Henry Hudson the Navigator; The Original Documents in Which His Career Is Recorded, Collected, Partly Translated, and Annotated (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1860 edition. Excerpt: ... July, the date where Hudson's share of the log-book is said to begin. If the log-book was, indeed, partly his work, he must have purposely omitted some of his most important explorations. As to John Playse or Pleyce, the probable writer of the whole log-book, next to nothing is known about him. His name occurs only once, as one of the crew of the ship in which the first voyage was performed. There he ranks very low. Among Hudson's eleven companions (one of whom was a boy), Playse's name stands seventh. He must therefore have been a common sailor; and it would be impossible to attribute to him the observations of the needle recorded in the first person on page 2 of his journal.1 These observations, like all the other important parts of Playse's account, are evidently due to Hudson himself. The log-book was probably intended only for Playse's private use, or perhaps also for some other sailor's. It is entirely of a professional nature. It contains, however, many passages of interest for the general reader, and principally those which reveal Hudson's ideas and plans. The descriptions of coasts, capes, harbours, and seas, are without any literary pretension. Still they are striking enough in their simplicity. For the history of geography, the logbook is of the very highest value, although it unfortunately lacks some important information but imperfectly supplied by other sources. The account of the second voyage (to Nova Zem 1 P. 2, li. 5, 1. 16. bla) is likewise a log-book.1 Henry Hudson himself is its author. It commences with the departure from London, April 22, 1608, and concludes with the return to Gravesend, August 26 of the same year. Its character is, in almost every respect, like that of Playse's journal. Some of the descriptions, ...