The inclinations of the directors of the East India Company were much at variance upon the proposals of Hudson. The directors of Zealand opposed it; they were probably discouraged by the fruitless results of former voyages, concerning which they could obtain sufficient information from their colleague, Balthasar Moucheron, who long before had traded to the north. It was said they were throwing money away, and nothing else. If private merchants would run the risk they had no objection, provided the company was not injured by it. The Amsterdam directors, nevertheless, would not give up their plan, and sent Henry Hudson, in the same year 1609, with a yacht called the Half Moon, manned by sixteen Englishmen and Hollanders, again to sea.

This vessel left the Texel on the 6th of April, 1609, sailing towards the north. Prevented by the ice from reaching the latitude of Nova Zembla, they went to Newfoundland, and from there to Acadia or New France, till they were driven into a bay known only to the French, who arrived there annually to purchase hides and furs from the savages. Hudson, unwilling to approach those chilling shores, returned to sea, and steering south-west discovered land, which was first considered to be an island, but which was soon discovered to be a part of the continent, named Cape Cod.