053 



JORGENSON; JORGEN. 



JORTIN, JOHN", D.D. 



054 



depended even for subsistence on the supplies from the rnother- 

 country, was extremely pitiable and precarious. At the suggestion of 

 the ambidextrous Jorgenson, a Mr. Phelpa, a London merchant, 

 freighted a vessel with barley-meal, potatoes, and salt, and a small 

 proportion of rum, tobacco, sugar, and coffee, with a view of trading 

 to the island, and obtaining in return a cargo of tallow, which he 

 understood to be lying in the ports ready for exportation to Denmark. 

 Jorgeuson embarked as interpreter, and by leaving England without 

 permission broke his parole. In January 1809 the expedition arrived 

 at Reikiavik, the capital of Iceland, but found that in spite of the 

 necessities of the inhabitants, all trading with foreigners was pro- 

 hibited by the Danish resident authorities on pain of death. The 

 ship, the Clarence, was furnished with a letter of marque, and on this 

 provocation commenced hostilities, which speedily induced the Danish 

 authorities to modify their views, and consent to permit a trade which 

 they could not openly hinder. They still however threw obstacles in 

 the way of traffic by threats in private to the Icelanders. Jorgenson 

 went to England to communicate the state of affairs, and in his 

 absence, Count Trainpe, the governor of the island, who had been 

 absent at Copenhagen during the earlier transactions, arrived at 

 Keikiavik on the 6th of June, and not long after concluded a formal 

 convention with the captain of an English sloop of war, the Rover, that 

 British subjects should be allowed a free trade in the island during the 

 war, but should be subject at the same time to Danish laws. On the 

 21t of June another ship from England, the Margaret and Anne, 

 made its appearance in Keikiavik harbour, with Mr. Phelps himself on 

 board/ and Jorgenson, who acted as his adviser. The English merchant 

 must have been of a somewhat fiery disposition, for after waiting for 

 two or three days in vain for the promulgation of the convention 

 between Count 'i'rampe and the Rover, he determined to put an end 

 to the existing state of affairs by his own authority. On Sunday 

 afternoon, the 25th, a party of twelve of the sailors from the 

 Margaret and Anne lauded, with the captain, and went to the 

 governor's houso, took Count Trampe prisoner, and conveyed him to 

 the ship, without resistance from any one the Icelandic congregations 

 in the streets appearing singularly indifferent to the fate of their 

 ruler. The next day, June 28th, appeared two proclamations issued 

 by Jorgen Jorgensou, which must not a little have startled the quiet 

 burghers of Reikiavik. "All Danish authority ceases in Iceland," 

 was the first clause of one ; " Iceland is free, and independent of 

 Denmark," of the other. " Iceland has its own flag ; Iceland shall be 

 at peace with all nations, and peace is to be established with Great 

 Britain, which will protect it." 



In a third proclamation dated the llth of July, further explanations 

 were given. "It is declared," to runs the document, "that we, 

 Jorgen Jorgenson, have undertaken the government of the country 

 with the name of protector, until a regular constitution is established, 

 with full power to make war or conclude peace with foreign powers ; 

 that the military have nominated me their commander by land and 

 sea t-j preside over the whole military department of the country ; 

 that the Icelandic nag shall be blue, with three white stockfish 

 thereon, which flag we undertake to defend with our life and 

 blood." The military force here spoken of consisted of eight men, 

 Icelanders by birth, and some of them liberated from the prisons, at 

 the head of whom Jorgenson exercised undisputed sway over au 

 island of fifty thousand inhabitants, whose ancestors had been remark- 

 able for their turbulent and warlike character. The ease with which 

 the revolution was effected and maintained was probably owing in 

 the main to a feeling of satisfaction on the part of the Icelanders at 

 the change. The lower classes who, in spite of their literary tastes, 

 scorn to make themselves acquainted with the Danish language, 

 regarding it as inferior to their own, are said to have studied English 

 with some assiduity during the protectorate of Jorgeuson. The 

 oppressive laws of the Danes with regard to commerce pressed heavily 

 on the poor. The upper classes were conciliated by Jorgenson's 

 ejection from office of all but native Icelanders, to whom he, though 

 himself a Dane, declared that office properly belonged. The clergy 

 were courted by a promise of increase of salary, and at the annual 

 meeting of the synod the bishop and most of the priests signed a 

 document by which they gave in their adhesion to the new autho- 

 rities. Jorgenson's financial measures were the most objectionable 

 part of his proceedings. He ordered a confiscation of Danish pro- 

 perty, and went about the island with five of his military force, making 

 seizures, which wear the appearance of sheer robbery. AVith this 

 exception he seems to have avoided any recourse to violence, although 

 in his proclamations he sometimes talked of severe measures, which 

 he was careful not to put in practice. The best account which 

 wo have of his proceedings is that in the travels of Sir William 

 Jackson Hooker, the present superintendent of Kew Gardens, who 

 went to Iceland in the Margaret and Anne, and to his own 

 personal observations of the course of affairs had the advantage 

 of adding the perusal of two manuscript narratives of the events, 

 oue by Count Trampe, the other by Jorgenson, with both of 

 whom he was personally acquainted. In a short history of the 

 transaction in Danish, published by Skulason, an Icelander, in 1832, 

 the writer's attention is chiefly directed to the vindication of his 

 countrymen from the charges of pusillanimity or disaffection to 

 Denmark, for their making no resistance to the usurper; and he 



alleges that the inhabitant? of Iceland were only kept under by the 

 sad certainty that, as their capital was built of wood and lay under 

 the guns of the Margaret and Auue, it might in a few minutes be set 

 ou fire and destroyed, when the consequences of destitution ;iud want 

 of shelter in a climate such as that of Iceland, would have been frightful 

 to contemplate. That the inhabitants were in general not satisfied 

 with the state of affairs was shown by their application to the captain 

 of au English sloop of war, the Talbot, which unexpectedly made its 

 appearance in Havnfiord, to control the proceedings which were 

 going ou at Reikiavik. This captain, the Honourable Alexander 

 Jone^, sailed for the capital, instituted an examination into the whole 

 affair, heard the statements of Count Trampe, who was still a prisoner 

 ou board the Margaret and Anne, and ou the 22nd of August restored 

 the government into the hands of the Danish authorities. He at the 

 same time sent both Trampe and Jorgenson to England, to make what 

 statements they pleased to the authorities in London. So ended the 

 most important political event in the annals of Iceland for several 

 centuries ; " a revolution," says Hooker, " in which ouly twelve men 

 were engaged, not a life was lost, not a drop of blood was shed, not 

 a gun fired, nor a sabre unsheathed." Count Trampe on his arrival 

 in England appealed to the Icelandic sympathies of Sir Joseph Banks, 

 who had nearly forty years before travelled in the country ; and an order 

 in council was issued directing that during the war not ouly Iceland, but 

 the Feroe Islands and the parts of Greenland which had Danish settle- 

 ments should be unmolested by English cruisers, and the trade between 

 them and the mother country should be left free an excellent and 

 humane measure, the spirit of which might have been imitated 

 with advantage iu our recent Russian war. Jorgensou, who on his 

 arrival in England was left at liberty to take up his quarters at his 

 usual lodgings at the Spread Eagle in Gracechurch Street, commenced 

 his correspondence with the Admiralty without any allusion to the fact 

 that he was a prisoner of war who had broken his parole ; but the 

 circumstance soon oozed out, and he was in consequence arrested and 

 confined in Tothill-Fields Prison, and soon after transferred to the 

 hulks at Chatham. After a twelvemonth there he was allowed to 

 reside at Reading, again on his parole, and in 1811 he put forth an 

 English work ou the state of Christianity in Otaheite. At the con - 

 elusion of the war he made a tour on the continent, the fruits of 

 which were 'Travels through France and Germany iu the years 

 1815-17. By J. Jorgenson, Esq.,' London, 8vo, 1817. In this work, 

 which is not deficient in vivacity and observation, it is curious that 

 he enters into au elaborate eulogy of the English treatment of 

 prisoners of war, which he maintains was always marked by an exces- 

 sive degree of lenity and kindness, even in the case of persons who, 

 having broken their parole, were necessarily deprived of the indul- 

 gences granted to others. He mentions that he was led to make 

 these observations by the false aud malignant statements on the 

 subject which he found in circulation in France, and he adduces 

 numerous facts in support of his views. Jorgeusou appears to have 

 taken up his residence in England on his return from Germany, and 

 to have rapidly gone downwards, pursuing a course of dissipation 

 which led to utter ruin. In May 1820 the former Protector of 

 Iceland was tried at the Old Bailey Sessions for stealing articles from 

 his lodgings in Warren-street, Fitzroy-square. He was convicted and 

 sentenced to seven years' transportation. It is stated in the Sessions 

 Papers that " the prisoner made an exceeding long aud unconnected 

 defence," and " complained of improper administration of justice in 

 this country." The sentence was not carried out. After a confine- 

 ment which lasted till towards the end of 1821 Jorgeuson was libe- 

 rated on condition of leaving England. He failed to do so, aud was 

 again arrested on a charge ot being unlawfully at large, when he pleaded 

 guilty, and received sentence of death. This sentence was again com- 

 muted to transportation for life, but he still remained iu Newgate 

 acting as au assistant in the infirmary till October 1825, when he was 

 sent off to New South Wales. Our impression is that he died not 

 long after his arrival in the colony, but a search for a mention of 

 the fact has proved unsuccessful.. Soon after his departure from 

 England appeared the last publication which bears his name, ' The 

 Religion of Christ is the Religion of Nature. Written in the Con- 

 demned Cells of Newgate, by Jorgen Jorgenson, late Governor of 

 Iceland' (London, 8vo, 1827). In this work he gives it to be under- 

 stood, without directly stating it, that he was a sincere Christian till 

 his thirtieth year (the year, it may be remarked, of the Icelandic 

 revolution), that his belief was then undermined by the perusal of 

 Gibbon's ' Decline and Fall,' and that from that time he was lost to all 

 sense of principle till his conversion in Newgate. The book was 

 reviewed with high commendation in the ' Gentleman's Magazine.' 



JORTIN, JOHN, D.D., was born in 1698 iu London, but was of 

 foreign extraction, his family having left France when Louis XIV. 

 revoked the edict of Henri IV., commonly called the Edict of Nantes, 

 for the protection of his Huguenot subjects. Jortiu had his grammar 

 education at the Charterhouse, whence he passed to Jesus College, 

 Cambridge, of which he became in due time a Fellow. Whilst living 

 at Cambridge he published a. small volume of Latin poems, which are 

 greatly admired, and allowed to possess a high rank among modern 

 Latin verses. His college presented him to a living in Cambridgeshire, 

 but he determined on leaving the country and residing in London, 

 where he soon became an admired and popular preacher. His sermons 



