Produced by Stephen Hutcheson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) Hudson Tercentenary AN HISTORICAL RETROSPECT REGARDING THE OBJECT AND QUEST OF AN ALL-WATER ROUTE FROM EUROPE TO INDIA; THE OBSTACLES IN THE WAY; AND ALSO HUDSON’S VOYAGE TO AMERICA IN 1609 AND SOME OF ITS RESULTS BY FRANK CHAMBERLAIN ALBANY J. B. LYON COMPANY, PRINTERS 1909 COPYRIGHT 1909 By Frank Chamberlain HUDSON TERCENTENARY Let us turn back the pages of history and take a cursory view of what gave the wonderful stimulus to maritime adventure; and what so long delayed the discovery of the western world by the Europeans. Civilized mankind scarcely secures the _necessaries_ of life before the desire for the _luxuries_ springs up and is cherished. For untold centuries all of eastern Asia forbade the entrance of foreigners into its territories. To Europeans it was an unknown land. In the year 326 B. C. Alexander the Great marched his conquering Macedonian legions against the myriads of Asiatic troops, subdued them and marched on to the Hindus, where he “improvised a fleet” for his army, sailed down that river, called Sacred, to the Indian ocean. Astonished at the wealth of the country and having amassed precious gems and hundreds of millions of dollars he returned loaded with his treasures up the Euphrates, to that most wonderful city of ancient times, Babylon, where he died. He opened the western doors of India, which exposed its great wealth, excited the avarice of the small number of Greeks who knew of his exploits; and for centuries it was the Europeans’ Eldorado, which ultimately, by its luxury and effeminacy, undermined western manhood and led to the decay of Greece and Rome. Asia, beyond the Euphrates, except by a few, was an unknown country to Europeans until Marco Polo in 1271 A. D., in the company of his father and uncle, met Kublai Khan, the Mongol Emperor, won his confidence and esteem and by him was entrusted with the most important missions. During the seventeen years he remained he visited the most important places in China, India and the East Indies, and returned to Italy loaded with the rarest, most precious gems and immense wealth, published a book telling his experience and picturing the East in the most roseate colors, generally emanating from fancy, but in this case resting upon facts of which he was able to furnish satisfactory proof.