Sirius, the dog star, is high in the night sky. It is the time of Jörundur hundadagakonungur, which in Icelandic means Jørgen, King of the Dog Days.
Jørgen Jørgensen is his name, and once upon a time this Danish clockmaker’s son was a humble sailor on Matthew Flinders’ Investigator, and the time will come when he finds himself a convict in Van Diemen’s Land. But for the past 90 days, in the summer of 1809, he has been the Napoleon of Iceland – the absolute ruler of a new republic.
Born in Copenhagen in 1780, Jørgensen went to sea at age 15, leaving Denmark for England, and served on British colliers and other merchant ships until being press-ganged into the Royal Navy. In 1801, serving on the brig Harbinger, he arrived in Sydney where, under the name John Johnston, he joined the Lady Nelson, which surveyed Port Phillip – the future site of Melbourne – and claimed it in the name of the Crown, before signing on to Captain Flinders’ Investigator. Jørgensen was among Flinders’ crew when the Investigator crossed paths with Baudin’s Le Géographe in 1802.
In Van Diemen’s Land, in 1804, as a seaman on the merchant-man Ocean, he was present at the establishment of the settlement that would become Hobart, then spent two years sealing and whaling in the Pacific before making his way back to London in 1806.
Jørgensen would later claim that the following year, when Britain declared war on Denmark, an ally of Napoleon’s France, he returned to his homeland and commanded a privateer, capturing three British ships before being himself forced to surrender after a naval battle. Taken prisoner, he was paroled to England. He would also claim to have spied for the British in France, although he was known to be an admirer of Napoleon. His claims to so many escapades and adventures, many of them outlandish, caused many to label him a fantasist, a Danish Munchausen. Yet his greatest and most outlandish claim to fame – that he had once been the virtual king of Iceland – is absolutely true.
In 1809, aged 29, Jørgensen sailed to Iceland as a crewman on the Margaret and Anne, a British merchant ship intent on breaking Denmark’s trade barriers. Denmark, which had ruled Iceland for centuries, imposed a monopoly on trade that crippled the island’s economy and was a major cause of unrest among Icelanders. Attracted by a potentially lucrative market, the British had brought a shipload of foodstuffs and hoped to return with a cargo of fish oil and tallow. One way or another, they were determined to get a piece of the action.
To that end, justified on the grounds that Britain and Denmark were technically at war, even though Iceland was neutral, the Margaret and Anne had been granted a letter of marque – a legal document giving a private vessel the right to attack and capture enemy ships. In other words, the Margaret and Anne was a government-sponsored pirate ship.
Also sailing to Reykjavik on the Margaret and Anne was its owner, London soap manufacturer Samuel Phelps, and William Jackson Hooker, a 24-year-old botanist and protégé of Joseph Banks. Banks had sponsored the young naturalist’s expedition to study the unique fauna of Iceland, which Hooker recorded in his Journal of a Tour in Iceland in the Summer of 1809.
In his journal, Hooker recalls that after a day spent exploring the countryside, ‘Just before I entered the town of Reykjavik, on my return in the afternoon, I was surprised to find a guard of 12 of our ship’s crew, armed with muskets and cutlasses, standing before the governor’s house and, presently after, the governor himself, Count Trampe, came out of his house as a prisoner to Captain Liston [skipper of the Margaret and Anne] who, armed with a drawn cutlass, marched before him, and was followed by the 12 sailors, who conducted the count on board the Margaret and Anne. I also observed the British colours flying over the Danish on board the count’s ship, the Orion, which, I afterwards learned, had been previously made a prize to our English letter of marque.
‘I had all along observed a great dislike on the part of our countrymen for the governor. This, as well as the apparent acts of violence that had just been committed, was caused by information which Mr Phelps had received, from what might have been supposed good authority, that Count Trampe had been using his influence to prohibit trade with the English, contrary to the articles of an agreement entered into by him and the captain of an English sloop of war that had been in Reykjavik harbour just before our arrival.’1
London’s Quarterly Review takes up the story: ‘Having subverted the Danish government, [Samuel Phelps] found it necessary to establish some regular authority till his own government should determine in what manner to act, and this led to what is called the Icelandic Revolution, the most singular and innocent event ever dignified with such an appellation.
‘A Dane had gone out with Mr Phelps, by name Jørgen Jørgensen, who had served in the British navy, and imbibed, according to his own words, together with his knowledge of nautical affairs, the principles and prejudices of Englishmen.’2
Samuel Phelps decided to place Jørgensen in command, reasoning that the Dane, ‘not being a subject of Great Britain, was not responsible to it for his actions’. Phelps was soon to learn that Jørgensen had far grander ambitions than being a mere puppet for a slippery soap maker.
‘He issued a proclamation declaring that all Danish authority in Iceland was at an end, and all Danish property confiscated. By a second proclamation he decreed that Iceland should be independent of Denmark, and that a republican constitution should be established.’3
In a rambling manifesto, Jørgensen promised to abolish the Danish trade monopoly, to send an ambassador to Britain to negotiate a peace treaty, that only native Icelanders would be employed as public officials, and that he would restore the Althing – the world’s oldest parliament, established by the Vikings. Promising the people ‘a state of happiness which they had never before known’4, he declared himself Protector of Iceland and Commander-in-Chief by Sea and Land.
Most Icelanders, who had no love for Denmark, supported the rebellion, and many offered their services as soldiers. Considering that Icelanders were generally peaceable folk, firearms were thin on the ground, so a search was made for weapons. According to the Quarterly Review report, ‘About 20 old fowling pieces were found. There were also a few swords and pistols, with which eight men were equipped, and these, being dressed in green uniforms and mounted, scoured the country, intimidated the Danes and crushed a conspiracy.’5
At Government House a new flag was hoisted. Designed by the Protector himself, it featured three filleted fish on an azure field. And on the habourside, to defend the new republic, Samuel Phelps and his crew, aided by green-clad men of the Army of Iceland, were busy building a battery, which they named Fort Phelps. The battery was armed with six cannons dug up from the sand, having been buried on the beach by the Danes 140 years earlier.
William Hooker, meanwhile, was not one to let a comic-opera piratical coup disturb his botanising, so although he mentions in passing that ‘this evening Mr Jørgensen took possession of the governor’s house, and removed his residence there’, he is more excited at having discovered ‘two new species of Carex and Meesia dealbata, with fully formed capsules’ in a bog south of town.6
Still, having accepted Jørgensen’s invitation to be his guest at Government House, Hooker could not help but pay attention when a group of Icelanders intent on restoring Danish rule threatened to attack Government House and seize the Margaret and Anne.
‘Accordingly, Mr Jørgensen, who had previously placed arms in the hands of eight natives, and formed them into a sort of troop, set off with his soldiers for the house of Assessor Einersen [a court official], who was supposed to be one of the chief movers of the conspiracy. A horse was taken for him, upon which he was placed and, guarded by Jørgensen and his cavalry, was marched, or rather galloped into the town, and confined for a few days in the Government House.7
The Dog Days come to an abrupt end when a British warship, the Talbot, hoves into view. Her captain, Alexander Jones, wastes no time in deposing the Protector of Iceland and Commander-in-Chief by Sea and Land, hauling down the fish-fillet flag, destroying Fort Phelps, and restoring Danish authority. For Jørgen Jørgensen, first and last of his name, it’s all over, but it was fun while it lasted.
Captain Jones, apparently unsure of what to do next, allows the Margaret and Anne to depart, taking the hapless Count Trampe to England as a prisoner of war, along with one much relieved botanist, with his voluminous research papers and hundreds of precious specimens. In a curious decision, Jones orders that the Margaret and Anne be escorted by the captured Danish ship Orion, commanded by none other than Jørgen Jørgensen.
Curious indeed but, as it happens, fortuitous. Samuel Phelps, amid all the ructions in Reykjavik, has somehow managed to do a deal for a return cargo of fish oil and tallow. In heavy seas, shortly after the ships set sail, the oil and tallow catch fire and the flames quickly take hold of the ship. There are only enough lifeboats for half the number of people aboard, but just as all seems lost, the Orion appears. It’s Jørgensen to the rescue, and all are saved. The only casualties are William Hooker’s specimens and most of his notes. He is glad to be alive, but heartbroken.
Jørgensen’s heroics notwithstanding, he is arrested on arrival in England – despite the protests of William Hooker, who is grateful to Jørgensen for saving his life – and incarcerated in a prison hulk. The years to follow will find him in and out of Newgate Prison for various petty crimes, then he drops out of sight until, in 1826, he is convicted of robbery and sentenced to hang. Typically for the times, his death sentence is commuted to transportation to Van Diemen’s Land for life. He who had witnessed the birth of Hobart would return there as a convict to live the rest of his days.
In the township of Ross, in central Tasmania, there is an old stone bridge crossing the Macquarie River. Built by convict labour in 1836, it is unique in that along both sides of the three arches of the bridge are intricate carvings.
Carved by Daniel Herbert, a stonemason transported for life for highway robbery, they depict the heads of a number of individuals. Two are thought to be of Herbert himself and his wife, another is believed to be of the then governor of Van Diemen’s Land, George Arthur, and many are of persons unknown.
Only one carving has been positively identified. It is the crowned head of Jørgen Jørgensen, King of the Dog Days.