AUSTRALIA FIFTY TEARS AGO.

Bruce Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 2178, 27 June 1890, Page 1

AUSTRALI A FIFTY TEARS AGO.

By far the strangest career of any of the convicts or ex-convicts that I came acrosa was that of a Dane called .7 orgen Jorgensen, the Eng of Icelau d. He had published an account of his adventures which was in the main true, and, though plentifully interlarded with moral and pious reflections, showed plainly enough what a consummate scoundrel he was ; but he certainly was justified in being vain of at least one of bis exploits, as it was perfectly true that he had taken possession of Iceland by an extraordinary coup de main. He was the son of a watchmaker at Copenhagen; first an apprentice in an English collier ; then joined, the navy, and waa iv a tender at Captain Flinders'a ship on the coast of Australia ; afterwards, while commanding a privateer in the North Sea, was taken prisoner and got iuto all sorts of disreputable scrapes in England, but was then employed, probably from his knowledge of "Danish, to convey provisions to Iceland, where the .pepp.e were starving, owing to their commnnicationa with Denmark being cut off after the bombardment of Copenhagen. Upon his first visit to i lie ialand he found that the people were much diesatisfied with the Danish Governor, Count Triaui.p,, and ,t;his him to make a bold stroke on arriving there a second time with more provisions. On a Sunday morning he observed that almost the entire population of the town had gone to church, but that the like a wicked man, had remained at home; whereupon, with a dozen men, he landed and went straight into the Government House, seized Count Tramp, and carried him off in triumph to hiß ship. In describing this exploit, Jorgensen boasted that no revolution had ever before been so adroitly, so harmlessly, and so effectually accomplished, adding, as a moral reflection, that if the Governor had been at church with the rest of the people, as he ought to have been, it could not have been so easily managed It is likely enough that the people were, as he asserts, well Satisfied with his rule, for, after seizin|{ the public chest, his first act was toJrerait all debts due to the Danish Government, and his next was' to increase stipends of all the clergy throughout the island, who thereupon impressed upon their congregations that he wai the most enlightened of rulers,.. Anyhow, no opposition was offered to .him, for nobody conceived it possible, that he should have acted without at least the connivance of the English Government, who, however, approved so little of his proceedings that, on his return to England, instead of being received with honour, he was arrested, and, falling into his usual disreputable ways, soon after got himself sentenced to transportation. After his arrival in Van Diemen's Land his conduct was not always strictly correct and his hastiness of temper once got him into rather serious trouble. On coming home one day, expecting to find his dinner ready, he saw his wife in the garden digging the potatoes which ought to have been already boiled, and, having his gun in his hand, he immediately fired it at her. bhe was turned away from him, and stooping down pulling at the potatoes, so that she presented an excellent mark, though, as she had several thick petticoats on, not much damage was done, but this sort of domestic discipline was not to the taste of the authorities, and it brought the ex-king into trouble. — Sir Henry Elliot, in ' jN T ineteenth Century.'