Includes index. This gripping nineteenth-century adventure stars a strange and trougled man and sheds new light on the emerging British empire.Jorgen Jorgenson was a Dane who made Britain his adopted country, and became caught up in its story at opposite ends of the ea rth. The son of a Copenhagen clockmaker, inspired by his hero Captain Cook, he came to London. Here he became a sailor and at twenty-three was among the small party sent to establish a new colony - Tasmania. Amid many twists of fortune, he captained a s hip for France against Britain, but then sailed with British traders to Iceland. This was his long-dreamed of moment of glory: staging an outrageous coup, for two months he ruled Iceland, proclaiming it free from Danish rule, its ancient rights restored. He was not yet thirty. Much lay ahead, from imprisonment in the hulks, patronage by Joseph Banks and travels in Europe as a British spy. But Jorgensen was always dogged by his own excesses. Inevitably he spiralled downwards until he transported as a c onvict to Tasmania, the very colony he helped to found. Here he rose again. He became an explorer, cutting through the bush on desperate missions in icy mountains and across flooded river; and despite his sympathy for the people, he was caught up in the terrible Aboriginal clearances, movingly described here.
Bibliography: p. 293-313.