2 DUTCH AND ENGLISH ON THE HUDSON
anchorage in what is now the outer harbor of New
York.
Robert Juet of Limehouse, one of the adven-
turers sailing with Hudson, writes in his journal:
At three of the clock in the afternoone we came to
three great rivers, so we stood along to the northermost,
thinking to have gone into it; but we found it to have a
very shoald barre before it, for we had but ten foot
water; then wee cast about to the southward and found
two fathoms, three fathoms, and three and a quarter,
till we came to the souther side of them; then we had
five and sixe fathoms and anchored. So wee sent in our
boate to sound and they found no lesse water than foure,
five, six, and seven fathoms and returned in an hour and
a half. So wee weighed and went in and rode in five
fathoms, oozie ground, and saw many salmons, mullets
and rayes very great.
»
So quietly is chronicled one of the epoch-making
events of history, an event which opened a rich
territory and gave to the United Netherlands their
foothold in the New World, where Spain, France,
and England had already established their claims.
Let us try to call to our minds the picture of the
Half Moon as she lies there in harbor, a quaint,
clumsily built boat of forty lasts, or eighty tons,
burden. From her bow projects a beakhead, a
sort of gallery, painted and carved, and used as a