vessel called the _Half Moon_, and
with a crew of about a score of Englishmen and Hollanders, he set sail
on April 5, 1609, with high hopes that at last he would find the
passage he had so long and patiently sought for.

At first it looked as though he was doomed once more to failure. After
cruising for a month he found himself in the icy reaches of Barents
Sea, and then the _Half Moon_ was caught in the ice and only saved from
being crushed to splinters by a favorable breeze that sprang up just as
the jaws of the ice floes were closing on the little vessel. So far
Hudson had accomplished nothing, and his crew was dissatisfied and
rebellious. They were unwilling to continue the voyage in the north and
desired a quick return to Holland. But Hudson knew that if he put back
with another failure to his credit, his reputation would be lost
forever and he would never get another opportunity to engage in
exploration; so, to pacify the crew, and at the same time to accomplish
something that might meet with favor in the eyes of his patrons, he
suggested that they sail for North America and try to discover the
passage through a waterway that lay to the north of the British
possessions in Virginia.

When the _Half Moon_ was being buffeted by a gale off the coast of
Newfoundland the foremast was carried away, and Hudson sailed southwest
along the coast of Nova Scotia, anchoring at last in what is now known
as the mouth of the Kennebec River in Maine.

Here his men landed and sought a mast for the ship in the virgin forest
that ran down to the edge of the salt water. Here too they met their
first Indians, and treated them with suspicion and distrust. Hudson
himself met the natives kindly and always established good relations
with them, but his ignorant crew, particularly his mate, whose name was
Juet, believed that the natives were only waiting to do them some
violence and treachery, and with this in mind the sailors drove the
Indians into the forest and plundered their wigwams, taking whatever
was valuable back to the _Half Moon_. Hudson could do little or nothing
to prevent them, for at this time the ill feeling of his men had grown
to such an extent that he was only nominally in command and had little
or no control over his lawless followers.

With a new mast in place the _Half Moon_ set sail from the Penobscot
and bore away to the south, passing Cape Cod which had been discovered
a short time before by Bartholomew Gosnold,