484 APPENDICES 



But he was never without friends, and besides Sir Joseph Banks, 

 he was welcomed and aided by an official whom he had met near 

 the British lines at Copenhagen. 



Then came his great exploit. As a result of the war, Danish 

 supplies were cut off from Iceland, and the Icelanders were starving. 

 With the permission of the British Government a merchant named 

 Phelps sent a ship from Liverpool with stores and provisions. 

 For commander a man was needed who knew the Danish language 

 and Danish ways. Jorgensen, a prisoner of war, volunteered 

 apparently without official sanction, and took out the ship in 

 mid-winter, a ' desperate enterprise ' signalised by a high rate of 

 insurance. 



The Danish governor at first refused permission to land any of 

 the provisions, but he was overruled by the insistence of the hungry 

 people. Trade was profitable ; on Jorgensen's return Mr. Phelps 

 resolved to come in person on a second expedition, taking a larger 

 ship, armed with ten guns. He was joined by Dr. William Jackson 

 Hooker, then twenty-four years of age, who has left a full account 

 of the affair in his ' Tour in Iceland.' 



This time the Danish governor was still more stiff-necked ; 

 finally Jorgensen landed with some sailors on a Sunday carried 

 off the governor, who was quietly at home while the rest of the 

 folk were at church, and proclaimed himself Protector without the 

 shadow of resistance. The Icelanders welcomed the relief from an 

 oppressive administration, and Jorgensen in his Autobiography, 

 written in 1835 and 1838, records his ' satisfaction in knowing that 

 the laws and regulations which I then made remain for the most 

 part in force and undisturbed to this day.' 



But after a brief nine weeks his protectorate was cut short 

 by the arrival of a British cruiser, whose captain thought the honour 

 of England involved by this unauthorised attack on a friendly 

 government. Phelps and Jorgensen were warned off. The govern- 

 ment itself was left in the hands of ' some of the most respectable 

 of the inhabitants,' namely the Chief Justice and Sheriff of the 

 Western County. The ex-governor in Phelps's ship, Jorgensen in 

 another which he had commandeered, set sail to lay their respective 

 cases before the British Government. It was early on this voyage 

 that Phelps's ship caught fire, and crew and passengers were rescued 

 by Jorgensen's personal energy and courage. 



The upshot was disastrous to the nine weeks' king of Iceland. 

 He was arrested a few weeks later on the charge of having broken 

 his parole, ' although,' he asserts, ' I had never given one.' A 

 year of prison and the hulks was the ruin of him. His prison com- 

 panions, the vilest of gaol-birds, drew him into habits of drunken- 

 ness, and, more persistently ruinous, of gambling. After his release 



