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had been imposed their supplies had been running low. For some weeks Napoleon’s ‘continental system’ and the resulting French pressure on Denmark had meant the islanders had been greatly impeded in their traditional occupations of fishing and piloting and so had been unable to make much of a living. Winter was approaching and they were, in effect, in the early stages of starvation. Initially, when the Quebec had arrived offshore a few days earlier, the island’s Danish Commandant, Major Von Zeske, had been determined to hold Heligoland for his country as long as he was able. But his resolve was now waning fast, influenced by the Heligolanders’ apparent reluctance to see their homes demolished before a surrender that appeared to be inevitable. Realising that his position was hopeless, at 6pm Major Zeske accepted a flag of truce and consented to a meeting with British officers the next morning.
    The bomb-vessels and the troopship had still not arrived as Russell made ready to storm the island. He ordered a makeshift party of marines and seamen to be hastily assembled from the existing squadron. He was already anxious about the weather conditions and also became concerned that Major Zeske might be tempted to procrastinate, with the natural hope that so large a warship could not long continue to anchor so close to the town. His sense of urgency was clear in his letter demanding the island’s surrender, which his representatives handed to Major Zeske at dawn on 5 September 1807. Hoping that the aristocratic status of his negotiators might itself have some effect on Zeske’s position, Russell stated that the letter was ‘being delivered to your Excellency by Captain the Right Honourable Lord Viscount Falkland, assisted by my First Lieutenant, Corbet D’Auvergne (brother to His Serene Highness Rear Admiral the Duke of Bouillon)’. Expressing an evidently sincere concern to spare the islanders from bloodshed, he implored Zeske to ‘suffer me for the sake of Humanity to express a hope that your Excellency will not sacrifice the Blood and property of your inhabitants by a vain resistance, but that you will, by an immediate surrender, avert the horrors of being stormed’. 14
    Mindful of Thornton’s memo to Canning urging that the island’s ‘Internal government should be continued without any alteration’, Falkland and D’Auvergne agreed with Zeske that all such rights and customs would be safeguarded and respected. Unusually, there was an ongoing tradition that the islanders were not obliged to serve on board Danish naval ships, a privilege which should henceforth mean they would be exempt from service with the Royal Navy. The British representatives were in no mood to make any other allowances with regard to the military surrender: the garrison must lay down their arms, surrender themselves as prisoners-of-war and without their weapons leave forthwith on their parole d’honneur not to serve against Britain during the war. Zeske attempted to secure an undertaking that after the conflict the island would be returned to Denmark but this the naval officers refused to accept. At 2pm on the afternoon of 5 September the delegation returned to the Majestic with Zeske’s signature on the Articles of Capitulation, which Admiral Russell briskly ratified.
    British possession of the island began immediately with the arrival of a 50-strong landing party led by Corbet D’Auvergne. Even so, the commencement of British rule could scarcely have been more makeshift. To keep a record of events in the new colony he was furbished by the Majestic ’s purser with an unused muster book – traditionally used to record the ship’s company’s wages and attendance data; D’Auvergne duly took a quill pen and neatly altered the words ‘His Majesty’s Ship’ to ‘His Majesty’s Island of Heligoland’. He began by recording that, such was the high regard for Russell among the captains of the squadron, they had – without the