month, this gentleman felt that longer delay
would be materially prejudicial to his interests,
and that he must consequently be
under the necessity of having recourse to
measures, no more consonant to his inclination
than to his feelings. He therefore
gave orders to Captain Liston, the master
of the Margaret and Anne, by virtue of
the power granted him by his letter of
marque, to seize the person of the governor,
and detain him as his prisoner; directing
him, also, immediately before he took such
a step, to make a prize of the Orion, a
brig belonging to Count Tramp, provided
with a licence from the British government,
which she had, according to Mr. Jorgensen,
forfeited, by first carrying her cargo to Nor-
way, and there disposing of it, and taking
in another* for Iceland. Mr. Liston, in
pursuance of these directions, landed twelve
* A part of this cargo, according to Count Tramp,
consisting of goods to the value of six thousand rix-
dollars of Danish currency, was intended to have been
distributed gratis among the distressed Icelanders, a
circumstance of which I am persuaded Mr. Phelps and
Mr. Jorgensen were ignorant, or they would not have
allowed so benevolent a design to have been frustrated.
of his crew with arms, and, stationing them
at the door of the governor’s house, entered,
together with Mr. Phelps, the room in
which he was sitting with Mr. Koefoed, and
made him his prisoner, without any resistance
on his part: then locking the door
of his office, to which he allowed the
count to affix his own seal *, he conducted
him under an armed escort on board the
Margaret and Anne. The whole of this was
done without any attempt at concealment
in the most public time of the most public
day of the week, a Sunday afternoon, after
divine service, so that it affords the strongest
evidence in favor of Mr. Jorgensen’s assertion,
that the transaction itself could not be
displeasing to the natives, many of whom
were loitering about the plain before the
house, with their long poles in their hands
spiked with iron, which they use for walkings
upon the snow, and which they might have
now employed as offensive weapons; instead
of which they looked on with the most
perfect indifference, though they were in such
* This was shortly afterwards broken open, and all
the papers subjected to examination.