to Sweden in 1645. A story claims that a negotiator had left a glass of beer placed over the island on the map during the peace negotiations. A more plausible explanation is that Swedish forces had not conquered the fairly remote island and had little interest in it. In 1668 Anholt was sold to the tax farmer Peder Jensen Grove. Six years later his widow married Hans Rostgaard of Krogerup and the island then came at the hands of the Rostgaard von der Maase family. Most recently, lawyer Jens Christian Rostgaard von der Maase, of Copenhagen, has owned the greater and protected part of the island. British occupation (1809–1814) Early in the Gunboat War (part of the Napoleonic Wars), the Danish authorities shut off the lighthouse on Anholt. On 5 December 1808 the bomb ketch was wrecked on the Anholt Reef while trapped in floating ice; the Danes rescued all her crew and immediately made them prisoners of war. Proselyte had stationed herself off the island on 9 November 1808 to carry a light for the safety of passing convoys. Following the loss of Proselyte, on 18 May 1809 the 64-gun third rate , under Captain Askew Paffard Hollis, the 36-gun frigate , , , , and the gunvessel captured the island. A party of seamen and marines under the command of Captain William Selby of Owen Glendower, with the assistance of Captain Edward Nicolls of the Standards marines, landed. The Danish garrison of 170 men put up a sharp but ineffectual resistance that killed one marine and wounded two; the garrison then capitulated. The British took immediate possession of the island. Hollis stated that Anholt was important as a source of water to the Navy, and as a good anchorage for merchant vessels going to or coming from the Baltic. The principal objective of the mission was to restore the lighthouse on the island to its pre-war state to facilitate the movement of British men of war and merchantmen navigating the dangerous seas there. The Danes, upon hearing of their defeat, attempted to retake the island and launched an expedition. However, the battle of Anholt resulted in a significant British victory and the Danes made no further attempts to recapture the island. There is a monument commemorating the battle in Anholt village. While captain of , Francis Austen visited Anholt in 1812 and wrote about it to his sister,