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Hej alle,

It has been long time since I was last on this list ... but I have (as
they say) improved the shining hour and even spent another month in
Denmark (Mid-August to mid September - sunshine almost every day) )

I met some new Danish cousins, and some old Danish cousins, and some old
Danish e-pals, and saw the brickworks museum at Cathrinesminde - most of
all laboured over *JJ* questions with my e-pal Jørn Dyrholm ... ah, JJ!

So it is a JJ question that I want to ask - whether anyone knows any of
these mariners who left Copenhagen on 7 May 1798 on the Danish East
Indiaman
Holger Danske (824 tons) a voyage to Batavia:

Hans Laurens Smit (Captain, then aged 38)
Cornelis Cornelisse Kleef (Chief Mate)
Andreas Kierumgaard
José Vende
Francisco
Jens Jensen
Christian Jorgensen
Hans Hendrick Berger
Pieder Nelsen
Jens Christiansen
Jan Willem Brinkman (signed on at Batavia)

The vessel was owned by Messrs Duntzfeld and Company of Copenhagen, and
had an eventful voyage - which included *losing* the ex-Governor of Java
Henricus Wegener (in Mozambique), being taken as a Prize by the
privateer
Harriet, and encountering a fierce storm in Table Bay.

(When the Prize crew's Captain, 3rd Mate John Leaden stood on the deck
all night, pistols at the ready, to thwart the boatswain's plan of
running the vessel on shore).

So, what has this to do with JJ? Well, in his own writings JJ claims to
have been aboard the privateer Harriet when she took the Holger
Danske as a Prize. (JJ makes the point that he declined to accept any of
the Prize money from that venture - it was against his principles).

But (surprise, surprise!) whose name pops up among the Mariners hired
for the "Safety and Preservation" of the Holger Danske while she lay in
Table Bay?

Engelbregt Engelbregtsen
Laurent Christoffe Waterland
Erick Iversen Dahl
Johannes Johnson
Carl Johansen Wage
Jasper Holm
Gabriel Nielsen
Christian Knudsen Dahl
Jacob Jorgensen
Jorgen Jorgensen
Niel Nielsen Oglandarog
Soren Larson

I wonder, can anyone throw any light on these events - or people?
Captain Smit's wife was Karen Lote, if that helps at all.

I was thinking that these sailors had a long wait (16 months) as guards
on the Holger Danske while the Prize hearing dragged on ... perhaps they
wrote home, about the astonishing events they had witnessed )

Greetings from Oz,


Lesley
(Melbourne, Australia ... where Spring is in the air)