, by means of balloons, as the savages had of venturing between the former, and the aerial vehicles of the philosophers from the moon, might not be greater than that between the bark canoes of the savages and the mighty ships of their discoverers. I might here pursue an endless chain of similar speculations; but as they would be unimportant to my subject, I abandon them to my reader, particularly if he be a philosopher, as matters well worthy of his attentive But lest any scruples of conscience should remain consideration. or this head, and to settle the question of right for To return then to my supposition-let us suppose ever, his holiness Pope Alexander VI. issued a bull, that the aerial visitants I have mentioned, possessed by which he generously granted the newly-discov- of vastly superior knowledge to ourselves; that is to ered quarter of the globe to the Spaniards and Por- say, possessed of superior knowledge in the art of tuguese; who, thus having law and gospel on their extermination-riding on hippogriffs-defended with side, and being inflamed with great spiritual zeal, impenetrable armour-armed with concentrated sunshowed the pagan savages neither favour nor affec- beams, and provided with vast engines, to hurl enor tion, but prosecuted the work of discovery, coloniza- mous moon stones: in short, let us suppose them, if tion, civilization, and extermination, with ten times our vanity will permit the supposition, as superior to more fury than ever. us in knowledge, and consequently in power, as the Europeans were to the Indians, when they first discovered them. All this is very possible; it is only our self-sufficiency that makes us think otherwise; and I warrant the poor savages, before they had any knowledge of the white men, armed in all the terrors of glittering steel and tremendous gunpowder, were as perfectly convinced that they themselves were the wisest, the most virtuous, powerful, and perfect of created beings, as are at this present moment the lordly inhabitants of Old England, the volatile populace of France, or even the self-satisfied citizens of this most enlightened republic.

Thus were the European worthies who first discovered America, clearly entitled to the soil; and not only entitled to the soil, but likewise to the eternal thanks of these infidel savages, for having come so far, endured so many perils by sea and land, and taken such unwearied pains, for no other purpose but to improve their forlorn, uncivilized, and heathenish condition-for having made them acquainted with the comforts of life; for having introduced among them the light of religion; and, finally, for having hurried them out of the world, to enjoy its reward!

But as argument is never so well understood by us selfish mortals as when it comes home to ourselves, and as I am particularly anxious that this question should be put to rest for ever, I will suppose a parallel case, by way of arousing the candid attention of my readers.

Let us suppose, then, that the inhabitants of the moon, by astonishing advancement in science, and by profound insight into that lunar philosophy, the mere flickerings of which have of late years dazzled the feeble optics, and addled the shallow brains of the good people of our globe-let us suppose, I say, that the inhabitants of the moon, by these means, had arrived at such a command of their energies, such an enviable state of perfectibility, as to control the elements, and navigate the boundless regions of space. Let us suppose a roving crew of these soaring philosophers, in the course of an aerial voyage of discovery among the stars, should chance to alight upon this outlandish planet.

And here I beg my readers will not have the uncharitableness to smile, as is too frequently the fault of volatile readers, when perusing the grave speculations of philosophers. I am far from indulging in any sportive vein at present; nor is the supposition I have been making so wild as many may deem it. It has long been a very serious and anxious question with me, and many a time and oft, in the course of my overwhelming cares and contrivances for the welfare and protection of this my native planet, have I lain awake whole nights debating in my mind, whether it were most probable we should first discover and civilize the moon, or the moon discover

B! Com. b. ii c. 1.

Let us suppose, moreover, that the aerial voyagers, finding this planet to be nothing but a howling wilderness, inhabited by us, poor savages and wild beasts, shall take formal possession of it in the name of his most gracious and philosophic excellency, the man in the moon. Finding, however, that their numbers are incompetent to hold it in complete subjection, on account of the ferocious barbarity of its inhabitants, they shall take our worthy President, the King of England, the Emperor of Hayti, the mighty Bonaparte, and the great King of Bantam, and returning to their native planet, shall carry them to court, as were the Indian chiefs led about as spectacles in the courts of Europe.

Then making such obeisance as the etiquette of the court requires, they shall address the puissant man in the moon, in, as near as I can conjecture, the following terms:

"Most serene and mighty Potentate, whose doIminions extend as far as eye can reach, who rideth on the Great Bear, useth the sun as a looking-glass, and maintaineth unrivalled control over tides, madmen, and sea-crabs: We, thy liege subjects, have just returned from a voyage of discovery, in the course of which we have landed and taken possession of that obscure little dirty planet which thou beholdest rolling at a distance. The five uncouth monsters which we have brought into this august presence were once very important chiefs among their fellow-savages, who are a race of beings totally destitute of the common attributes of humanity; and differing in every thing from the inhabitants of the moon, inasmuch as they carry their heads upon their shoulders, instead of under their arms-have two eyes instead of one-are utterly destitute of tails, and

of a variety of unseemly complexions, particularly converted us to the true faith, they shall graciously of a horrible whiteness-instead of pea-green.

permit us to exist in the torrid deserts of Arabia, or the frozen regions of Lapland, there to enjoy the blessings of civilization and the charms of lunar philosophy, in much the same manner as the reformed and enlightened savages of this country are kindly suffered to inhabit the inhospitable forests of the north, or the impenetrable wilderness of South America.

"We have, moreover, found these miserable savages sunk into a state of the utmost ignorance and depravity every man shamelessly living with his own wife, and rearing his own children, instead of indulging in that community of wives enjoined by the law of nature, as expounded by the philosophers of the moon. In a word, they have scarcely a gleam of true philosophy among them, but are, in fact, utter Thus, I hope, I have clearly proved, and strikingly heretics, ignoramuses, and barbarians. Taking com- illustrated, the right of the early colonists to the pos passion, therefore, on the sad condition of these sub- session of this country; and thus is this gigantic lunary wretches, we have endeavoured, while we question completely vanquished; so having manfully remained on their planet, to introduce among them surmounted all obstacles, and subdued all opposition, the light of reason—and the comforts of the moon. | what remains but that I should forthwith conduct my We have treated them to mouthfuls of moonshine, readers into the city which we have been so long in and draughts of nitrous oxyde, which they swallowed a manner besieging? But hold-before I proceed with incredible voracity, particularly the females; another step, I must pause to take breath, and reand we have likewise endeavoured to instil into them cover from the excessive fatigue I have undergone, the precepts of lunar philosophy. We have insisted in preparing to begin this most accurate of histories. upon their renouncing the contemptible shackles of And in this I do but imitate the example of a rereligion and common sense, and adoring the pro-nowned Dutch tumbler of antiquity, who took a found, omnipotent, and all-perfect energy, and the start of three miles for the purpose of jumping over ecstatic, immutable, immoveable perfection. But a hill, but having run himself out of breath by the such was the unparalleled obstinacy of these wretch- time he reached the foot, sat himself quietly down ed savages, that they persisted in cleaving to their for a few moments to blow, and then walked over wives, and adhering to their religion, and absolutely it at his leisure. set at nought the sublime doctrines of the moonnay, among other abominable heresies, they even went so far as blasphemously to declare, that this ineffable planet was made of nothing more nor less than green cheese!"

At these words, the great man in the moon (being

BOOK II.

PROVINCE OF NIEUW NEDERLANDts.

a very profound philosopher) shall fall into a terrible TREATING OF THE FIRST SETTLEMENT OF THE passion, and possessing equal authority over things that do not belong to him, as did whilome his holiness the Pope, shall forthwith issue a formidable bull, specifying, "That, whereas a certain crew of Lunatics have lately discovered, and taken posses

CHAPTER I.

A MAN SHOULD NOT WRITE IN A HURRY.
ALSO, OF MASTER HENDRICK HUDSON, HIS
DISCOVERY OF A STRANGE COUNTRY AND
HOW HE WAS MAGNIFICENTLY REWARDED BY
THE MAGNIFICENCE OF THEIR HIGH MIGHTI-
NESSES.

sion of, a newly discovered planet called the earth-IN WHICH ARE CONTAINED DIVERS REASONS WHY and that whereas it is inhabited by none but a race of two-legged animals, that carry their heads on their shoulders instead of under their arms; cannot talk the lunatic language; have two eyes instead of one; are destitute of tails, and of a horrible whiteness, instead of pea-green-therefore, and for a variety of other excellent reasons, they are considered incapable of possessing any property in the planet they infest, and the right and title to it are confirmed to its original discoverers.-And furthermore, the colonists who are now about to depart to the aforesaid planet are authorized and commanded to use every means to convert these infidel savages from the darkness of Christianity, and make them thorough and absolute Lunatics."

In consequence of this benevolent bull, our philosophic benefactors go to work with hearty zeal. They seize upon our fertile territories, scourge us from our rightful possessions, relieve us from our wives, and when we are unreasonable enough to complain, they will turn upon us and say: Miserable barbarians! ungrateful wretches! have we not come thousands of miles to improve your worthless planet? have we not fed you with moonshine? have we not intoxicated you with nitrous oxyde? does not our moon give you light every night, and have you the baseness to murmur, when we claim a pitiful return for all these benefits? But finding that we not only persist in absolute contempt of their reasoning and uisbelief in their philosophy, but even go so far as daringly to defend our property, their patience shall be exhausted, and they shall resort to their superior powers of argument; hunt us with hippogriffs, transfix us with concentrated sun-beams, demolish our cities with moon-stones; until having, by main force,

My great-grandfather, by the mother's side, Hermanus Van Clattercop, when employed to build the large stone church at Rotterdam, which stands about three hundred yards to your left after you turn off from the Boomkeys, and which is so conveniently constructed, that all the zealous Christians of Rotterdam prefer sleeping through a sermon there to any other church in the city-my great-grandfather, I say, when employed to build that famous church, did, in the first place, send to Delft for a box of long pipes; then, having purchased a new spitting box and a hundred weight of the best Virginia, he sat himself down, and did nothing for the space of three months but smoke most laboriously. Then did he spend full three months more in trudging on foot, and voyaging in trekschuit, from Rotterdam to Amsterdam-to Delft-to Haerlem-to Leyden-to the Hague, knocking his head and breaking his pipe against every church in his road. Then did he advance gradually nearer and nearer to Rotterdam, until he came in full sight of the identical spot whereon the church was to be built. Then did he spend three months longer in walking round it and round it, contemplating it, first from one point of view, and then from another-now would he be paddled by it on the canal-now would he peep at it through a telescope, from the other side of the Meuse, and now would he take a bird's-eye glance at it, from the top

of one of those gigantic windmills which protect the gates of the city. The good folks of the place were on the tiptoe of expectation and impatience-notwithstanding all the turmoil of my great-grandfather, not a symptom of the church was yet to be seen; they even began to fear it would never be brought into the world, but that its great projector would lie down and die in labour of the mighty plan he had conceived. At length, having occupied twelve good months in puffing and paddling, and talking and walking-having travelled over all Holland, and even taken a peep into France and Germany-having smoked five hundred and ninety-nine pipes, and three hundred weight of the best Virginia tobaccomy great-grandfather gathered together all that knowing and industrious class of citizens who prefer attending to any body's business sooner than their own, and having pulled off his coat and five pair of breeches, he advanced sturdily up, and laid the corner-stone of the church, in the presence of the whole multitude-just at the commencement of the thirteenth month.

He wore a true Andrea Ferrara, tucked in a leathern belt, and a commodore's cocked hat on one side of his head. He was remarkable for always jerking up his breeches when he gave out his orders; and his voice sounded not unlike the brattling of a tin trumpet-owing to the number of hard northwesters which he had swallowed in the course of his sea-faring.

Such was Hendrick Hudson, of whom we have heard so much, and know so little: and I have been thus particular in his description, for the benefit of modern painters and statuaries, that they may represent him as he was; and not, according to their common custom with modern heroes, make him look like Cæsar, or Marcus Aurelius, or the Apollo of Belvidere.

As chief mate and favourite companion, the commodore chose master Robert Juet, of Limehouse, in England. By some his name has been spelled Chewit, and ascribed to the circumstance of his having been the first man that ever chewed tobacco; but this I believe to be a mere flippancy; more especially as In a similar manner, and with the example of my certain of his progeny are living at this day, who worthy ancestor full before my eyes, have I proceeded write their name Juet. He was an old comrade and in writing this most authentic history. The honest early schoolmate of the great Hudson, with whom Rotterdamers no doubt thought my great-grandfather he had often played truant and sailed chip boats was doing nothing at all to the purpose, while he in a neighbouring pond, when they were little boys was making such a world of prefatory bustle, about from whence it is said the commodore first the building of his church-and many of the inge-derived his bias towards a sea-faring life. Certain nious inhabitants of this fair city will unquestionably it is, that the old people about Limehouse declared suppose that all the preliminary chapters, with the Robert Juet to be an unlucky urchin, prone to discovery, population, and final settlement of Amer-mischief, that would one day or other come to the ica, were totally irrelevant and superfluous-and that gallows. the main business, the history of New-York, is not a He grew up as boys of that kind often grow up, a jot more advanced than if I had never taken up my rambling, heedless varlet, tossed about in all quarters pen. Never were wise people more mistaken in of the world-meeting with more perils and wonders their conjectures; in consequence of going to work than did Sinbad the Sailor, without growing a whit slowly and deliberately, the church came out of more wise, prudent, or ill-natured. Under every my grandfather's hands one of the most sumptuous, misfortune, he comforted himself with a quid of togoodly, and glorious edifices in the known world-bacco, and the truly philosophic maxim, that "it excepting that, like our magnificent capitol, at Wash- will be all the same thing a hundred years hence." ington, it was begun on so grand a scale that the He was skilled in the art of carving anchors and truegood folks could not afford to finish more than the lovers' knots on the bulk-heads and quarter-railings, wing of it. So, likewise, I trust, if ever I am able and was considered a great wit on board ship, in to finish this work on the plan I have commenced, consequence of his playing pranks on every body (of which, in simple truth, I sometimes have my around, and now and then even making a wry face doubts,) it will be found that I have pursued the at old Hendrick, when his back was turned. latest rules of my art, as exemplified in the writings of all the great American historians, and wrought a very large history out of a small subject-which now-a-days is considered one of the great triumphs of historic skill. To proceed, then, with the thread of my story.

To this universal genius are we indebted for many particulars concerning this voyage; of which he wrote a history, at the request of the commodore, who had an unconquerable aversion to writing himself, from having received so many floggings about it when at school. To supply the deficiencies of master Juet's journal, which is written with true logbook brevity, I have availed myself of divers family traditions, handed down from my great-great-grandfather, who accompanied the expedition in the capac

In the ever-memorable year of our Lord, 1609, on a Saturday morning, the five-and-twentieth day of March, old style, did that "worthy and irrecoverable discoverer, (as he has justly been called,) Master Henry Hudson," set sail from Holland in a stout ves-ity of cabin-boy. sel called the Half Moon, being employed by the Dutch East India Company, to seek a north-west passage to China.

Henry (or, as the Dutch historians call him, Hendrick) Hudson, was a sea-faring man of renown, who had learned to smoke tobacco under Sir Walter Raleigh, and is said to have been the first to introduce it into Holland, which gained him much popularity in that country, and caused him to find great favour in the eyes of their High Mightinesses, the Lords States General, and also of the honourable West India Company. He was a short, square, brawny old gentleman, with a double chin, a mastiff mouth, and a broad copper nose, which was supposed in those days to have acquired its fiery hue from the constant neighbourhood of his tobaccopipe.

VOL. II.-2.

From all that I can learn, few incidents worthy of remark happened in the voyage; and it mortifies me exceedingly that I have to admit so noted an expedition into my work, without making any more of it.

Suffice it to say, the voyage was prosperous and tranquil-the crew, being a patient people, much given to slumber and vacuity, and but little troubled with the disease of thinking-a malady of the mind, which is the sure breeder of discontent. Hudson had laid in abundance of gin and sour-crout, and every man was allowed to sleep quietly at his post unless the wind blew. True it is, some slight dissatisfaction was shown on two or three occasions, at certain unreasonable conduct of Commodore Hudson. Thus, for instance, he forbore to shorten sail when the wind was light, and the weather serene, which was con

sidered, among the most experienced Dutch seamen, as certain weather-breeders, or prognostics, that the weather would change for the worse. He acted, moreover, in direct contradiction to that ancient and sage rule of the Dutch navigators, who always took in sail at night-put the helm a-port, and turned in -by which precaution they had a good night's rest -were sure of knowing where they were the next morning, and stood but little chance of running down a continent in the dark. He likewise prohibited the seamen from wearing more than five jackets and six pair of breeches, under pretence of rendering them more alert; and no man was permitted to go aloft, and hand in sails with a pipe in his mouth, as is the invariable Dutch custom at the present day. All these grievances, though they might ruffle for a moment the constitutional tranquillity of the honest Dutch tars, made but transient impression; they eat hugely, drank profusely, and slept immeasurably, and being under the especial guidance of Providence, the ship was safely conducted to the coast of America; where, after sundry unimportant touchings and standing off and on, she at length, on the fourth day of September, entered that majestic bay, which at this day expands its ample bosom before the city of NewYork, and which had never before been visited by any European.*

It has been traditionary in our family, that when the great navigator was first blessed with a view of this enchanting island, he was observed, for the first and only time in his life, to exhibit strong symptoms of astonishment and admiration. He is said to have turned to Master Juet, and uttered these remarkable words, while he pointed towards this paradise of the new world" See! there!"-and thereupon, as was always his way when he was uncommonly pleased, he did puff out such clouds of dense tobacco-smoke, that in one minute the vessel was out of sight of land, and master Juet was fain to wait until the winds dispersed this impenetrable fog.

verdant burthen of clambering vines, bowing their branches to the earth, that was covered with flowers. On the gentle declivities of the hills were scattered, in gay profusion, the dog-wood, the sumach, and the wild brier, whose scarlet berries and white blossoms glowed brightly among the deep green of the surrounding foliage; and here and there a curl ing column of smoke rising from the little glens that opened along the shore, seemed to promise the weary voyagers a welcome at the hands of their fellow-creatures. As they stood gazing with entranced attention on the scene before them, a red man, crowned with feathers, issued from one of these glens, and after contemplating in silent wonder the gallant ship, as she sat like a stately swan swimming on a silver lake, sounded the war-whoop, and bounded into the woods like a wild deer, to the utter astonishment of the phlegmatic Dutchmen, who had never heard such a noise, or witnessed such a caper, in their whole lives.

Of the transactions of our adventurers with the savages, and how the latter smoked copper pipes, and ate dried currants; how they brought great store of tobacco and oysters; how they shot one of the ship's crew, and how he was buried, I shall say nothing; being that I consider them unimportant to my history. After tarrying a few days in the bay, in order to refresh themselves after their sea-faring, our voyagers weighed anchor, to explore a mighty river which emptied into the bay. This river, it is said, was known among the savages by the name of the Shatemuck; though we are assured, in an excellent little history published in 1674, by John Josselyn, Gent., that it was called the Mohegan, and master Richard Bloome, who wrote some time afterwards, asserts the same-so that I very much incline in favour of the opinion of these two honest gentlemen. Be this as it may, up this river did the adventurous Hendrick proceed, little doubting but it would turn out to be the much-looked-for passage to China!

The journal goes on to make mention of divers interviews between the crew and the natives, in the voyage up the river; but as they would be impertinent to my history, I shall pass over them in silence, except the following dry joke, played off by the old commodore and his school-fellow, Robert Juet, which does such vast credit to their experimental philoso

It was indeed-as my great-great-grandfather used to say-though in truth I never heard him, for he died, as might be expected, before I was born-"it was indeed a spot on which the eye might have revelled for ever, in ever-new and never-ending beauties." The island of Mannahata spread wide before them, like some sweet vision of fancy, or some fair creation of industrious magic. Its hills of smil-phy, that I cannot refrain from inserting it. "Our ing green swelled gently one above another, crowned with lofty trees of luxuriant growth; some pointing their tapering foliage towards the clouds, which were gloriously transparent; and others loaded with a

master and his mate determined to try some of the chiefe men of the countrey, whether they had any treacherie in them. So they tooke them downe into the cabin and gave them so much wine and aqua vitæ, that they were all merrie; and one of them had his wife with him, which sate so modestly, as any of our countrey women would do in a strange place. In the end one of them was drunke, which had been aboarde of our ship all the time that we had been there, and that was strange to them, for they could not tell how to take it."

True it is-and I am not ignorant of the fact, that in a certain apocryphal book of voyages, compiled by one Hakluyt, is to be found a letter written to Francis the First, by one G vanne, or John Verazzani, on which some writers are inclined to found a belief that this delightful bay had been visited nearly a century previous to the voyage of the enterprising Hudson, Now this (albeit it has met with the countenance of certain very judicious and learned men) I hold in utter disbelief, and that for various good and substantial reasons: First, Because on strict examination it will be found, that the description given Having satisfied himself by this ingenious experiby this Verazzani applies about as well to the bay of New-York ment, that the natives were an honest, social race of as it does to my night-cap. Secondly, Because that this John jolly roysters, who had no objection to a drinking Verazzani, for whom I already begin to feel a most bitter enmity, is a native of Florence; and every body knows the crafty bout, and were very merry in their cups, the old laurels from the brows of the immortal Colon, (vulgarly called ing a double quid of tobacco in his cheek, directed wiles of these losel Florentines, by which they filched away the commodore chuckled hugely to himself, and thrustColumbus,) and bestowed them on their officious townsman, Amerigo Vespucci; and I make no doubt they are equally master Juet to have it carefully recorded, for the ready to rob the illustrious Hudson of the credit of discovering satisfaction of all the natural philosophers of the this beautiful island, adorned by the city of New York, and placing it beside their usurped discovery of South America. university of Leyden-which done, he proceeded on And, thirdly, I award my decision in favour of the pretensions his voyage, with great self-complacency. After sailof Hendrick Hudson, inasmuch as his expedition sailed from Holland, being truly and absolutely a Dutch enterprise-and ing, however, above a hundred miles up the river, though all the proofs of the world were introduced on the other he found the watery world around him began to side, I would set them at nought, as undeserving my attention. If these three reasons be not sufficient to satisfy every burgher grow more shallow and confined, the current more of this ancient city-all I can say is, they are degenerate descendants from their venerable Dutch ancestors, and totally unworthy This river is likewise laid down in Ogilvy's map as Manhattan the trouble of convincing. Thus, therefore, the title of Hendrick-Noordt-Montaigne and Mauritius river.

Hudson to his renowned discovery is fully vindicated.

Juet's Journ. Purch. Pil.

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