Hudson's life begins.

St. Ethelburga's, a restful pause in the bustle of Bishopsgate
Street, still stands--the worse, to be sure, for the clutter of
little shops that has been built in front of it, and for
incongruous interior renovation--and I am very grateful to Purchas
for having preserved the scrap of information that links Hudson's
living body with that church which still is alive: into which may
pass by the very doorway that he passed through those who venerate
his memory; and there may stand within the very walls and beneath
the very roof that sheltered him when he and his ship's company
partook of the Sacrament together three hundred years ago. Purchas,
no doubt, could have told all that we so gladly would know of
Hudson's early history. But he did not tell it--and we must rest
content, I think well content, with that poetic beginning at the
chancel rail of St. Ethelburga's of the strong life that less than
four years later came to its epic ending.

The voyage made in the year 1607, for which Hudson and his crew
prepared by making their peace with God in St. Ethelburga's, had
nothing to do with America; nor did his voyage of the year
following have anything to do with this continent. Both of those
adventures were set forth by the Muscovy Company in search of a
northeast passage to the Indies; and, while they failed in their
main purpose, they added important facts concerning the coasts of
Spitzbergen and of Nova Zembla to the existing stock of
geographical knowledge, and yielded practical results in that they
extended England's Russian trade.

The most notable scientific accomplishment of the first voyage was