AUSTRALIA FIFTY YEARS AGO.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2751, 1 March 1890, Page 6 (Supplement)

AUSTRALIA FIFTY YEARS AGO.

By far the strangest career of any of the convicts or ex-convicts that I came across was that of a Dane" callad Jorgen Jorgcusen, the King of Iceland. He'had published an account of his adventures, which was in tho main true, and, though well interlarded with moral and- pious reflections, showed plainly enough what a-consummate scoundrel ho was ; but he was justified in being vain of at least oue of his exploits, as it was perfectly true that he had takeu possession of Iceland by an extraordinary coup de main. He was the non of a watch maker at Copenhagen; first an apprentice in an English collier; then joined the navy and was in a tender to Captain Flinders' ship on the coast of Australia; afterwards, while commanding a privateer in the North Sea, w '3 taken prisoner aud got into all sorts of disreputable scrapes ia England, but was then employed, probably from his knowledge of Danish, to convey provisions to Iccland, where the people were starving, owing to their communications with Denmark being cut off after tho bombardment of Copenhageu. Upon his firnt visit to the island he found that the people were much dissatisfied with the Danish Governor, C"Unt Tramp, and this encouraged him to make a bold stroke on arriving there a second time with more I provisions. On a Sunday morning he observed hat almost the entire popu- , Latiou of the town had got me to church ! but that the Governor, like a wicked | mm,.had remained at home; whereupon, [ with ,a dozen men he landed and went straight into the Government Bouse j seized Count Tramp, and carried him off in triumph to his ship. In de-cribing this exploit, Jorgensen boasted that no revolution had ever before been so adroitly, harmlessly, and so effectually accomplished, adding as a moral reflection that if tho 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 ho asserts, weli satisfied with his rule, for. after soizimr tho publicchest, his first act was to remit all debts due to the Danish Government, and his next was to increase the stipends of all the clergy throughout the island, who thereupon impressed upon their congregations that he was 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 proceeding* that, on his return to England, instead of beinsj received with honor, ho was arrested, and falling into his usual disreputable ways, soon after got himself sentenced to transportation. After hit arrival in Van Diemen's Land his conduct was not always strictly correct, and his hastiness of temper once got hiin 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. She 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 brough tho ex king into trouble.—Sir Henry Elliot, in Nineteenth Century.