Read Online The Island at the Center of the World by Russell Shorto - Free Book Online
Authors: Russell Shorto
Tags: History
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space on board. Finally, they could take it no more.
Besides him, the small party loaded into the shallop comprised the most desperately sick and those that had remained loyal to him, including his son John, still a boy. At some point after they were set adrift—after the ship had moved away from them into open water, her topsails fattening in a fresh wind; after he had watched her hull evaporate into the white hoar of early morning, leaving their small vessel to the elements, without food, water, or source of fire, and three hundred thousand square miles of ice-choked sea around them—his iron will must have finally caved in. And he would have been left, then, before the cold ate its way into his blood and heart, to endure what must be any man's twin nightmares: watching his innocent child suffer and die because of his own folly, and contemplating the utter destruction of his life's ambition. At some point before his mind closed down, he would have acknowledged that his dream of discovery was to die here, as he would die.
The irony of his end came when the surviving mutineers limped back to London, stood trial for mutiny and murder, and then were exonerated based on their outrageous but ingenious claim that, in fact, Hudson
had
found the northwest passage, and that
they
knew where it was. Rather than being hanged, then, the survivors found themselves inaugurated by King James, along with some of the most prominent men in London, as members of a new company, the “Company of the Merchants Discoverers of the North-West Passage,” with a charter to proceed through their newfound strait to commence trade “to the great kingdoms of Tartaria, China, Japan, Solomons Islands, Chili, the Philippins and other countrys . . .”
The wave of history, which Hudson had ridden so effortlessly for a short while, rapidly engulfed him. He was destined to serve as a pollinator, to bring the spores of a culture not his own to new soil. Even before he froze to death in the southern reaches of what became Hudson Bay, on the Amsterdam waterfront a young man named Arnout Vogels was in a whirl of activity. Vogels, a thirty-year-old of adventure and drive, had been born in Antwerp to the south, and was one of those who fled troubles elsewhere in Europe to the safe haven of Amsterdam, in his case after Spanish forces invaded his hometown in 1585. He threw himself into business with the zest of one who has grown up amid war and knows how short life can be. He apprenticed in the fur business in the service of a trading company, but longed to strike out on his own. When the report of Hudson's discoveries spread through the dockside offices of Amsterdam's traders, Vogels moved fast. On July 26, 1610, as Hudson was making his way through the massive icy bay where he would meet his end, Vogels shook hands with Captain Sijmen Lambertsz Mau on a deal to trade in the new, virgin territory. The destination was vague still to most European minds, and so on the contract it was stated rather broadly: “West Indies, and nearby lands and places.” The term “West Indies” was still being applied to all American regions.
Overnight, times had changed. The idea of a shortcut to Asia, once the height of fashion, suddenly seemed antique and retro to men of Vogels's generation. The future was nearer: just across the Atlantic. The Englishman Hudson had scouted it for enterprising Dutchmen to follow. There was no concern at this date of a competing claim from England: the English had established a shaky beachhead at Virginia, but their New England settlements were still years in the future. Hudson's venture on behalf of the Dutch predated the Pilgrims' landing by more than a decade. So the field was clear, and the refrains must have repeated in the minds of the Dutch traders: “skins and peltries, martins, foxes,” “a very good harbor for all windes.” And they had an image to summon in their minds as a goal, a key, a way into the heart of a virgin
Besides him, the small party loaded into the shallop comprised the most desperately sick and those that had remained loyal to him, including his son John, still a boy. At some point after they were set adrift—after the ship had moved away from them into open water, her topsails fattening in a fresh wind; after he had watched her hull evaporate into the white hoar of early morning, leaving their small vessel to the elements, without food, water, or source of fire, and three hundred thousand square miles of ice-choked sea around them—his iron will must have finally caved in. And he would have been left, then, before the cold ate its way into his blood and heart, to endure what must be any man's twin nightmares: watching his innocent child suffer and die because of his own folly, and contemplating the utter destruction of his life's ambition. At some point before his mind closed down, he would have acknowledged that his dream of discovery was to die here, as he would die.
The irony of his end came when the surviving mutineers limped back to London, stood trial for mutiny and murder, and then were exonerated based on their outrageous but ingenious claim that, in fact, Hudson
had
found the northwest passage, and that
they
knew where it was. Rather than being hanged, then, the survivors found themselves inaugurated by King James, along with some of the most prominent men in London, as members of a new company, the “Company of the Merchants Discoverers of the North-West Passage,” with a charter to proceed through their newfound strait to commence trade “to the great kingdoms of Tartaria, China, Japan, Solomons Islands, Chili, the Philippins and other countrys . . .”
The wave of history, which Hudson had ridden so effortlessly for a short while, rapidly engulfed him. He was destined to serve as a pollinator, to bring the spores of a culture not his own to new soil. Even before he froze to death in the southern reaches of what became Hudson Bay, on the Amsterdam waterfront a young man named Arnout Vogels was in a whirl of activity. Vogels, a thirty-year-old of adventure and drive, had been born in Antwerp to the south, and was one of those who fled troubles elsewhere in Europe to the safe haven of Amsterdam, in his case after Spanish forces invaded his hometown in 1585. He threw himself into business with the zest of one who has grown up amid war and knows how short life can be. He apprenticed in the fur business in the service of a trading company, but longed to strike out on his own. When the report of Hudson's discoveries spread through the dockside offices of Amsterdam's traders, Vogels moved fast. On July 26, 1610, as Hudson was making his way through the massive icy bay where he would meet his end, Vogels shook hands with Captain Sijmen Lambertsz Mau on a deal to trade in the new, virgin territory. The destination was vague still to most European minds, and so on the contract it was stated rather broadly: “West Indies, and nearby lands and places.” The term “West Indies” was still being applied to all American regions.
Overnight, times had changed. The idea of a shortcut to Asia, once the height of fashion, suddenly seemed antique and retro to men of Vogels's generation. The future was nearer: just across the Atlantic. The Englishman Hudson had scouted it for enterprising Dutchmen to follow. There was no concern at this date of a competing claim from England: the English had established a shaky beachhead at Virginia, but their New England settlements were still years in the future. Hudson's venture on behalf of the Dutch predated the Pilgrims' landing by more than a decade. So the field was clear, and the refrains must have repeated in the minds of the Dutch traders: “skins and peltries, martins, foxes,” “a very good harbor for all windes.” And they had an image to summon in their minds as a goal, a key, a way into the heart of a virgin
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