life, and he took the opportunity to travel around the world, staying a year in India, learning Sanskrit and studying the philosophy of the Buddha. He returned to Paris and met Annie Harper Flagler, daughter of John Haldane Flagler, head of a successful pipe company and one of Andrew Carnegie's partners in the steel business. They were married at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York on March 17 (St. Patrick's Day), 1891. He lived with and off the Flaglers in New York for two years. Traveling to Tibet before his marriage, his crew made a stop in the South Atlantic. Harden-Hickey noticed that the tiny island of Trinidad in the South Atlantic Ocean had never been claimed by any country and was, legally, "res nullius". He claimed the island and proclaimed himself James I, Prince of Trinidad. He wanted an independent state with himself as military dictator, and later in 1893, he got just that. As Prince James I of Trinidad The now-James I was given attention – most of it negative and derogatory – by various nations and news organizations when he started selling Principality of Trinidad government bonds, opened an office in New York City and began making secretarial appointments, such as M. le Comte de la Boissiere as his Secretary of State. Trinidad was seized by Great Britain, however, in 1895 as a telegraph cable-relay station, and James I was forced to surrender it to them, leaving him with only a homemade crown, and a schooner. While the Brazilians and British were threatening war over their respective claims, James I was forgotten, although he had the prior claim of sovereignty. Appeals to the United States to act as a mediator did nothing for his cause when US Secretary of State John Milton Hay released his letter appealing for American mediation to the press, opening James I to harsh ridicule in the popular press. After the British invaded "his" Trinidad island in 1895, James I designed a plan to invade England from Ireland and even asked the wealthy Henry Flagler to finance his invasion plan, but Flagler demured, and denied his request. James I then tried to raise money by selling his ranch in Mexico but failed to assemble enough funds to continue operating. Although somewhat apocryphal, there is evidence to suggest that during this time, James I was approached by a certain filibuster named Ralston