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 had made two voyages before on the same adventure; the first in 1607, and the second in 1608. In his third and last, 1610, he entered the straits that lead into this new Mediterranean, the bay known by his name; coasted a great part of it; and penetrated to eighty degrees and a half into the heart of the frozen zone. His ardour for the discovery not being abated by the difficulties he struggled with in this empire of winter, and world of frost and snow, he staid here until the ensuing spring, and prepared in the beginning of 1611 to pursue his discoveries; but his crew, who suffered equal hardships, without the same spirit to support them, mutinied, feigned upon him and seven of those who were most faithful to him, and committed them to the fury of the icy seas in an open boat. Hudson and his companions were either swallowed up by the waves, or gaining the inhospitable coast were destroyed by the savages; but the ship and the rest of the men returned home. Other attempts towards a discovery were made in 1612 and 1667; and a patent for planting the country, with a charter for a company, was obtained in the year 1670. In 1746 Captain Ellis wintered as far north as 57° degrees and a half, and Captain Christopher attempted farther discoveries in 1761. But besides these and the late voyages, which satisfy us that we must not look for a passage on this side of the latitude 67° degrees north, we are indebted to the Hudson's Bay Company for a journey by land, which throws much additional light on this matter, by affording what may be called demonstration, how much farther north, at least in some parts of their voyage, ships must go, before they can pass from one side of America to the other. The northern Indians, who come down to the company's factories to trade, had brought to the knowledge of our people a river, which on account of much copper being found near it, had obtained the name of the Copper-mine river. The company being desirous of examining into this matter with precision, directed Mr Hearne, a young gentleman in their service, and who having been brought up for the navy and served in it the war before last, was extremely well qualified for the purpose, to proceed over land under the convoy of those Indians, for that river, which he had orders to survey if possible quite down to its exit into the sea; to make observations for fixing the latitudes and longitudes; and to bring home maps and drawings both of it and the countries through which he should pass. Accordingly Mr Hearne set out from Prince of Wales's Fort, on Churchill river, latitude 58° 47' North, and longitude 94° 7' West from Greenwich, on the 7th of December 1770. On the 13th of June he reached the Copper-mine river, and found it all the way, even to its exit into the sea, encumbered with shoals and falls, and emptying itself into it over a dry flat of the shore, the tide being then out, which seemed by the edges of the ice to rise about 12 or 14 feet. This rise, on account of the falls, will carry it but a very small way within the river's mouth, so that the water in it had not the least brackish taste. Mr Hearne was nevertheless sure of the place it emptied itself into being the sea, or a branch of it, by the quantity of whalebone and seal skins which the Esquimaux had at their tents; and also by the number of seals which he saw upon the ice. The sea at the river's mouth was full of islands and shoals as far as he could see by the assistance of a pocket telescope; and the ice was not yet (July 17th) broken up, but thawed away only for about three quarters of a mile from the shore, and for a little way round the islands and shoals which lay off the river's mouth. But he had the most extensive view of the sea when he was about eight miles up the river; from which station the extreme parts of it bore N.W. by W. and N. E. By the time Mr Hearne had finished his survey of the river, which was about one o'clock in the morning on the 18th, there came on a very thick fog and drizzling rain; and as he had found the river and sea in every respect unlikely to be of any utility, he thought it unnecessary to wait for fair weather to determine the latitude more exactly by observation; but by the extraordinary care he took in observing the courses and distances, walking from Congecathawhachaga, where he had two very good observations, he thinks the latitude may be depended on within 20' at the utmost. It appears from the map which Mr Hearne constructed of this singular journey, that the mouth of the Copper-mine river lies in latitude 72° N. and longitude 25° W. from Churchill river; that is about 119° W. of Greenwich. Mr Hearne's journey back from the Copper-mine river to Churchill lasted till June 30th 1772; so that he was absent almost a year and seven months. The unparalleled hardships he suffered, and the essential service he performed, met with a suitable reward from his masters, and he was made governor of Prince of Wales's Fort on Churchill river. But though the adventurers failed in the original purpose for which they navigated this bay, their project, even its failure, has been of great advantage to this country, as is shown under the article Company (Hudson's Bay.)

The country lying round Hudson's Bay is called New Britain, or the country of the Esquimaux; comprehending Labrador, now North and South Wales. The entrance of the bay from the ocean, after leaving to the north Cape Farewell and Davis's Straits, is between Resolution islands on the north, and Button's islands on the Labrador coast to the south, forming the eastern extremity of the straits distinguished by the name of its great discoverer. The coasts are very high, rocky, and rugged at top; in some places precipitous, but sometimes exhibit large beaches. The islands of Salisbury, Nottingham, and Digges, are also very lofty and naked. The depth of water in the middle of the bay is a hundred and forty fathoms. From Cape Churchill to the south end of the bay are regular soundings; near the shore shallow, with muddy or sandy bottom. To the north of Churchill the soundings are irregular, the bottom rocky, and in some parts the rocks appear above the surface at low water. From Moose river or the bottom of the bay to Cape Churchill the land is flat, marshy, and wooded with pines, birch, larch, and willows. From Cape Churchill to Wager's Water the coasts are all high and rocky to the very sea, and woodless, except the mouths of Pockerekesko and Seal rivers. The hills on their back are naked, nor are there any trees for a great distance inland.

The mouths of all the rivers are filled with shoals; except that of Churchill, in which the largest ships may lie: but ten miles higher, the channel is obstructed with sand-banks; and all their rivers, as far as has been navigated, are full of rapids and cataracts from ten to sixty feet perpendicular. Down these rivers the Indian traders find a quick passage; but their return is a labour of many months. As far inland as the company have settlements, which is six hundred miles to the west, at a place called Hudson House, lat. 53° long. '06° 27' from London, is flat country: nor is it known how far to the eastward the great chain seen by our navigators from the Pacific Ocean branches off.

The climate even about Haye's river, in only lat. 57°, is during winter excessively cold. The snows begin to fall in October, and continue falling by intervals the whole winter; and when the frost is most rigorous, in form of the finest sand. The ice on the rivers is eight feet thick. Port-wine freezes into a solid mass; brandy coagulates. The very breath fell on the blankets of the beds in the form of a hoar frost, and the bed-cloaths often were found frozen to the wall. The sun rises in the shortest day at five minutes past nine, and sets five minutes before three. In the longest day the sun rises at three, and sets about nine. The ice begins to disappear in May, and hot weather commences about the middle of June, which at times is so violent as to scorch the face of the hunters. Thunder is not frequent, but very violent. But there must be great difference of heat and cold in this vast extent, which reaches from lat. 50° 40', to lat. 63° north.—During winter the firmament is not without its beauties. Mock fogs and halos are not unfrequent; they are very bright, and richly tinged with all the colours of the rainbow. The sun rises and sets with a large cone of yellowish light. The night is enlivened with the Aurora Borealis, which spreads a thousand different lights and colours over the whole concave of the sky, not to be defaced even by the splendour of the full moon; and the stars are of a fiery redness.

The eastern boundary of the bay is Terra di Labrador; the northern part has a straight coast facing the bay, guarded with a line of islands innumerable. A vast bay, called the Archiwinipipy Sea, lies within it, and opens into Hudson's Bay by means of Gulph Hazard, through which the Beluga whales dart in great numbers. Here the company had a settlement for the sake of the fishery, and for trading with the Esquimaux; but deserted it as unprofitable about the year 1758 or 1759. The eastern coast is barren past the efforts of cultivation. The surface is everywhere uneven, and covered with masses of stone of an amazing size. It is a country of fruitful valleys and frightful mountains, some of an astonishing height: the first watered by a chain of lakes, formed not from springs but rain and snow, so chilly as to be productive of only a few small trout. The mountains have here and there a blighted shrub, or a little moss. The valleys are full of crooked stunted trees, pines, fir, birch, and cedars, or rather a species of Juniper. In lat. 60°, on this coast, vegetation ceases. The whole shore, like that on the west, is faced with islands at some distance from land. The inhabitants among the mountains are Indians; along the coasts Esquimaux. The dogs of the former are very small; of the latter large, and headed like a fox. Notwithstanding they have rein-deer, they never train them for the sledge; but apply the dogs to that use. Walruses visit a place called Nachunk, in lat. 60°, during winter; from thence the natives purchase the teeth with which they head their darts. Davis suspected that he had found a passage on this coast, in 1586, to the Western ocean; but it proves no more than a deep bay.

The laudable zeal of the Moravian clergy induced them to send, in the year 1752, missionaries from Hudson's Bay Company. See COMPANY.

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.