Howe, George Augustus, Viscount (1724-1758) soldier

George, Lord Howe was a talented young British officer who was killed during the Seven Years’ War. His death ended hopes of success in 1758 and deprived the English of a capable officer noted for his ability to work with colonial troops.

H owe was chosen as second in command to the administratively capable and well connected but uninspiring Major General James Abercromby. Howe gained the respect of colonial troops through his personal bravery and willingness to disregard the trappings of rank. He shocked his staff officers by washing his own linen and eating with camp utensils. He was one of the few British officers who believed colonial troops could be capable soldiers if properly led and did not dismiss colonial officers as social inferiors. He trained with Captain Robert Rogers’s rangers and insisted his regular troops learn the same woodcraft and combat skills.

In a skirmish with French forces while advancing toward Canada through New York, Howe moved forward with the advance guard of English troops, landing by boat on the west coast of Lake George. He was killed by a musket ball to the chest during a confused woodland battle with a small detachment of French forces sent to harass and slow the English advance. When Howe died, the troops, especially the colonials, lost heart. French forces under the Marquis De Montcalm defeated Abercromby, and the advance failed. The Massachusetts Assembly appropriated ?250 for a testimonial plaque placed in Westminster Abbey, a mark of the respect in which the colonials held him.

See also war and wareare.

Further reading: Fred Anderson, A People’s Army: Massachusetts Soldiers and Society in the Seven Years’ War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984).

—Grant Weller

Hudson, Henry (1565?-1 611 ?) explorer Henry Hudson was an English navigator and explorer who sailed for Holland and England looking first for a northeast and then a Northwest Passage to Asia. Little is known about Hudson’s early life, but he must have been a competent navigator because three financial backers hired him to make several dangerous voyages.

The Muscovy Company, an English trading company, initially sponsored Hudson’s search for a northeast passage from Europe to the Far East in 1607. That spring Hudson and a small crew sailed on the Hopewell, first to Greenland and then the Svalbard (Spitzbergen) islands on their way through the Arctic Ocean. However, he was forced to turn back, as he did again the following year on a similar mission for the same company. In 1609 the Dutch East India Company financed Hudson’s third voyage, which he undertook on the Half Moon with a crew of fewer than 20 men. Dangerous icebergs and bad weather helped produce tensions that threatened mutiny among his mixed crew of English and Dutch sailors. Therefore, Hudson abandoned the search for a northeast passage and headed the Half Moon south along the east coast of North America in search of a Northwest Passage he had heard about while in Holland. Entering present-day New York Harbor,

English navigator Henry Hudson (Hulton/Archive)

Hudson sailed north for 150 miles on what was later named the Hudson River. North of present-day Albany Hudson became convinced that the river did not lead to the passage, so the expedition returned to England. In England the government seized the ship and forbade him to sail on behalf of any foreign nation.

His final voyage was underwritten by a variety of sponsors, including the British East India Company. In 1610 he set out on the ship Discovery to look for a Northwest Passage. By early August he passed through what was later called Hudson Strait and entered into a large “sea” now known as Hudson Bay in northern Canada. Hudson was uncharacteristically timid in his decisions in the bay; he headed south along the east shore of the bay instead of heading due west across it. By the time he had determined that this, too, was a false lead, winter had arrived and froze in the ship. Trouble among the crew finally reached a climax the next June, when Hudson, his son John, and seven other sailors were seized and placed in a small boat. The Discovery returned to England, and no more was heard from Hudson and the others.

Although the Northwest Passage did not exist, Henry Hudson’s explorations provided the foundation for English claims to Canada and the Dutch settlement of New Netherland, which eventually became New York.

Further reading: Barbara Saffer, Henry Hudson: Ill-fated Explorer of North America's Coast (Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2001).

—Doug Baker