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