Reference material and sources.

Emanuel Van Meteren, On Hudson's Voyage, 1610.   In J. Franklin 
Jameson, ed., Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664 (Original 
Narratives of Early American History).  NY: Charles Scribner's 
Sons, 1909.

We have observed in our last book that the Directors of the East 
India Company in Holland had sent out in March last, on purpose 
to seek a passage to China by northeast or northwest, a skilful 
English pilot, named Herry Hutson, in a Vlie boat, having a crew 
of eighteen or twenty men, partly English, partly Dutch, well 
provided.

This Henry Hutson left the Texel on the 6th of April, 1609, 
doubled the Cape of Norway the 5th of May, and directed his 
course along the northern coasts towards Nova Zembia; but he 
there found the sea as full of ice as he had found it in the preceding 
year, so that they lost the hope of effecting anything during the 
season.  This circumstance, and the cold, which some of his 
men, who had been in the East Indies, could not bear, caused 
quarrels among the crew, they being partly English, partly Dutch, 
upon which Captain Hutson laid before them two propositions.  
The first of these was to go to the coast of America, to the latitude 
of 40 degrees, moved thereto mostly by letters and maps which a 
certain Captain Smith had sent him from Virginia, and by which 
he indicated to him a sea leading into the western ocean, by the 
north of the southern English colony.  Had this information been 
true (experience goes as yet to the contrary), it would have been 
of great advantage, as indicating a short way to India.  The other
proposition was to direct their search through Davis's Straits.  
This meeting with general approval, they sailed thitherward 
on the 14th of May, and arrived on the last day of May with 
a good wind at the Faroe Islands, where they stopped but 
twenty-four hours, to supply themselves with fresh water.  
After leaving these islands, they sailed on, till on the 18th 
of July they reached the coast of Nova Francia, under 44 
degrees, where they were obliged to run in, in order to get 
a new foremast, having lost theirs.  They found one, and set 
it up.  They found this a good place for cod-fishing, as also 
for traffic in good skins and furs, which were to be got there 
at a very low price. But the crew behaved badly towards the 
people of the country, taking their property by force, out of 
which there arose quarrels among themselves.  The English, 
fearing that between the two they would be outnumbered and 
worsted, were therefore afraid to pursue the matter further.  
So they left that place on the 26th of July, and kept out at sea 
till the 3d of August, when they came near the coast, in 42 
degrees of latitude.  Thence they sailed on, till on the 12th of 
August they again reached the shore, under 37 degrees 45'.  
Thence they sailed along the shore until they reached 40 degrees 
45', where they found a good entrance, between two headlands, 
and entered on the 12th of September into as fine a river as can 
be found, wide and deep, with good anchoring ground on both 
sides.

Their ship finally sailed up the river as far as 42 degrees 40'.  
But their boat went higher up.  In the lower part of the river 
they found strong and warlike people; but in the upper part 
they found friendly and polite people, who had an abundance 
of provisions, skins, and furs, of martens and foxes, and many 
other commodities, as birds and fruit, even white and red grapes, 
and they traded amicably with the people.  And of all the above-
mentioned commodities they brought some home.  When they 
had thus been about fifty leagues up the river, they returned on 
the 4th of October, and went again to sea.  More could have been 
done if there had been good-will among the crew and if the want 
of some necessary provisions had not prevented it.   While at sea, 
they held counsel together, but were of different opinions.  The 
mate, a Dutchman, advised to winter in Newfoundland, and to 
search the northwestern passage of Davis throughout.  This was 
opposed by Skipper Hutson.  He was afraid of his mutinous crew, 
who had sometimes savagely threatened him; and he feared that 
during the cold season they would entirely consume their provi-
sions, and would then be obliged to return, [with] many of the 
crew ill and sickly.  Nobody, however, spoke of returning home 
to Holland, which circumstance made the captain still more 
suspicious.  He proposed therefore to sail to Ireland, and winter 
there, which they all agreed to.  At last they arrived at Dartmouth, 
in England, the 7th of November, whence they informed their 
employers, the Directors in Holland, of their voyage.  They 
proposed to them to go out again for a search in the northwest, 
and that, besides the pay, and what they already had in the ship, 
fifteen hundred florins should be laid out for an additional 
supply of provisions.  He [Hudson] also wanted six or seven 
of his crew exchanged for others, and their number raised to 
twenty.  He would then sail from Dartmouth about the 1st of 
March, so as to be in the northwest towards the end of that month, 
and there to spend the whole of April and the first half of May in 
killing whales and other animals in the neighborhood of Panar 
Island, then to sail to the northwest, and there to pass the time 
till the middle of September, and then to return to Holland around 
the northeastern coast of Scotland.  Thus this voyage ended.

A long time elapsed, through contrary winds, before the Company 
could be informed of the arrival of the ship in England.  Then they 
ordered the ship and crew to return as soon as possible.  But, when 
this was about to be done, Skipper Herry Hutson and the other 
Englishmen of the ship were commanded by the government there 
not to leave [England], but to serve their own country.  Many persons 
thought it strange that captains should thus be prevented from laying 
their accounts and reports before their employers, having been sent out 
for the benefit of navigation in general.  This took place in January, 
[1610]; and it was thought probably that the English themselves 
would send ships to Virginia, to explore further the aforesaid river.
 

VOYAGE."

Isaack de Rasieres, Letter of Isaack de Rasieres to Samuel 
Blommaert, 1628.  In J. Franklin Jameson, ed., Narratives of 
New Netherland, 1609-1664 (Original Narratives of Early 
American History).  NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1909.

Mr. Blommaert:

As I feel myself much bound to your service, and in return know 
not how otherwise to recompense you than by this slight memoir, 
(wherein I have in part comprised as much as was in my power 
concerning the situation of New Netherland and its neighbors, and 
should in many things have been able to treat of or write the same 
more in detail, and better than I have now done, but that my things 
and notes, which would have been of service to me herein, have 
been taken away from me), I will beg you to be pleased to receive 
this, on account of my bounden service, etc.

On the 27th of July, Anno 1626, by the help of God, I arrived 
with the ship The Arms of Amsterdam, before the bay of the great 
Mauritse River, sailing into it about a musket shot from Godyn's 
Point, into Coenraet's Bay; (because there the greatest depth is, 
since from the east point there stretches out a sand bank on which 
there is only from 9 to 14 feet of water), then sailed on, northeast 
and north-northeast, to about half way from the low sand bank 
called Godyn's Point to the Hamels-Hoofden, the mouth of the 
river, where we found at half ebb 16, 17, 18 feet water, and which 
is a sandy reef a musket shot broad, stretching for the most part 
northeast and southwest, quite across, and, according to my opinion, 
having been formed there by the stream, inasmuch as the flood runs 
into the bay from the sea, east-southeast; the depth at Godyn's Point 
is caused by the tide flowing out along there with such rapidity.

Between the Hamels-Hoofden the width is about a cannon's shot 
of 2,000 [yards]; the depth 10, 11, 12 fathoms.  They are tolerably 
high points, and well wooded.  The west point is an island, inhabited 
by from 80 to 90 savages, who support themselves by planting 
maize.  The east point is a very large island, full 24-leagues long, 
stretching east by south and east-southeast along the sea-coast, from 
the river to the east end of the Fisher's Hook.  In some places it is 
from three to four leagues broad, and it has several creeks and bays, 
where many savages dwell, who support themselves by planting 
maize and making sewan, and who are called Souwenos and 
Sinnecox.  It is also full of oaks, elms, walnut and fir trees, also 
wild cedar and chestnut trees.  The tribes are held in subjection by, 
and are tributary to, the Pyquans, hereafter named.  The land is in 
many places good, and fit for ploughing and sowing.  It has many 
fine valleys, where there is good grass.  Their form of government 
is like that of their neighbors, which is described hereafter.

The Hamels-Hoofden being passed, there is about a league width 
in the river, and also on the west side there is an inlet, where another 
river runs up about twenty leagues, to the north-northeast, emptying 
into the Mauritse River in the highlands, thus making the northwest 
land opposite to the Manhatas an island eighteen leagues long.  It is 
inhabited by the old Manhatans [Manhatesen]; they are about 200 to 
300 strong, women and men, under different chiefs, whom they call 
Sackimas.  This island is more mountainous than the other land on 
the southeast side of the river, which opposite to the Manhatas is 
about a league and half in breadth.  At the side of the before-mentioned 
little river, which we call "Achter Col," there is a great deal of waste 
reedy land; the rest is full of trees, and in some places there is good 
soil, where the savages plant their maize, upon which they live, as 
well as by hunting.  The other side of the same small river, according 
to conjecture, is about 20 to 23 leagues broad to the South River, in 
the neighborhood of the Sancicans, in so far as I have been able to 
make it out from the mouths of the savages; but as they live in a 
state of constant enmity with those tribes, the paths across are but 
little used, wherefore I have not been able to learn the exact distance; 
so that when we wish to send letters overland, they (the natives) take 
their way across the bay, and have the letters carried forward by 
others, unless one amongst them may happen to be on friendly terms, 
and who might venture to go there.

The island of the Manhatas extends two leagues in length along the 
Mauritse River, from the point where the Fort "New Amsterdam" 
is building.  It is about seven leagues in circumference, full of trees, 
and in the middle rocky to the extent of about two leagues in circuit.  
The north side has good land in two places, where two farmers, each 
with four horses, would have enough to do without much clearing 
at first.  The grass is good in the forest and valleys, but when made 
into hay is not so nutritious for the cattle as here, in consequence of 
its wild state, but it yearly improves by cultivation.  On the east side 
there rises a large level field, of from 70 to 80 morgens of land, 
through which runs a very fine fresh stream; so that that land can be 
ploughed without much clearing.  It appears to be good.  The six 
farms, four of which lie along the River Hellgate, stretching to the 
south side of the island, have at least 60 morgens of land ready to be 
sown with winter seed, which at the most will have been ploughed