About the same time that the French adventurer Champlain advanced inland to the lake which since then has borne his name, another discoverer, the celebrated Henry Hudson, was penetrating in the same direction from an opposite point. The great field for commercial enterprise which had been opened by traffic with the East, and the immense profits thence accruing, still kept alive the hope of a nearer passage than that by the Cape of Good Hope. Almost every maritime power of Europe had sent out ships in the vain hope of discovery, and so persevering was the quest, that no sooner was one failure recorded, than another expedition set forth. It was on the failure of Denmark in this respect that a company of London merchants contributed a large sum of money for another attempt, under the command of Henry Hudson. Sailing to the north, with his only son as his companion, he deliberated, while coasting Greenland, as to whether he should circumnavigate that country or attempt to cross the pole; he discovered Spitzbergen, however, and was then compelled to return, from the immense icebergs which he encountered. The next year found him again amid the horrors of the polar seas, cherishing the vain hope of advancing across the pole into the warm, genial regions of southern Asia. These two unsuccessful expeditions, though they could not daunt the courage of this bold navigator, quite discouraged the rich London merchants, and Hudson, who seems to have had a passion for the northern seas, hastened to Holland and offered his services to the Dutch East India Company, to explore for them this much-desired passage. Hudson had applied in the right quarter; the Dutch at that time took rank as one of the most maritime and commercial nations of Europe. Commerce was the breath of their lives, maritime adventure their occupation. The device on the first Dutch coin was a ship labouring on a stormy sea, without oar or sails. Speaking of the Republic of the United Netherlands, the historian Bancroft says, “the rendezvous of its martyrs had been the sea; the musters of its patriot emigrants had been on shipboard; they had hunted their enemy, as the whale-ships pursue their game, in every corner of the ocean.” Holland is but a peninsula, intersected by navigable rivers, protruding itself into the sea. And Zealand is composed of islands. Its inhabitants were nearly all fishermen; both provinces were by nature a nursery of sailors; the principles of navigation were imbibed from infancy; every house was a school for mariners. They became affluent through commerce. They were the connecting links between hemispheres. Their enterprising seamen displayed the flag of the republic from Southern Africa to the Arctic circle. The ships of the Dutch, said Raleigh, outnumber those of England and the other kingdoms. Amsterdam, the depôt of the merchandise of Europe and of the East, was esteemed, beyond dispute, the first commercial city of the world.