During the week the Hudson-Fulton celebrations have caused the greatest
interest in New York. Hudson was employed by the Dutch East India Company to under- take his famous voyages of 1607-1610. The Company had a monopoly of the trade to India by the Cape of Good Hope and the Horn, and desired to know whether there was another route by a North-Eastern passage, by which the monopoly might possibly be ruined by a rival, or of which the Company itself might be able to make the first use. Hudson, instead of going to the North-East, was com- pelled by his crew to sail to the North-West. His voyage failed in its chief object, but he was the first European to look upon the site of New York and to sail up the Hudson River. That was in 1609. Two hundred years later (1807) Fulton built the first steamboat, the Clermont,' and ravigated her from Albany to New York. Models of Hudson's ship, the Half Moon,' a high-pooped vessel of about ninety tons, and of the 'Clermont' were features of the celebration. The celebrations appear to have been a great success. The British men-of-war present for the occasion were thrown open to American visitors.
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