As a geographical designation for the very great river (_una grandissima riviera_), the name Grande (Great) River was used by some of the most celebrated map-makers of Europe, during the sixteenth century. In the seventeenth century, when the Dutch took possession of this part of New France, the Dutch synonym, “Groote,” was substituted for the Italian designation. The Spaniards, who explored the coast of North America after Verrazzano had inspected it, gave different names to the river. Henry Hudson was induced to explore the Grande River by Captain John Smith, who believed that the English navigator could find a strait connecting it with the western sea (Mare Indicum) delineated on Verrazzano’s map. In the summer of 1609, when Hudson attempted to sail to Asia by a passage north of Novaya Zemlya, and was compelled to abandon the project on account of the barrier of ice surrounding the island, it is said he placed before the officers and crew of the Half Moon (Halve Maen), the choice of one of two proposals. Respecting the proposals of which they had the consideration, the Dutch historian, Van Meteren, thus speaks: “Master Hudson gave them their choice of two things, the first was to go to the coast of America, at the fortieth degree of latitude, mostly incited to this by letters and maps which a certain Captain Smith had sent him from Virginia, and on which he showed him a sea by which he might circumnavigate their southern colony [Virginia] from the north, and from there pass into a western sea. The other proposal was to seek the passage by Davis’s Strait.”[396] Hudson, besides knowing the situation of the noble stream, was also informed that it was called the Great (Grande) River. Robert Juet, the journalist of the voyage of 1609, recording the incidents of the last day’s exploration of the river, writes: “Within a while after, we came out also of the great mouth of _the great Riuer_.”[397] De Laet, the Dutch historian, writing in 1625, mentions the fact that the Dutch used the name “Great” for the river in preference to all the other appellations designating it: “The great north river of New Netherland was called by some the Manhattes river, from the people who dwell near its mouth; by others, Rio de Montaignes (River of the Mountains), but by our countrymen it was mostly called ‘_de groote rieviere_’ (the Great river).”[398] As early as the year 1624, the name “Hudson’s River” was inscribed on maps to designate the stream discovered by Verrazzano.[399]