Jorgen Jorgensen

Jørgen Jørgensen (name of birth: Jürgensen, and changed to Jorgenson from 1817) (29 March 1780 – 20 January 1841) was a Danish adventurer during the Age of Revolution. During the Action of 2 March 1808 his ship was captured by the British. In 1809 he sailed to Iceland, declared the country independent from Denmark and pronounced himself its ruler. He intended to found a new republic following the United States and the French First Republic. He was also a prolific writer of letters, papers, pamphlets and newspaper articles covering a wide variety of subjects, and was an associate of the famous botanists Joseph Banks and William Jackson Hooker for a period. He left over hundred written autographs and drawings, most of them are collected in the British Library. Marcus Clarke referred to Jørgensen as a singularly accomplished fortune wooer—one of the most interesting human comets recorded in history.

Bio from Wikipedia - See more on en.wikipedia.org Text under CC-BY-SA license