River and Strait and Bay forever: and this notwithstanding the fact
that all three of them were discovered by other navigators before
his time.

Hudson sought, as from the time of Columbus downward other
navigators had sought before him, a short cut to the Indies; but
his search was made, because of what those others had accomplished,
within narrowed lines. In the century and more that had passed
between the great Admiral's death and the beginning of Hudson's
explorations one important geographical fact had been established:
that there was no water-way across America between, roughly,
the latitudes of 40° South and 40° North. Of necessity,
therefore--since to round America south of 40° South would make a
longer voyage than by the known route around the Cape of Good
Hope--exploration that might produce practical results had to be
made north of 40° North, either westward from the Atlantic or
eastward from the North Sea.

Even within those lessened limits much had been determined before
Hudson's time. To the eastward, both Dutch and English searchers
had gone far along the coast of Russia; passing between that coast
and Nova Zembla and entering the Kara Sea. To the westward, in the
year 1524, Verazzano had sailed along the American coast from 34°
to 50° North; and in the course of that voyage had entered what now
is New York Bay. In the year 1598, Sebastian Cabot had coasted
America from 38° North to the mouth of what now is Hudson's Strait.
Frobisher had entered that Strait in the year 1577; Weymouth had
sailed into it nearly one hundred leagues in the year 1602; and
Portuguese navigators, in the years 1558 and 1569, probably had
passed through it and had entered what now is Hudson's Bay.