Of One Blood: the last histories of Van Dieman's Land

By Craig Cormick

In the last year of his life, Jorgen Jorgensen sits alone in a darkened cell, writing his final life history. This time, he swears, it will be the truth.


Of One Blood is a creative re-imagining of the early years of the colony of Van Diemen's Land in the mid-19th Century. It is told largely through the contrasting voices of two of the colony's most enigmatic characters – Jorgen Jorgensen and George Augustus Robinson – both men who invented their own histories.

Jorgen Jorgensen was a Danish adventurer who visited the very first settlement in Van Diemen's Land (modern Tasmania, south of Australia), as a sailor. Upon returning to Europe he ran into troubles and debt, coming back to Van Diemen's Land as a convict. He spent the remainder of his years there, and became renowned as an explorer, constable, author and teller of tales – primarily his own!

George Augustus Robinson by comparison, was a missionary, who took it upon himself to range across the wildness of Tasmania and gather up the remaining indigenous people and bring them to a mission where they would be saved – both spiritually and physically. However in forcing them into a mission they became more prone to diseases and the despondency of dislocation and many died in his care. In his writings he lionizes his achievements and plays down his failures.

The Van Diemen's Land the two men inhabit is both a land of history and a land of possibility – blurring the boundaries between what did happen and what might have been, retelling history and myth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Australian Booksellers Association
• Release date: Mar 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215301302

Craig Cormick

Dr Craig Cormick OAM is an award-winning author and science communicator. He has published many more books than he has children and grandchildren (and he has four and three of those respectively). He was born on Dharawal Country – Wollongong – and has lived in the Blue Mountains and Queensland. He currently lives on Ngunnawal land in Canberra. He has been Chair of the ACT Writers Centre, co-host of the literary podcast Secrets from the Green Room, and has edited several magazines and books. He is drawn to stories of people whose voices have been hidden from history. Find him at wwwcraigcormick.com

Book preview

PART ONE

Jorgen Jorgensen's Last History

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In the last year of his life Jorgen Jorgensen sits alone in a darkened cell, writing his final life history. This time, he swears, it will be the truth. The true exploits of Jorgen Jorgensen – sailor, explorer, whaler, liberator, protector, spy, convict and constable. He thinks a minute and then crosses out the word convict and replaces it with – author.

He carefully lowers his pen to the blank page before him, and writes: My life has been marked by confrontations with great things.  He pauses. Coughs up phlegm and something more solid from his lungs. Hears it land somewhere near his feet. Is glad he cannot see it.

It is a deep hacking cough, that rakes his lungs as if the cat were being lashed across them. He waits a moment to steady his breathing, then stares down at the page he has written. He can see nothing. Even the white paper is as black as ships' pitch in the darkened cell. Light is kept out in the belief that the darkness will both punish and rehabilitate the most recalcitrant of inmates, instead of tipping them over the precipice of insanity. Jorgen Jorgensen, no stranger to darkened cells, knows better.

He feels another rattling cough welling up within him. He tries to hold it – clamps his teeth shut and holds his breath, but it bursts out. Battering his lungs. Making his old joints creak. Making his kidneys ache. Loosening two of his remaining teeth. He swears softly, Fucking Hell! Then again in Danish, Forpuled helvede!

He fears he may not have enough time to complete his last history, but knows it is his only chance of remaining alive and gaining immortality. He lowers his pen to the page again. Strikes out his last line. It is not the start he wants to his final great life's story. Where to begin? he ponders. Where does a man's history begin? At birth? At death? Or at those few moments of momentous change that fall randomly like cast dice and fix his fate in life?

My life has been marked by terms of imprisonment, he writes. Then pauses again. Immediately strikes that out too. He wants each word of his story to be a victory over those who have imprisoned him. Over those who have sought to bring him down with lies and slander. The gentlemen and historians of the colony of Van Diemen's Land who refuse to recognize his true greatness and grant him his place in the colony's history.

He wants to be remembered as one of the first men to see the site of the capital. One of the first to see free settlers and convicts disembarking onto the island. One of the first to see the blacks standing silently in the forests. He thinks of describing his first view of them - before they were removed from the colony. Or thinks of describing the first convicts arriving in chains, now mostly free settlers themselves - or buried in large unmarked graves. He remembers the fears and dreams he has seen in both their eyes, for he knows the secret history of this island.

Perhaps that is why they imprison him? he thinks. But he outsmarts them. Each time he has been imprisoned he has used the periods of confinement to write up his great exploits. To commit his life to immortal words. And now he is writing his last great autobiography. The truth this time, he thinks. The truth as readers will find it many hundred years from now, when all the contradictory words that his detractors have written about his life will have been relegated to dark cells – then his own words will soar free.

He peers down toward the darkened page and starts again. My life has been marked by my participation in great moments of history, he writes. He decides he will tell the greatest story of his long life. His story of the Van Diemen's Land uprisings and his part in averting the blood-spilling that could have drowned the island. That is the story of the two demons - Finn and Magpie. Two names long forgotten or suppressed by the Governors. And, of course the part that the Mad Missionary played in it all. That false protector of the blacks, who claimed himself their saviour - but was really their betrayer and gaoler. But more of Mr Robinson later, he thinks. Yes, more of him later.

So at which great moment to begin? he ponders again. Perhaps at the executions that triggered it all?

When they hanged Finn the bushranger, the trumpets of angels were heard calling him up to them,  Jorgen Jorgensen writes. Then he pauses. Thinks upon what he has written. Knows he had heard no heavenly music. The hanging had been conducted in strict secrecy, with only the New Governor and a select band of the New Governor's chosen in attendance. He had stood there and witnessed the whole thing. Had seen him led out in chains by lantern light. Shadows danced around his feet.  He stumbled as he walked, as if he were tripping on them. But it was because he was hooded.

Jorgen Jorgensen then remembers that he was a much smaller man than he had imagined. Much more a man than he had imagined. His chains forcing him to shuffle as if he were lame.

He saw him led to the hastily constructed gallows. Saw him led up the ladder. Saw the New Governor give the order to the hangman and saw him pushed off. He fell as if were plummeting over a cliff. As if it were a long, long fall. But he hit the end of the rope quickly.

It is as clear in his memory as if it is already written there on the page. But when he lowers his pen he merely writes, They hanged Finn and I was witness.

What else to say? he thinks. He remembers there was a common belief amongst the convicts that Finn's body had been carried out of the grave and taken up to heaven. But he was buried in a secret unmarked grave, and they could never know what had happened to his body - regardless of their expectations for his return. He imagines the trumpets of angels must have been battle trumpets to their ears.

Perhaps that story had arisen from some confusion with the body of a native elder who had been robbed by scientists determined to study his skeleton, he thinks. That was another story worth telling. He lowers the pen a little but hesitates.

There were so many stories about Finn's life, and after his death they grew and multiplied. There were even stories about the wild black bandit Magpie that became stories about Finn. And other stories where Finn and Magpie were the one person. The stories grew, and the more the official history was suppressed, the more they took on lives of their own. It was the New Governor who had forbidden any word of Finn to be recorded in the Government archives.

I want him to cease to exist! he said.

And so he vanished from official history. Until that evening, many years later, when Jorgen Jorgensen was shown the shroud. Now that was a story, he thinks. It was the incident that had landed him back in this cell. Perhaps that is the story he should begin with?

- - -

The great and inestimable Jorgen Jorgensen was escorted down into the cellar of the old sandstone building by two soldiers. They were holding his arms and leading him downwards, cautious of his advanced age and advanced state of intoxication. They had found him at one of the many taverns in the township, where he was offering to tell his life's story, for a shilling, to anyone who had not yet heard it. But the soldiers didn't want to listen either.

He told them anyway. He had arrived in the colony in 1802, as the 21-year-old first mate on the Lady Nelson, bringing the first settlers to Risdon Cove. He had watched the whales moving slowly up the Derwent estuary. Then in 1804 he returned, bringing the settlers from Colonel Collins' failed colony at Port Phillip across the Bass Strait. He saw them clearing and felling trees for the small camp that was to become Hobart Town – the present capital of the colony.

And he saw the Risdon Cove settlement abandoned after an attack by a large party of blacks had been repulsed by the military. He saw the dark bodies strewn about on the grass and thought how much profit a whaler could make there.

He had been at New South Wales as the Irish revolt at Vinegar Hill had been put down. He had left the Royal Navy and hunted for whales in the Derwent River. He had returned to Europe and fought both on the side of Napolean and against him. He had witnessed the battle of Waterloo as an agent of the British Government. He had sailed to Iceland as a saviour of the people and established himself as Protector of the small island nation. And he had spent time in British prisons.

In 1826 he returned to Van Diemen's Land as a convict, sharing cells with the brigands of the Empire, mostly Irish, learning their ways and strange beliefs. Once pardoned he served as a constable in the roving parties, hunting the last bushrangers and wild blacks out of the wilderness. And he had been present at the death of Finn. He had seen him hanged with his own eyes and heard the last rites delivered with his own ears. And he did not hear the trumpets of angels.

The two soldiers paid him little heed as he talked and led him down the streets from the tavern silently, until they reached the old sandstone building. Then they led him down to the cellar. Negotiating the stairs carefully he didn't even notice the man standing below him until the soldiers released his arms and saluted. Jorgen Jorgensen stumbled forward almost on top of the man. He looked up and regarded him cautiously. Bald head, glasses and two thick dark eyebrows that seemed to curve into question marks when he frowned, which he was doing now.

The man regarded him silently for a moment while Jorgen Jorgensen took in his features. He had a large book beside him, which he appeared to have been either reading, or writing in, and Jorgen knew this marked him as either an administrator or a damned historian. Seeing Jorgen's careful glance at the book, the man reached over and closed it. The whomp of the pages sent dust rising into the air.

The man then dismissed the troopers with a short flick of his hand and they marched off smartly, their boots striking the bare sandstone floor heavily and the metal of their buckles clinking and echoing around the chamber, sounding to Jorgen's ears like the clinking of gaoler's keys.

The man then wet his lips, and attempted to smile, but it was obvious, even to Jorgen Jorgensen, in the dim light of the cellar, that it did not come naturally to him.

He wet his lips again, and said, Mr Jorgensen, I would like to beg your assistance in a most delicate matter. And then he gestured to the floor, and for the first time Jorgen noticed the shroud cloth spread out there. He gave a small start, as if it had just appeared there before him.

You recognize this then, the man said.

Jorgen Jorgensen looked around a little, as if searching for some trap. Then he nodded. Very slightly. Still staring at the shroud.

Can you identify this cloth? the man then asked him.

Jorgen Jorgensen thought for a moment as to what he should say. Wondered if the man knew the answer already? He silently stared at the shroud as if he were closely examining it, squinting his eyes and tilting his head, and then he said, It appears to be the cloth they wrapped him in when they cut him down from the gallows.

And then Jorgen said, But it couldn't possibly be his shroud.

The man frowned deeply, arching his eyebrows into those two question marks. Why not?

He never existed, did he.

The man perceived Jorgen Jorgensen's sarcasm and once again tried to smile. Just a little. He reached out one hand and let his fingers stroke the leather cover of the large book. Probably an administrator then, thought Jorgen. A man who lived within the many tightly-written lines of the infinite journals of government records. Without looking at Jorgen, he said, You saw him.

Perhaps I did. Jorgen wondered if his drunken sarcasm was going to get him into trouble yet once more.

Perhaps you would like to examine the cloth more closely? the man invited, obviously expecting his co-operation.

Jorgen Jorgensen nodded, a deep bow that almost tipped him over, but he straightened himself quickly, so that the man would not notice. He took a step closer to the shroud, then slowly walked down its length. Well, I'm not certain, he said.

Why not?

Look at all these bloodstains, said Jorgen, pointing to the cloth. What caused them?

Perhaps you could advise me, the man said slowly, a touch of sarcasm in his voice. Was he badly wounded? The force of hanging can often open wounds – or even discharge the bowels, you know.

He obviously knew.

I have – um – heard of such things, Jorgen said. But wounds may also have been administered after death. I believe bleeding can continue for some hours. Then he asked, But who would mutilate a dead body? And he immediately wished he hadn't asked it. The question seemed to hang heavily in the air. But the man chose to let it float past him. He took a step back and indicated to Jorgen to examine the cloth more closely.

Jorgen bent down slowly on one knee, causing his joints to creak loudly as he did so. He reached out one hand and followed the pattern of bloodstains, without quite touching them. The patterns were intriguing. They appeared at random along the shroud, and each was a different shape. Each a distinct splash of blood. They formed no distinct pattern nor created any clear outline. Some were joined by a thin bloodstain. Yet others lay by themselves in isolation.

Jorgen followed the bloodstains from one end of the shroud to the other and then back again, and suddenly he understood them. Without looking up, he said, Each of these stains tells a story.

How so? the man replied, with the first sense of passion in his voice that Jorgen had yet heard from him. No administrator, Jorgen thought. Definitely an historian.

Well – if you look at them in this order – in isolation – they make no sense – except to tell you how the blood dried on that particular place on the cloth.

The man nodded. Slowly. Carefully.

So we must put them together.

Again he frowned and arched his eyebrows into those dark question marks.

Leaning forward, and grunting a little from the effort, Jorgen Jorgensen took up one corner of the shroud. I believe they folded it like this, he said, and rolled it over. Jorgen Jorgensen had decided he would reveal to the secret of the shroud to this man, but he was not going to make it too easy for him.

The man watched him as he worked, making no attempt to assist him. Maybe he was an administrator after all, Jorgen thought. An historian wouldn't resist the opportunity to take part. Through trial and error, and not a small amount of luck, Jorgen slowly reconstructed the shroud into its folded shape. And as he did so the pattern began to emerge.

Then Jorgen Jorgensen stopped. What is it? the man quickly asked.

I'm terribly thirsty, Jorgen said. In fact I'm feeling faint.

The man crossed his arms. Despite never having met Jorgen, it was apparent he knew a good deal about him already. Not a drop until you have completed the task, he said sternly.

And what if I faint from lack of refreshment? Jorgen asked.

I can arrange to have you taken to a place not unfamiliar to you where you can obtain solitude and rest to recover. Definitely an administrator, Jorgen thought. A senior bureaucrat with ties to the military.

Can I at least beseech you for some refreshment once I have completed the task? Jorgen asked.

The man stared at him a moment, then said, You would only get into your cups and land in gaol, the man said. He certainly knew a good deal about Jorgen Jorgensen alright.

Not upon my life, said Jorgen, too quickly. And you have my word on that as a man of letters, a former gentleman and a once loyal servant of the King.

The man almost did smile then. He knew that the only time Jorgen Jorgensen had been a loyal servant to the King was when George III was stark raving mad, sitting alone in a cell shouting that imaginary flood waters were rising all about him. I think something could be arranged, the man said.

Jorgen resumed work, folding and rolling the cloth until it was molded into the approximate shape of a man. The bloodstains now fitted together and formed the outline of a body. The man beside him now bent down and ran his hand around the outline of the shape, as if the missing body was actually there and he was touching it.

Is it him? he asked.

Yes. It is him, said Jorgen.

Tell me about him? the man said. Jorgen Jorgensen stared at him closely, wondering who he really was. If he was an historian he would want to tell everybody about the shroud, if he was an administrator he would want to hide it away.

But where should I begin? Jorgen asked him. There were so many stories about him. So many exploits. And each was linked to another story and another and another, he thought. Stories about Mr Robinson and stories about the convicts and stories about the bushrangers and the wild blacks and the captured blacks and there were even stories about himself to tell. So many stories.

- - -

Jorgen Jorgensen closes his eyes. Lays his pen flat. All the stories had descended upon him at once for a moment, overwhelming him, mixing and mingling. Sitting in his cell, an old man's distant memories start coming back to him. Start returning in the darkness. And when he closes his eyes, he can, for an instant, imagine he is hearing the distant call of heavenly trumpets, calling him up to them.

He shakes his head a little to clear it.

The bald man had been right. He had gotten into his cups and ended up in gaol again. Norah would have been furious with him, had she lived a few more weeks. He sighs. He had sworn off drinking after she had died but had rarely been sober since. Drink had been the death of her, as he always knew it would be. He had tried to lift her above the continual bouts of drunkenness and internment, but he had ended up joining her. How he now longed to have her by him, even if she were drunk and fiery. She had such life in her bosom, even in her last days.

How he longs for her to raise her broom at him in anger just one more time. He sighs again. Says his wife's name softly, Norah. Then he opens his eyes. Picks up the pen. Turns to a new page. Starts over. He writes, My life has been marked by the passing of lives.

He opens his eyes and looks at the darkened manuscript somewhere in front of him. This time the truth, he says.

George Augustus Robinson's Last History

George Augustus Robinson, Commandant of the Native Mission, sits in his small draughty study, pondering the exact words to write in his journal. When they hanged the black bandit Magpie, the blacks said they could hear the wailing of spirits, lifting him up to the stars, he says to himself, with is pen poised above the page. But he immediately questions what future historians and readers might make of his words. He thinks about this very carefully.

He suddenly feels the hair on the back of his neck rising. His skin turning to gooseflesh. Somebody is walking over my grave, he says. Then he thinks on those words. The expression doesn't make any sense. He shakes his head, shaking away the chill feeling. Then he readjusts his stiff auburn wig and considers the blank page before him once more.

How to put the words just right? he ponders. How to put the words so they look as if they've flown freely out of his fertile mind down through his arm and into his pen – but not so freely that they'd actually give away any untethered thoughts?

He is trying to write about the hanging. But he finds the words that spring into his mind are quite inappropriate. He had talked to the blacks at the time of his death, and they all told the same story. They said they knew he was dead for they could hear the spirits wailing for him. But he had only heard his charges' wailing. He watched them dance and cry in the night. Calling on Magpie. Calling him back to them.

But he's not going to write that! He's not going to admit he knew anything about their blood ritual.

When they hanged one black bandit the natives wailed loudly for his spirit, he considers. He pauses again. His pen lowered half-way to the page. Just sits there.

He is a small man, going slowly to fat. Small eyes and a thin mouth, which he dislikes. He will have an artist paint his portrait one day, he often thinks, and will instruct him to enlarge both. The Great George Augustus Robinson, the title will read. Conciliator and Protector of the Natives.

He looks at the page in front of him. Tries to remember the execution. Tries to picture it there. He knows it had been conducted on a small island off the coast of the township. Magpie had been led out in the pre-dawn's darkness in chains. He was led to the scaffold by lantern-light. They had his face masked with a hood. They led him up a small ladder. Pulled a noose tightly over his head. Then hanged him.

It sounded so simple. But he cannot think of a simple way to say it. He doesn't want to say it. Doesn't even want to say his name. How to write it just right? he ponders.

He thinks upon this very carefully each day as he writes in his journal the vast adventures and achievements that constitute his life. Some day, he thinks, people will dig up his body and probe it for its secrets. And they will also dig up his journals. Petty men and historians will try and diminish his greatness, looking for scandal, and trying to support the lies they already tell about him. He knows that his journals are the only regularly kept history of the colony, and despite his official reports and dispatches, which he suspects are not even read at Government House any more, they will one day come looking for his journals. Looking for stories beyond the official reports. Stories about the colony. Stories about the blacks. Stories about the administrators. Stories about the Icelandic rogue Jorgensen, whose own stories are a drunkard's lies. They would even look for stories about himself – the Great Conciliator!

So he thinks very carefully before committing his pen to the pages of his journal. Over his years in the colony they have grown to several large books, covering many thousand pages, yet every word in them is carefully considered. They will not find in them anything to support the criticisms that are made of him in the offices of the Governor. Nor will they find anything to support the whispers of improper conduct and mismanagement that are made in the drawing rooms of the colony. And they will certainly find none of the malicious and lewd gossip that is made of him in the barracks. They will not even find any mention of Finn nor Magpie. He will see to that!

He feels he should write something about Magpie now that he is dead, but will not use his name in his journal. He has already gone back over the pages and deleted it where ever he found it. Magpie will have no place in his past.

He looks around his small study, lets his gaze run over the half-packed boxes. The shelves now bare of books and curios. Years of dust show where he has been. He will be gone soon, he thinks. Soon enough. He has given over five years of his life to the mission station at New Jerusalem, and has little to show for it other than the long rows of graves in the hard soil, a chest full of bones and amulets and the many hundred pages of his journal. He looks back to the blank page in front of him. Thinks carefully on what he should say of the bandit's death. Something fitting, but nothing that reveals his own part in it.

One day he will write his own history of the colony, he thinks, revealing to the world the crucial role he has played in establishing its prosperity. Revealing his vast knowledge of the blacks and their ways, reminding an easily forgetful world of the role he played in averting bloodshed in the last great war of the colony.

He closes his eyes for a moment and is an elderly gentlemen, sitting in a large living room in London. Eminent men of science and young women of high society are gathered around him. Kneeling before him. Tugging at their forelocks. Licking his shoes. Asking him for their favour. Envious and awed at his knowledge and wealth and prosperity. And when he turns to regard them, as if looking at a bothersome beggar, he addresses them in rich tones, with not a trace of his thin working class accent. His has became the voice of a man of position and prestige.

They called me the Great Conciliator, he says, as the men of science nod their heads eagerly. I walked out alone into the wilderness of the colony, into the very heartland of the wild blacks, fearless of their spears and sharp axes, and playing upon my flute, like a modern pied-piper, I tamed and civilized them, I brought them in from the wilderness and educated them. Preached to them the benefits of Christianity. Converted them to God's ways. Ended the conflict and introduced them to British civilisation.

The men of science are struck by his achievements. They know them well already of course. They have read his history of the colony. The book is referred to and quoted often in the best journals. His name is spoken of regularly in lectures at the Royal Academy or in various Missionary Institutions. He is as famous as Sir Joseph Banks or that great missionary William Carey, who at that very moment is queued up on the footpath outside, waiting for an interview.

The men and women around him begin fawning and licking his shoes anew. He looks out the window where a long line of gentlemen are queued up on the foot path, and he sighs. Sometimes he misses his years spent in the colony. Misses the challenges of those years. Sometimes he even misses his wife and children who have stayed behind on his vast estates there.

He opens his eyes and looks down at his journal and sighs again. Sometimes he does miss those years spent traveling in the wilderness. The adventure of it. Danger and Trugernanna were his constant companions. Thinking of her makes his genitals itch. If only she'd been able to keep away from the syphilitic sealers, he thinks. If only she'd never turned away from him. If only so many things had turned out differently.

He sighs heavily. Looks out the window into the compound. There is a light drizzle falling across New Jerusalem. He can feel the chill of it whispering under the door. The natives' huts are half-hidden in the haze. Another month or two at the most. He is determined to be gone before he turns forty. Doesn't wish to be an old man still living so roughly. Wants to be free. No longer wants to be the Commandant of the natives.

His wife Maria had never wished him to leave Hobart Town. Didn't want him to abandon her and their seven children again. But a man had to look to the future. Had to look for opportunities.

Yes, opportunities. And he wonders, as he wonders every day, why his once faithful Trugernanna had become so hostile to him? Then he wonders how many more blacks will have died before he leaves. They have proven a great disappointment to his aspirations. But he won't write that in his journal. They have been dying since the day they first arrived here, and are undermining his position as Commandant by doing so. He has become more a caretaker of the dead than a Commandant of the living.

He lowers his pen slowly to the page. All he will write of Magpie's death is, Another native died. That will prove a very dry bone for latter day grave robbers and historians to pick over. Yes, that will do it well, he thinks.

He presses his pen to the page and writes. Then realizes that the ink in his pen has dried up. He peers at the pen for a moment, as if it is telling him something. Warning him about something. But he is not quite sure what. Still, it will make a good parable, one day, he thinks.

- - -

The first day George Augustus Robinson arrived at the island compound of New Jerusalem with the title Commandant of the Natives, and a salary of £200 per annum, was a great disappointment. He would have preferred the title a little more grandiose, and the salary a little larger, but he felt it was some recognition of the important role he had played in taming the wild blacks.

But New Jerusalem was far below his expectations. An air of decay and desertion hung heavily over everything. A great disappointment. The Lieutenant-Governor had promised him so much. And he himself had promised the blacks so much.

He now regretted claiming credit for idea of removing the blacks to an island that could be their sanctuary. It would allow them to settle in safety, away from the angry guns of European settlers, he had said. It would also enable them to learn European methods of agriculture and religion. The compound would be their future. Providing of course that they were in the charge of a man who understood their language and customs and was well equipped to teach Christian doctrines to them.

The Lieutenant-Governor appeared to have little hesitation in appointing him to the position, although he did halve the requested salary of £400 that Mr Robinson had recommended for himself. And he had also, unbeknown to Mr Robinson, confided to his aides that he wished there had been a larger field of applicants for the advertised position. The Lieutenant-Governor was, as was widely known, an unstable man, and as such was quick to recognize instability in others.

He did, however, in a private interview with Mr Robinson, stress how happy he was to have him appointed to the position, and assured him that the site for the blacks' compound had been carefully selected. He began the conversation, as ever, by referring to the Battle of Trafalgar. It was the single high point in his