Welcome to you stuff you missed in history class from how Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frum and I'm Tracy D. Wilson. And the topic today was actually one that was suggested by our senior editor, Allison, after she stumbled across a little bit of information about it. She came running over to my death and said, you know who you should do? Uh, And she was spot on about the interesting nature of the story. It's got everything, so those of you who love maritime exploration covered. Unfortunately, there's also horrible treatment of indigenous people's their treacherous treacherous waters, treacherous shipman, a mercenary switch, and loyalty to countries. There's some mutiny action and there's even a little bit of mermaid action going on. So it's a pretty full tale, so full in fact, that we had to round it out into two episodes because it ran super duper long. So we are going to be talking today about Henry Hudson, who was an explorer and commander of ocean vessels, and the four voyages that he took while he was trying to suss out a new trade route for various different bosses, and it is a wild ride. It is also a cold ride, so pack packet jacket or sweater and maybe bring up flotation best. So, as is often the case when we go this far back in history of the case where pretty much Henry Hudson appeared on the world stage fully formed as an adult human. We know he was born sometime around fifteen sixty five, but we don't really know exactly when, and various accounts suggest that it could have been any time in the fifteen sixties or fifteen seventies. We also know that he was born in England, and that's basically all we know about the entirety of his youth and even his early adulthood. Even the portraits that are usually identified of him as a young man or a child could really be someone else, And there's not a lot of certainty, and instead a whole lot of wobbliness about his whole life outside of the maritime adventures that wind up making him historically famous. Yeah, there's some historians that think that even the portraits that were painted of him as an adult were painted after the fact and taken just from random descriptions, and they may or might not actually look like him at all. Uh. We do know that he did marry at some point, and that he and his wife Katherine, we do not know her maiden name, had three sons together, named Richard, John, and Oliver. He's just not really much in the record until seven. He was a ship's commander by that time, and that marked his first major voyage, and prior to that he has to have had some kind of seafaring experience to have risen up to the role of commander. So there's all kinds of speculation that he probably, as you would expect, started in a low ranking role and then worked his way up. Yeah, but that's literally just stabs in the dark. We do not know. All we know is that it would be really bizarre and freaky if someone just said, here, you want to be a commander. So it's assumed by most historians that he either learned from local uh sea vessels, or he traveled with other sailors and kind of picked up the trade that way, or he did the usual like start as the you know, cabin boy and slowly came up through the ranks. But it's still a mystery. So on that six seven voyage that Tracy mentioned, Hudson was employed by an English firm called the Muscovy Company, and his family actually had a lot of connections to this company, and his directive was to find a northern passage to Asia. And Hudson was chosen by the directors of the Muscovy Company because he had quote secret information that would help him navigate a new passage. At this point, there was a huge competition going on globally to try to secure better shipping routes two more lucrative trade locations. Both private companies and governments were sending expeditions out hoping to be the first to discover some previously unknown passage, particularly to India or a Uh. Yeah, those were very lucrative places to trade, and you had to do a lot of wheeling and dealing to get sort of land based trade routes passable. We'll talk about that a little bit in one of the upcoming voyages. So the secret information that Hudson was believed to have had was most likely a pamphlet that was written eighty years earlier, so decades earlier by an agent of the Bristol Trading Company named Robert Thorne that suggested a northern passage to Cafe Commanding a vessel named the Hope Well, Hudson set out from London on April. The crew included William Collins who was the mate, James Young, John Coleman, who was the Boston, John Cook, James Bobery, James Scratton, John Place, Thomas Baxter, Richard Day, James Knight, and Henry's son John Hudson as the ship's boy. And the first of Hudson's four lifetime trips was actually plagued by ice in its early stages, which ended up cutting things a little bit short. This is a theme that's going to play out over and over throughout this whole story. Uh. Though the voyage had begun in spring to hedge bets for favorable weather, the winter persisted and really caused problems. And the thinking had been that because the Northern Pole received five months of continuous daylight and sunshine, that it was going to be unfrozen in smooth sailing in the spring, but that theory was of course not correct. Hudson and his crew managed to reach Greenland in early June. They spent two weeks mapping the coastline before turning northeast towards Spitzbergen. Island and that's where they discovered areas populated by pods of whales. This was really lucrative information for the whaling industry. Hudson and his career then spent the next several months exploring and mapping the islands around Greenland. Yet said that once that news got back to um London and then spread, there were just whaling ships kind of swarming the area, which is unfortunate, uh, but interesting and as we said, unfortunately lucrative part of this voyage, But the ongoing frozen conditions really meant that no new passages or trade routes were going to be discovered this time around. The voyage was finally called off when they just could go no further, and the Hope Well returned to England on September. And in addition to the whale locations, the voyage was noteworthy because it had traveled farther north than any other known expedition at the time. And before we get to his second voyage, which he began planning immediately, do you want to take a word from a sponsor, let's do so. After that somewhat disappointing first voyage in seven, Hudson spent the winter, preparing to make another go at finding a northern passage to Asia. So he had gotten back in September, and then he basically just buckled down and did tons of research and map reading and plotting of courses uh and this time the plan was going to be to travel north of Russia through the Arctic waters, still trying to find that passage to Asia. The voyage once again set out in the spring, and this time it was on April twenty six eight. Hudson once again took the Hope Well and his crew was quite tiny. It was only fourteen men, plus his son John. Only three of those fourteen men had been with him on the first voyage, so he had quite a bit of turnover. The crew members included Robert Jewett, who was the master's mate. He recorded his own accounts of Hudson's travels, and he will become a rather pivotal character later on in the story. Also traveling with him where Arnold Lovelow, John Cook, who was the bos in, Philip Stacey, who was a carpenter, John Barnes, John Braunch who was a cook, John Andrey, James Strutton, Michael Fierce, Thomas Hills, Richard Thompson, Robert Rayner, and Humphrey Gilby. The Muscovie company was pretty fearful at this point that if sorry Ivan the Terrible died, England was gonna lose its access to land passages for trade that Russia had controlled. So they really really wanted Hudson to figure out a new way to go by sea. Yeah, they really wanted to hedge their bets so that they would have some options other than land travel for trade. But once again, you know, they're still going into the same latitudes at the same time, so I see conditions impeded progress. Several of the crew members, including the carpenter who was on board, to continue the reinforcement of the ship that had begun at port so that they could hopefully have a better go at these icy waters were taken quite ill very early on. Hudson was able to get to the archipelago of Novaya Zemilia, but he couldn't go any farther. He tried to go south into the Kara Sea, but that was frozen, and at this point Hudson was starting to have some problems with his crew. After the blockage at Nevaa, Zemilia, which happened at the beginning of July. He had actually decided that what he was gonna do was head to North America, but he didn't all the crew. Uh So, as they turned away from the Russian archipelago, the men aboard thought that they were calling it quits like the first voyage had, and that they were headed home. It was August when the men finally realized that they were not going back to London, and there was almost a mutiny when the decision finally was made to return to England and abort the mission yet again. Hudson wrote that the crew had not forced his hand in the matter. This is often speculated to have either been written under darrest or as a means to placate the crew in the face of a potential coup. Yeah, it was clear, based on the journals that were being kept by the people aboard that that were literate, that they were unhappy with him, and I think there was concern that, uh, you know, they would somehow be in trouble that the voyage had ended. But in his journal Hudson wrote, quote, I used all diligence to arrive at London, and therefore I now gave my crew a certificate under my hand of my free and willing return without persuasion or forced by anyone or more of them. For when we were at Nova Zemlia on sixth of July, void of hope of a northeast passage, I therefore resolved to use all means I could to sail to the northwest. To me, that would sound so suspicious, like if you were a boss in a company and you got to note that said we had to cut the voyage short. No one made me do it, Like, yeah, it does sound when an eyebrow, he's protesting a little too much on that uh. Accounts also indicate that even at the start of the journey, Hudson and Jewett had had some kind of conflict between the two of them, and Hudson described him as quote a man of mean tempers. And because Hudson had failed to find a see passage to Asia a second time, the Muscovy company was really pretty uninterested in pursuing the idea. Further to their thinking, two times out, they really didn't get very far, so it's probably not worth throwing more resources at this. And they had also lost all faith in Hudson, and so when he came back and requested to make a third attempt at finding a northern passage to Asia. He was flatly refused. The most interesting footnote from the eight voyage is probably the log entry on when they spotted the mermaid on June. Crewman Thomas Hills and Robert Rayner were the first to see it and yelled for the rest of the crew to come and see. Hudson described the mermaid really matter of fact Lee in his entry, is having long black hair, pale skin, a woman's breasts, and the tail of a purpose which was speckled like a mackerel. His log indicated that she looked quote earnestly on the men as they gathered on the side of the ship to look at her. Yeah, he pretty clearly believed mermaids were a real thing. There's no like speculation about was this some sea animal, whether he's like there was a mermaid, we saw it. Here are the details. It's kind of interesting. Before we get to his third voyage, do you want to take a word from a sponsor, Let's do that. So at this point Hudson is back in England. He really wants to continue his exploration. He feels like he has some plans and ideas that will get him further than these previous two attempts. But he really could not find any backers in England. His reputation was pretty damaged at that point, so instead he joined up with one of England's rivals in this whole world trade uh race, which was the Dutch East India Company, and he hooked up with them in sixteen o nine. His new employers made Hudson commander of a ship named the half Moon and sent him on a mission that basically had the same orders as before. He was supposed to find a passage to Asia via the waters north of Russia, and the half Moon was apparently not a great vessel. It was a little bit old that needed some work, It sat high in the water. It was expected that it was going to be troublesome if they encountered any type of inclement weather heavy winds, and Hudson actually tried to petition his new bosses to try to get a different ship for the voyage, but he received a reply from the Dutch East India Company that said, quote, the half Moon is the only ship at the disposal of the Dutch East India Company. We can give you no other ship. If you do not want the half moon. The company will be obliged to find another captain to carry out this assignment. His contract with the Dutch East India Company was really specific about the objectives that Hudson was supposed to meet, and it was even stipulated that his wife and children had to live in Holland under the care of the company while he was to be at sea. There was also a really clear stipulation that all journals and logs kept by Hudson would be turned over to the company at the end of the voyage. Once again, on this voyage, confronted by impassable ice, Hudson made the exact same decision that he had attempted to follow through on with his second voyage when he was working for the Muscobie Company. He headed for North America. He thought there might be a passage to the Pacific Ocean through the North American continent, and their speculation that he may have heard this first through famed explorer and his friend John Smith, maybe because they knew of his somewhat rash decision during the second voyage, or maybe because they knew he had been discussing North America with John Smith. The Dutch East India Company amended his mission contract before the half moon set sail and this amendment included the word the wording that Hudson was quote to think of discovering no other route or passage except the route around the north or northeast above Nova. ZEMBLA. Yeah, hey, don't get any funny ideas like last time around Champ you will be a breach of contract. Uh. Apparently he didn't feels so strongly about that agreement. But we'll get to that just a bit. So the crew that he took with him number between sixteen and twenty. Accounts differ, and most of them say that twenty would be a very large crew, but somebody say that there were to money. Uh. They included both English and Dutch sailors, and there was a huge language gap between them because they did not speak each other's language, nor did they speak any language that any of them had in common. Uh. They also have different seafaring experience. Some of them were accustomed to cold water, some are accustomed to warmer waters. Their experiences did not really overlap. This made for a general distrust among them, like they all felt that the others weren't as experienced or weren't going to be as able to cope with changing situations as as they were. You know, it was kind of a problem. So in his journal, Jewett, who despite having friction with Hudson, was on board for this third voyage, described the Dutch sailors as quote an ugly lot. Because of the requirement that Hudson hand over its journals to the company after the voyage, Jewet's accounts are pretty much everything we know about it. Yeah, so it's there's some bias there. Probably. They're pretty basic journals and you can read all of them online and we will include a link to his journals from this voyage. But what we know is that in April the half Moons set out from Amsterdam, and by mid to late May it became parent apparent that once again getting beyond Novaya Zemia was going to be impossible. Yet again, it's kind of that thing where people keep saying, if you keep trying the same thing over and over expecting a different result, you're kind of an idiot. Um he kind of was doing that. Uh. The crew was once again unhappy, They were cold, They were distrustful of Hudson's leadership because the few that were repeats from the last voyage were like didn't we just do this? Uh? And some level of revolt did take place, though not a full mutiny, and Hudson did indeed turn towards North America. Unlike in the second voyage, though Hudson told the crew about the plan, and he actually offered them a choice. They could use the information he had, which included maps and notes from John Smith, to had for warmer waters, or they could keep on trying to force their way through the icy waters of davis Is straight at the north end of the Labrador Sea to try to find a passage to Asia, since a northeast passage really seemed impossible. So not very surprisingly, the crew opted to head for warmer waters. Yeah, and just for clarity, So he offered them a choice, but they were He was still like, we're going through North America. We can either go north through the really cold part or go a little south through the warmer part. So they had a choice, but it still was his plan to completely reverse their their initial um orders, and despite traveling through some incredibly rough storms and be slightly delayed at one point by trying to chase another ship down for a period of time, and it's speculated that they were after them for plunder, to steal their booty or their supplies. The Half Moon did indeed reach North America uh they landed in what is now Nova Scotia in July of six nine. The half Moon traveled down the American coast, exploring and making contact with Native Americans, and while Jewett describes the natives as friendly and welcoming in his journals, he's also very clear that he didn't trust them to It's journals detail all kinds of ill behavior on the part of the half Moon's crew toward the Native Americans that they encountered. There are lots of tales of theft and looting and even kidnapping. In his daily entries. They kept on encountering and interacting with Natives along their journey despite their very obvious xenophobia. Yeah, I feel compelled to point out it was not uncommon for explorers who landed in North America or any foreign lands to kidnap the natives of those lands or the indigenous peoples and try to bring them back to Europe as sort of novelties. So it's not unusual that they did that. Still reprehensible, but pretty common in the day. And you know, they kind of just thought they were exploiting people that were not equal to them. So they were just they just felt like they were entitled to go and steal their things and do horrible things. It's quite awful. But we are going to cliffhang you there. So we are mid voyage and we know that, but things are about to take a pretty significant turn. Uh. And so rather than delve into that now, which we do not really have time to get deep into, We're going to save that for the next time. Uh. And instead we're gonna shift gears and go to listener mail. And I have a piece of mail from our listener, Miss Jade, and it is about our House of Worth podcast. Uh. Jade says, Hello, ladies. I'm an avid listener and was so extremely excited to listen to the recent episode on the House of Worth. I'm a professional seamstress and costume designer. Listening to the podcast has certainly gotten me through some very long days in the shop. I share Holly's love of not only historical clothing, but also of undergarments and foundation garments. I'm still trying to sift through the archives to find your podcast on undergarments that you recently mentioned on this show. That was a wild back. I want to say that was fall to help narrow that for her. Uh, it was lovely to learn about the life of Worth himself as well as the brand. There was one thing that stuck out to me, however, that was a bit off. It was the use of the word stitcher in regards to the people that soaked could tour garments. The correct word is seamstress, as stitcher implies a machine operator and not one with exacting skills and garment construction. A stitcher is someone who, say so, is the left patch pocket on a pair of jeans and a dentom factory for twenty years many people in the business of making bespoke garments get their panties in a wrinkle about language here, seamstress is gender specific, and we haven't quite figured out a way around that yet, as there are many men out there that are quite skilled in garment construction as well. Taylor. Traditionally, a trade and title held by men is actually a specific skill set separate from being a seamstress, though you can of course be both, like myself. There are different camps about the interchangeable use of the word stitcher and seamstress, but especially when speaking to people who are in the business of constructing tour garments. Uh, these people are masters of the art. So maybe I cleared that up, just muddied the water. Uh, I alo a long time ago. This is one of my personal pecadillo's. I just kind of adopted stitcher for everything because of the very reasons she points out. Uh, seems stress doesn't apply to everyone, and it seems weird to use ditto with taylor, even though I feel while taylor is usually associated with men, just as a word on its own, it feels less male specific to me. So I will use that interchangeably with men and women. But I do tend to use stitcher. And I certainly don't mean to offend anyone who is an accomplished couture sower. It's just for me. It seems just really bothers me because I feel like it's exclusionary. Um. But I do understand, like she pointed out, there are many camps and schools of thought on this, and uh not everyone feels the same about it. So but it's a great thing to point out and think about. It's one of those things I probably should have mentioned the podcast, so my apologies that I didn't, because those are those words that are they become very specific and emblematic of certain sort of levels of of skill and degrees of knowledge. And it's kind of like how when I worked in the library for a long time, people always wanted to call me a librarian, but I was not. I do not have a master of library science, and I would try to correct them, but eventually I got tired and just said whatever works, which I meant no disrespect to the actual librarians in my life, but sometimes you get into a very awkward discussion that becomes about esoteric nomenclature to the average person. So that is the scoop, And then many thanks to Jade for pointing out that little uh gap in gap in mind um information that I shared. If you would like to write to us, you can do so History podcast at house to Works dot com. You can connect with us on Twitter at mist in History, at Facebook dot com slash mist in history and missed Industry dot tumbler dot com, and at pinterest dot com slash misst in history. You can also get Delightful misst in History merchandize at mist in history dot spreadshirt dot com. If you would like to research uh a little bit of info related to what we talked about today, you can go to our parents site, how stuff Works. Type in the words famous explorers and you are going to get loads of stuff, a lot of brief articles on famous explorers throughout history. Uh in putting Henry Hipson. If you would like to visit us on our history website, you can go to misston history dot com. You will get archive of every episode that has ever been done, as well as show notes for the more recent episodes since Tracy and I have been on the podcast, as well as the occasional blog post. And if you get to look at the fun pictures that we associate with different podcasts wrote them I often like because not very visual person. But you can do that and a whole lot more at our parents site, house stuff works dot com and our site missed at history dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, it has to works dot cal

Welcome to you stuff you missed in history class from how Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frum and I'm Tracy D. Wilson. And the topic today was actually one that was suggested by our senior editor, Allison, after she stumbled across a little bit of information about it. She came running over to my death and said, you know who you should do? Uh, And she was spot on about the interesting nature of the story. It's got everything, so those of you who love maritime exploration covered. Unfortunately, there's also horrible treatment of indigenous people's their treacherous treacherous waters, treacherous shipman, a mercenary switch, and loyalty to countries. There's some mutiny action and there's even a little bit of mermaid action going on. So it's a pretty full tale, so full in fact, that we had to round it out into two episodes because it ran super duper long. So we are going to be talking today about Henry Hudson, who was an explorer and commander of ocean vessels, and the four voyages that he took while he was trying to suss out a new trade route for various different bosses, and it is a wild ride. It is also a cold ride, so pack packet jacket or sweater and maybe bring up flotation best. So, as is often the case when we go this far back in history of the case where pretty much Henry Hudson appeared on the world stage fully formed as an adult human. We know he was born sometime around fifteen sixty five, but we don't really know exactly when, and various accounts suggest that it could have been any time in the fifteen sixties or fifteen seventies. We also know that he was born in England, and that's basically all we know about the entirety of his youth and even his early adulthood. Even the portraits that are usually identified of him as a young man or a child could really be someone else, And there's not a lot of certainty, and instead a whole lot of wobbliness about his whole life outside of the maritime adventures that wind up making him historically famous. Yeah, there's some historians that think that even the portraits that were painted of him as an adult were painted after the fact and taken just from random descriptions, and they may or might not actually look like him at all. Uh. We do know that he did marry at some point, and that he and his wife Katherine, we do not know her maiden name, had three sons together, named Richard, John, and Oliver. He's just not really much in the record until seven. He was a ship's commander by that time, and that marked his first major voyage, and prior to that he has to have had some kind of seafaring experience to have risen up to the role of commander. So there's all kinds of speculation that he probably, as you would expect, started in a low ranking role and then worked his way up. Yeah, but that's literally just stabs in the dark. We do not know. All we know is that it would be really bizarre and freaky if someone just said, here, you want to be a commander. So it's assumed by most historians that he either learned from local uh sea vessels, or he traveled with other sailors and kind of picked up the trade that way, or he did the usual like start as the you know, cabin boy and slowly came up through the ranks. But it's still a mystery. So on that six seven voyage that Tracy mentioned, Hudson was employed by an English firm called the Muscovy Company, and his family actually had a lot of connections to this company, and his directive was to find a northern passage to Asia. And Hudson was chosen by the directors of the Muscovy Company because he had quote secret information that would help him navigate a new passage. At this point, there was a huge competition going on globally to try to secure better shipping routes two more lucrative trade locations. Both private companies and governments were sending expeditions out hoping to be the first to discover some previously unknown passage, particularly to India or a Uh. Yeah, those were very lucrative places to trade, and you had to do a lot of wheeling and dealing to get sort of land based trade routes passable. We'll talk about that a little bit in one of the upcoming voyages. So the secret information that Hudson was believed to have had was most likely a pamphlet that was written eighty years earlier, so decades earlier by an agent of the Bristol Trading Company named Robert Thorne that suggested a northern passage to Cafe Commanding a vessel named the Hope Well, Hudson set out from London on April. The crew included William Collins who was the mate, James Young, John Coleman, who was the Boston, John Cook, James Bobery, James Scratton, John Place, Thomas Baxter, Richard Day, James Knight, and Henry's son John Hudson as the ship's boy. And the first of Hudson's four lifetime trips was actually plagued by ice in its early stages, which ended up cutting things a little bit short. This is a theme that's going to play out over and over throughout this whole story. Uh. Though the voyage had begun in spring to hedge bets for favorable weather, the winter persisted and really caused problems. And the thinking had been that because the Northern Pole received five months of continuous daylight and sunshine, that it was going to be unfrozen in smooth sailing in the spring, but that theory was of course not correct. Hudson and his crew managed to reach Greenland in early June. They spent two weeks mapping the coastline before turning northeast towards Spitzbergen. Island and that's where they discovered areas populated by pods of whales. This was really lucrative information for the whaling industry. Hudson and his career then spent the next several months exploring and mapping the islands around Greenland. Yet said that once that news got back to um London and then spread, there were just whaling ships kind of swarming the area, which is unfortunate, uh, but interesting and as we said, unfortunately lucrative part of this voyage, But the ongoing frozen conditions really meant that no new passages or trade routes were going to be discovered this time around. The voyage was finally called off when they just could go no further, and the Hope Well returned to England on September. And in addition to the whale locations, the voyage was noteworthy because it had traveled farther north than any other known expedition at the time. And before we get to his second voyage, which he began planning immediately, do you want to take a word from a sponsor, let's do so. After that somewhat disappointing first voyage in seven, Hudson spent the winter, preparing to make another go at finding a northern passage to Asia. So he had gotten back in September, and then he basically just buckled down and did tons of research and map reading and plotting of courses uh and this time the plan was going to be to travel north of Russia through the Arctic waters, still trying to find that passage to Asia. The voyage once again set out in the spring, and this time it was on April twenty six eight. Hudson once again took the Hope Well and his crew was quite tiny. It was only fourteen men, plus his son John. Only three of those fourteen men had been with him on the first voyage, so he had quite a bit of turnover. The crew members included Robert Jewett, who was the master's mate. He recorded his own accounts of Hudson's travels, and he will become a rather pivotal character later on in the story. Also traveling with him where Arnold Lovelow, John Cook, who was the bos in, Philip Stacey, who was a carpenter, John Barnes, John Braunch who was a cook, John Andrey, James Strutton, Michael Fierce, Thomas Hills, Richard Thompson, Robert Rayner, and Humphrey Gilby. The Muscovie company was pretty fearful at this point that if sorry Ivan the Terrible died, England was gonna lose its access to land passages for trade that Russia had controlled. So they really really wanted Hudson to figure out a new way to go by sea. Yeah, they really wanted to hedge their bets so that they would have some options other than land travel for trade. But once again, you know, they're still going into the same latitudes at the same time, so I see conditions impeded progress. Several of the crew members, including the carpenter who was on board, to continue the reinforcement of the ship that had begun at port so that they could hopefully have a better go at these icy waters were taken quite ill very early on. Hudson was able to get to the archipelago of Novaya Zemilia, but he couldn't go any farther. He tried to go south into the Kara Sea, but that was frozen, and at this point Hudson was starting to have some problems with his crew. After the blockage at Nevaa, Zemilia, which happened at the beginning of July. He had actually decided that what he was gonna do was head to North America, but he didn't all the crew. Uh So, as they turned away from the Russian archipelago, the men aboard thought that they were calling it quits like the first voyage had, and that they were headed home. It was August when the men finally realized that they were not going back to London, and there was almost a mutiny when the decision finally was made to return to England and abort the mission yet again. Hudson wrote that the crew had not forced his hand in the matter. This is often speculated to have either been written under darrest or as a means to placate the crew in the face of a potential coup. Yeah, it was clear, based on the journals that were being kept by the people aboard that that were literate, that they were unhappy with him, and I think there was concern that, uh, you know, they would somehow be in trouble that the voyage had ended. But in his journal Hudson wrote, quote, I used all diligence to arrive at London, and therefore I now gave my crew a certificate under my hand of my free and willing return without persuasion or forced by anyone or more of them. For when we were at Nova Zemlia on sixth of July, void of hope of a northeast passage, I therefore resolved to use all means I could to sail to the northwest. To me, that would sound so suspicious, like if you were a boss in a company and you got to note that said we had to cut the voyage short. No one made me do it, Like, yeah, it does sound when an eyebrow, he's protesting a little too much on that uh. Accounts also indicate that even at the start of the journey, Hudson and Jewett had had some kind of conflict between the two of them, and Hudson described him as quote a man of mean tempers. And because Hudson had failed to find a see passage to Asia a second time, the Muscovy company was really pretty uninterested in pursuing the idea. Further to their thinking, two times out, they really didn't get very far, so it's probably not worth throwing more resources at this. And they had also lost all faith in Hudson, and so when he came back and requested to make a third attempt at finding a northern passage to Asia. He was flatly refused. The most interesting footnote from the eight voyage is probably the log entry on when they spotted the mermaid on June. Crewman Thomas Hills and Robert Rayner were the first to see it and yelled for the rest of the crew to come and see. Hudson described the mermaid really matter of fact Lee in his entry, is having long black hair, pale skin, a woman's breasts, and the tail of a purpose which was speckled like a mackerel. His log indicated that she looked quote earnestly on the men as they gathered on the side of the ship to look at her. Yeah, he pretty clearly believed mermaids were a real thing. There's no like speculation about was this some sea animal, whether he's like there was a mermaid, we saw it. Here are the details. It's kind of interesting. Before we get to his third voyage, do you want to take a word from a sponsor, Let's do that. So at this point Hudson is back in England. He really wants to continue his exploration. He feels like he has some plans and ideas that will get him further than these previous two attempts. But he really could not find any backers in England. His reputation was pretty damaged at that point, so instead he joined up with one of England's rivals in this whole world trade uh race, which was the Dutch East India Company, and he hooked up with them in sixteen o nine. His new employers made Hudson commander of a ship named the half Moon and sent him on a mission that basically had the same orders as before. He was supposed to find a passage to Asia via the waters north of Russia, and the half Moon was apparently not a great vessel. It was a little bit old that needed some work, It sat high in the water. It was expected that it was going to be troublesome if they encountered any type of inclement weather heavy winds, and Hudson actually tried to petition his new bosses to try to get a different ship for the voyage, but he received a reply from the Dutch East India Company that said, quote, the half Moon is the only ship at the disposal of the Dutch East India Company. We can give you no other ship. If you do not want the half moon. The company will be obliged to find another captain to carry out this assignment. His contract with the Dutch East India Company was really specific about the objectives that Hudson was supposed to meet, and it was even stipulated that his wife and children had to live in Holland under the care of the company while he was to be at sea. There was also a really clear stipulation that all journals and logs kept by Hudson would be turned over to the company at the end of the voyage. Once again, on this voyage, confronted by impassable ice, Hudson made the exact same decision that he had attempted to follow through on with his second voyage when he was working for the Muscobie Company. He headed for North America. He thought there might be a passage to the Pacific Ocean through the North American continent, and their speculation that he may have heard this first through famed explorer and his friend John Smith, maybe because they knew of his somewhat rash decision during the second voyage, or maybe because they knew he had been discussing North America with John Smith. The Dutch East India Company amended his mission contract before the half moon set sail and this amendment included the word the wording that Hudson was quote to think of discovering no other route or passage except the route around the north or northeast above Nova. ZEMBLA. Yeah, hey, don't get any funny ideas like last time around Champ you will be a breach of contract. Uh. Apparently he didn't feels so strongly about that agreement. But we'll get to that just a bit. So the crew that he took with him number between sixteen and twenty. Accounts differ, and most of them say that twenty would be a very large crew, but somebody say that there were to money. Uh. They included both English and Dutch sailors, and there was a huge language gap between them because they did not speak each other's language, nor did they speak any language that any of them had in common. Uh. They also have different seafaring experience. Some of them were accustomed to cold water, some are accustomed to warmer waters. Their experiences did not really overlap. This made for a general distrust among them, like they all felt that the others weren't as experienced or weren't going to be as able to cope with changing situations as as they were. You know, it was kind of a problem. So in his journal, Jewett, who despite having friction with Hudson, was on board for this third voyage, described the Dutch sailors as quote an ugly lot. Because of the requirement that Hudson hand over its journals to the company after the voyage, Jewet's accounts are pretty much everything we know about it. Yeah, so it's there's some bias there. Probably. They're pretty basic journals and you can read all of them online and we will include a link to his journals from this voyage. But what we know is that in April the half Moons set out from Amsterdam, and by mid to late May it became parent apparent that once again getting beyond Novaya Zemia was going to be impossible. Yet again, it's kind of that thing where people keep saying, if you keep trying the same thing over and over expecting a different result, you're kind of an idiot. Um he kind of was doing that. Uh. The crew was once again unhappy, They were cold, They were distrustful of Hudson's leadership because the few that were repeats from the last voyage were like didn't we just do this? Uh? And some level of revolt did take place, though not a full mutiny, and Hudson did indeed turn towards North America. Unlike in the second voyage, though Hudson told the crew about the plan, and he actually offered them a choice. They could use the information he had, which included maps and notes from John Smith, to had for warmer waters, or they could keep on trying to force their way through the icy waters of davis Is straight at the north end of the Labrador Sea to try to find a passage to Asia, since a northeast passage really seemed impossible. So not very surprisingly, the crew opted to head for warmer waters. Yeah, and just for clarity, So he offered them a choice, but they were He was still like, we're going through North America. We can either go north through the really cold part or go a little south through the warmer part. So they had a choice, but it still was his plan to completely reverse their their initial um orders, and despite traveling through some incredibly rough storms and be slightly delayed at one point by trying to chase another ship down for a period of time, and it's speculated that they were after them for plunder, to steal their booty or their supplies. The Half Moon did indeed reach North America uh they landed in what is now Nova Scotia in July of six nine. The half Moon traveled down the American coast, exploring and making contact with Native Americans, and while Jewett describes the natives as friendly and welcoming in his journals, he's also very clear that he didn't trust them to It's journals detail all kinds of ill behavior on the part of the half Moon's crew toward the Native Americans that they encountered. There are lots of tales of theft and looting and even kidnapping. In his daily entries. They kept on encountering and interacting with Natives along their journey despite their very obvious xenophobia. Yeah, I feel compelled to point out it was not uncommon for explorers who landed in North America or any foreign lands to kidnap the natives of those lands or the indigenous peoples and try to bring them back to Europe as sort of novelties. So it's not unusual that they did that. Still reprehensible, but pretty common in the day. And you know, they kind of just thought they were exploiting people that were not equal to them. So they were just they just felt like they were entitled to go and steal their things and do horrible things. It's quite awful. But we are going to cliffhang you there. So we are mid voyage and we know that, but things are about to take a pretty significant turn. Uh. And so rather than delve into that now, which we do not really have time to get deep into, We're going to save that for the next time. Uh. And instead we're gonna shift gears and go to listener mail. And I have a piece of mail from our listener, Miss Jade, and it is about our House of Worth podcast. Uh. Jade says, Hello, ladies. I'm an avid listener and was so extremely excited to listen to the recent episode on the House of Worth. I'm a professional seamstress and costume designer. Listening to the podcast has certainly gotten me through some very long days in the shop. I share Holly's love of not only historical clothing, but also of undergarments and foundation garments. I'm still trying to sift through the archives to find your podcast on undergarments that you recently mentioned on this show. That was a wild back. I want to say that was fall to help narrow that for her. Uh, it was lovely to learn about the life of Worth himself as well as the brand. There was one thing that stuck out to me, however, that was a bit off. It was the use of the word stitcher in regards to the people that soaked could tour garments. The correct word is seamstress, as stitcher implies a machine operator and not one with exacting skills and garment construction. A stitcher is someone who, say so, is the left patch pocket on a pair of jeans and a dentom factory for twenty years many people in the business of making bespoke garments get their panties in a wrinkle about language here, seamstress is gender specific, and we haven't quite figured out a way around that yet, as there are many men out there that are quite skilled in garment construction as well. Taylor. Traditionally, a trade and title held by men is actually a specific skill set separate from being a seamstress, though you can of course be both, like myself. There are different camps about the interchangeable use of the word stitcher and seamstress, but especially when speaking to people who are in the business of constructing tour garments. Uh, these people are masters of the art. So maybe I cleared that up, just muddied the water. Uh, I alo a long time ago. This is one of my personal pecadillo's. I just kind of adopted stitcher for everything because of the very reasons she points out. Uh, seems stress doesn't apply to everyone, and it seems weird to use ditto with taylor, even though I feel while taylor is usually associated with men, just as a word on its own, it feels less male specific to me. So I will use that interchangeably with men and women. But I do tend to use stitcher. And I certainly don't mean to offend anyone who is an accomplished couture sower. It's just for me. It seems just really bothers me because I feel like it's exclusionary. Um. But I do understand, like she pointed out, there are many camps and schools of thought on this, and uh not everyone feels the same about it. So but it's a great thing to point out and think about. It's one of those things I probably should have mentioned the podcast, so my apologies that I didn't, because those are those words that are they become very specific and emblematic of certain sort of levels of of skill and degrees of knowledge. And it's kind of like how when I worked in the library for a long time, people always wanted to call me a librarian, but I was not. I do not have a master of library science, and I would try to correct them, but eventually I got tired and just said whatever works, which I meant no disrespect to the actual librarians in my life, but sometimes you get into a very awkward discussion that becomes about esoteric nomenclature to the average person. So that is the scoop, And then many thanks to Jade for pointing out that little uh gap in gap in mind um information that I shared. If you would like to write to us, you can do so History podcast at house to Works dot com. You can connect with us on Twitter at mist in History, at Facebook dot com slash mist in history and missed Industry dot tumbler dot com, and at pinterest dot com slash misst in history. You can also get Delightful misst in History merchandize at mist in history dot spreadshirt dot com. If you would like to research uh a little bit of info related to what we talked about today, you can go to our parents site, how stuff Works. Type in the words famous explorers and you are going to get loads of stuff, a lot of brief articles on famous explorers throughout history. Uh in putting Henry Hipson. If you would like to visit us on our history website, you can go to misston history dot com. You will get archive of every episode that has ever been done, as well as show notes for the more recent episodes since Tracy and I have been on the podcast, as well as the occasional blog post. And if you get to look at the fun pictures that we associate with different podcasts wrote them I often like because not very visual person. But you can do that and a whole lot more at our parents site, house stuff works dot com and our site missed at history dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, it has to works dot cal