HUDSON (John), a very learned English critic, born in 1662. He distinguished himself by several valuable editions of Greek and Latin authors; and, in 1701, was elected head keeper of the Bodleian library at Oxford. In 1712, he was appointed principal of St Mary's Hall, through the interest of the famous Dr Ratcliffe: and it is said that the university
of Oxford is indebted for the most ample benefactions of that physician to Dr Hudson's solicitations. He died in 1719, while he was preparing for publication a catalogue of the Bodleian library, which he had caused to be fairly transcribed in six folio volumes.
Hudson's Bay, a large bay of North America, lying between 51 and 69 degrees of latitude, discovered in 1610 by Henry Hudson. This intrepid mariner, in searching after a north-west passage to the South-seas, discovered three straits, through which he hoped to find out a new way to Asia by America. He sailed boldly into the middle of the new gulph, and was preparing to explore all its parts, when his treacherous crew put him into the long-boat, with seven others, and left him, without either arms or provisions, exposed to all the dangers both of sea and land. The barbarians, who refused him the necessaries of life, could not, however, rob him of the honour of the discovery; and the bay, which he first found out, will ever be called by his name.
The miseries of the civil war which followed soon after, had, however, made the English forget this distant country, which had nothing to attract them. A succession of more quiet times had not yet induced them to attend to it; when Groseillers and Radisson, two French Canadians, having met with some discontent at home, informed the English, who were engaged in repairing the mischiefs of discord by trade, of the profits arising from furs, and of their claim to the country that furnished them. Those who proposed this undertaking shewed so much ability, that they were intrusted with the execution of it; and the first establishment they formed succeeded so well, that it surpassed their own hopes as well as their promises.
This success alarmed the French; who were afraid, and with reason, that most of the fine furs which they got from the northern parts of Canada would be carried to Hudson's bay. Their alarms were confirmed by the unanimous testimony of their Coureurs de Bois, who, since 1656, had been four times as far as the borders of the strait. It would have been an eligible thing to have gone by the same road to attack the new colony; but the distance being thought too considerable, notwithstanding the convenience of the rivers, it was at length determined that the expedition should be made by sea. The fate of it was trusted to Groseillers and Radisson, who had been easily prevailed upon to renew their attachment to their country.
These two bold and turbulent men sailed from Quebec in 1682, in two vessels ill equipped; and on their arrival, finding themselves not strong enough to attack the enemy, they were contented with erecting a fort in the neighbourhood of that they designed to have taken. From this time there began a rivalry between the two companies, one settled at Canada, the other in England, for the exclusive trade of the bay, which was constantly kept up by the disputes it occasioned; till at last, after each of their settlements had been frequently taken and recovered, all hostilities were terminated by the treaty of Utrecht, by which the whole was ceded to Great-Britain.
Hudson's Bay, properly speaking, is only a mart for trade. The severity of the climate having destroyed all the corn sown there at different times, has frustrated every hope of agriculture, and consequently
of population. Throughout the whole of this extensive coast, there are not more than ninety or a hundred soldiers, or factors, who live in four bad forts, of which York-fort is the principal. Their business is to receive the furs brought by the neighbouring savages in exchange for merchandise, of which they have been taught the value and use.
Though these skins are much more valuable than those which are found in countries not so far north, yet they are cheaper. The savages give 10 beaver-skins for a gun, two for a pound of powder, one for four pounds of lead, one for a hatchet, one for six knives, two for a pound of glass-beads, six for a cloth-coat, five for a petticoat, and one for a pound of snuff. Combs, looking-glasses, kettles, and brandy, sell in proportion. As the beaver is the common measure of exchange, by another regulation as fraudulent as the first, two otters skins and three martins are required instead of one beaver. Besides this oppression, which is authorized, there is another which is at least tolerated, by which the savages are constantly defrauded in the quality, quantity, and measure of what is given them, and by which they lose about one third of the value.
From this regulated system of imposition, it is easy to guess that the commerce of Hudson's bay is a monopoly. The capital of the company that is in possession of it was originally no more than 10,565 l. and has been successively increased to 104,146 l. This capital brings them in an annual return of forty or fifty thousand skins of beavers or other animals, upon which they make so exorbitant a profit, that it excites the jealousy and clamours of the nation. Two thirds of these beautiful furs are either consumed in kind in the three kingdoms, or made use of in the national manufactures. The rest are carried into Germany, where the nature of the climate makes them a valuable commodity.
This bay is about ten degrees in breadth: the entrance is six leagues broad; but is only to be attempted from the beginning of July to the end of September, and is even then rather dangerous. This danger arises from mountains of ice, some of which are said to be from 15 to 18 hundred feet thick, and which, having been produced by winters of five or six years duration in little gulphs constantly filled with snow, are forced out of them by north-west winds, or by some other extraordinary cause. The best way of avoiding them is to keep as near as possible to the northern coast, which must necessarily be less obstructed and most free, by the natural directions of both winds and currents.
The north-west wind, which blows almost constantly in winter, and very often in summer, frequently raises violent storms within the bay itself, which is rendered still more dangerous by the number of shoals that are found there. Happily, however, small groups of islands are met with at different distances, which are of a sufficient height to afford a shelter from the storm. Beside these small archipelagos, there are in many places large piles of bare rock. Except the alga marina, the bay produces as few vegetables as the other northern seas.
Throughout all the countries surrounding this bay, the sun never rises nor sets without forming a great cone of light: this phenomenon is succeeded by the Aurora Borealis, which tinges the hemisphere with coloured
Hudson's-River
Hue.
coloured rays of such a brilliancy, that the splendour of them is not effaced even by that of the full moon. Notwithstanding this, there is seldom a bright sky. In spring and autumn, the air is always filled with thick fogs, and in winter with an infinite number of small icicles. Though the heats in summer are pretty considerable for six weeks or two months, there is seldom any thunder or lightning.
One of the effects of the extreme cold or snow that prevails in this climate, is that of turning those animals white in winter which are naturally brown or grey. Nature has bestowed upon them all, soft, long, and thick furs, the hair of which falls off as the weather grows milder. In most of these quadrupeds, the feet, the tail, the ears, and, generally speaking, all those parts in which the circulation is slower because they are the most remote from the heart, are extremely short. Wherever they happen to be something longer, they are proportionably well covered. Under this gloomy sky, all liquors become solid by freezing, and break the vessels they are in. Even spirit of wine loses its fluidity. It is not uncommon to see fragments of large rocks loosened and detached from the great mass by the force of the frost. All these phenomena, common enough during the whole winter, are much more terrible at the new and full moon, which in these regions has an influence upon the weather, the causes of which are not known.
In this frozen zone, iron, lead, copper, marble, and a substance resembling sea-coal, have been discovered. In other respects, the soil is extremely barren. Except the coasts, which are for the most part marshy, and produce a little grass and some soft wood, the rest of the country affords nothing but very high moss, and a few weak shrubs very thinly scattered.
For an account of the inhabitants, see GREENLAND.
HUDSON'S-RIVER, a large river of North America, which rises on the east of Lake Ontario, and running by Albany, and on the back of the south part of New-England through part of New-York, falls into the bay of the sea beyond the west end of Long-Island, and below the town of New-York.
HUE and CRY, in law, the pursuit of a person who has committed felony on the high way.—Of this custom, which is of British origin, the following deduction is given by Mr Whitaker. "When it was requisite for the Britons to call out their warriors into the field, they used a method that was particularly marked by its expeditiousness and decisiveness, and remains partially among us to this moment. They raised a cry, which was immediately caught up by others, and in an instant transmitted from mouth to mouth thro' all the region. And, as the notice passed along, the warriors snatched their arms, and hurried away to the rendezvous. We have a remarkable description of the fact in Cæsar, and there see the alarm propagated in 16 or 17 hours through 160 miles in a line. And the same practice has been retained by the Highlanders to our own time. When the lord of a clan received intelligence of an enemy's approach, he immediately killed a goat with his own sword, dipped the end of a half-burnt stick in the blood, and then gave it and the notice of the rendezvous to be carried to the next hamlet. The former symbolically threatened fire and sword to all his followers that did not
instantly repair to the latter. The notice was dispatched from hamlet to hamlet with the utmost expedition. And in three or four hours the whole clan was in arms, and assembled at the place appointed. This was within these few years the ordinary mode by which the chieftains assembled their followers for war. The first person that received the notice, set out with it at full speed, delivered it to the next that he met, who instantly set out on the same speed, and handed it to a third. And, in the late rebellion of 1745, it was sent by an unknown hand through the region of Braidalbin; and, flying as expeditiously as the Gallick signal in Cæsar, traversed a tract of 32 miles in three hours. This quick method of giving a diffusive alarm is even preserved among ourselves to the present day; but is applied, as it seems from Cæsar's account above to have been equally applied among the Celts, to the better purposes of civil polity. The hustum and clamour of our laws, and the hue and cry of our own times, is a well-known and powerful process for spreading the notice and continuing the pursuit of any fugitive felons. The cry, like the clamour of the Gauls or the summons of the Highlanders, is taken from town to town and from county to county; and a chain of communication is speedily carried from one end of the kingdom to the other.