Since 1805 was a bad year for fishing, he instead took loads of coal from Suðuroy across the Atlantic to Bergen and Copenhagen, trying to open up direct trading, but was prevented from importing goods to the Faroes by the Danish Royal Trade Monopoly authorities. Instead, by vaccinating members of his crew successively using material from the previous man, he succeeded in bringing the first smallpox vaccine back to the Faroes, and with the help of one of his brothers spread vaccination through the islands. The following year, after again attempting to trade directly, he was convicted and fined on two charges of contravention of the trading laws, but cleared of smuggling goods back to the Faroes, having sold them to a Swedish ship in the Kattegat. He reacted by counter-suing the Tórshavn district sheriff, Joen Christiansen Øre, for large-scale smuggling; the Monopoly officials appear to have been conducting personal trading on the side. However, he seems to have dropped the lawsuit. In 1807, after a year's effort to overcome refusals by the local government in the Faroes and by the Monopoly, he sailed to Copenhagen on "Royndin Fríða" as one of a deputation of five presenting a popularly supported proposal for a three-year experimental lifting of the trade restrictions. They had to illegally sell 2,600 knitted sweaters and other merchandise to a Norwegian merchant to finance the voyage, but Crown Prince Frederick, who was governing as regent for his father, and others in Copenhagen were sympathetic, and trade would have been opened up if war with England had not begun.