But before my visit to the island was concluded, I found that a governorship of Heligoland was very far from being a tranquil retreat. The present Governor, it seems, had founded a new constitution, and was charged with having assumed despotic powers, and with having perpetrated various acts of inhumanity. Governor Wall himself appeared in the light of a philanthropist as compared with this military ogre, who, having acquired a taste for blood in the Crimean War, had been sent to Heligoland to gratify his ruthless propensities. He was as bad as Eyre, for he had suspended a native politician from the Council. He was worse than Sir Charles Darling, who had defied a constitution; for he had destroyed one. My curiosity having been excited by these complaints, I went to the proper sources of information, and in a few hours had mastered the political history of Heligoland. In 1807 it was captured by Vice-Admiral Russell from the Danes. From that time until 1864 the government of the colony consisted of a Governor, six magistrates, and a closed popular body called the _Vorsteherschaft_, containing, besides the magistrates aforesaid, eight quartermasters and sixteen elders. The elders were the tribunes of the people; the quartermasters acted as pilot officers, and superintended all questions of pilotage and wreck; while the magistrates had the power of nominating persons to fill vacancies in the _Vorsteherschaft_, and appointed to them their own particular adherents, or else dangerous political antagonists. The Governor was a Doge. A colony governed by pilots, lodging-house-keepers, and small tradesmen could scarcely be expected to prove a success. In 1820 there was a debt of £1,800; in 1864, of £7,200. Owing to the rapacity of the quartermasters, the pilot-trade fell into the hands of the people of Cuxhaven. And in the island itself the wildest anarchy prevailed. The six magistrates were unable to execute their own decrees; there was no prison in the island, and it seems to have been the custom for the authorities to kidnap convicted criminals and deposit them on the main-land. Petitions were being constantly presented to the Home Government from the magistrates, asking for more power; and from the people, demanding the right to elect their own representatives.