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Henry Hudson: Dutch East India Company
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Henry Hudson was an English navigator and explorer, who was engaged in 1609 to find a northeastern route to the orient by the Dutch East India Company. He sailed in his ship, the "Half Moon," to Spitsbergen, in the Barents Sea along the northern coast of Russia, where extreme ice and cold brought his crew near mutiny.
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Henry Hudson was already a famous explorer of Arctic waters when in 1608 he was hired by the Dutch East India Company to find a northeast, all-water route to Asia. The Dutch East India Company had a monopoly on trade with the Orient and wanted to shorten the lengthy and expensive voyage around the Cape of Good Hope to the Orient.
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Henry Hudson explored because he wanted to find a northwestern passage to Asia. But his ship, The Hopewell, could not travel through the ice. After 1609, the English lost interest in Hudson's hope to find a northwestern route, so the Dutch East India Company hired him.
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The next year Hudson sailed to the Arctic again, hoping to find the passage to Asia via Novaya Zemlya. Failing, as the Dutch navigator Willem Barents had earlier failed, Hudson returned to England. There he was approached by agents of the Dutch East India Company, which had not abandoned hopes of a Northeast Passage. In 1609 the Dutch company gave the explorer command of the Half Moon and perhaps another ship called Good Hope, with crews largely recruited from Dutch seamen.
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Hudson again sailed with the same ship and crew. As before, strong winds and ice forced him to turn around and head back to England. By this time, the English Muscovy Company was getting upset about financing worthless voyages. There complaining began to draw the attention of the Dutch East India Company.
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In 1608, Hudson dined with a Dutchman named Emmanuel van Meteran, an English representative to the Dutch East India Company. The company was looking for a shorter route to trade with the Orient. Ultimately, the Dutch hired Hudson.
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