APPENDICES 



APPENDIX A 



In Van Diemen's Land Jorgensen is seen ; is sinking very low, 

 for he is constantly drunk. He died in 1844 in the Hobart hos- 

 pital, a sordid and unpicturesque ending for a wildly picturesque 

 character — a modern Benvenuto Cellini in his mingling of genius, 

 high spirits, and madly irresponsible audacity. Like Benvenuto 

 Cellini he left an Autobiography, but on a smaller scale. 



The son of a mathematical instrument and watch maker, he 

 was born at Copenhagen in 1770. Love of adventure took him 

 to sea first as apprentice on an English collier, then to the Cape, 

 where he entered the Naval service, and as midshipman under 

 the famous Captain Flinders, shared in the exploration of Bass' 

 Straits and the north-west of Australia, and in the foundation of 

 Hobarton ; not to mention a fantastic march into the interior, when 

 he pretended to take a French traveller beyond the track of any 

 other white man. 



Flinders was accompanied by Robert Brown, the botanist, 

 the friend of the Hookers, and by other naturalists and artists 

 sent out by Sir Joseph Banks, the great botanist and traveller, 

 who had sailed with Cook, and was now President of the Royal 

 Society. This then was the means of Jorgensen's introduction 

 to Banks and Hooker ; and when later he reached England after 

 a long whaling voyage, he gratified Banks's philanthropic zeal by 

 leaving in his care two Tahitians and two Maoris he had brought 

 back with him. 



Thereafter returning to his native land, he came in for the 

 bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807. In accordance with the 

 decree calling on all able-bodied Danes to fight, he was placed in 

 command of a privateer, and early next spring ingeniously cut 

 through the ice a month before any could expect it, and captured 

 several English ships, but was himself captured off Flamborough 

 Head by Captain Langford (not Longford, as his chronicler has it). 



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