The town of Björneborg (Pori in Finnish) was the target of hostilities for the first time in the late summer of 1854, when an enemy struck the city's outer port on Reposaari and destroyed the mast of an optical telegraph erected there. In addition, property and livestock were taken from local residents. The enemy did not approach the city centre for the first time until a year later, on 9 August 1855. The British warship Tartar, commanded by Commodore Hugh Dunlop, had sailed from Säppi Island to Reposaari two days earlier. There were a small number of Russian soldiers in Pori at the time, as well as a group of about 70 volunteers, but Claes Adam Wahlberg, the Mayor of Pori, decided, after consulting with the local burghers, to give up the fight. The reason was that almost the whole of Pori had been destroyed by a major fire three years earlier, and there was no desire to endanger the partially rebuilt city. The cannons placed on Luotsinmäki were rolled into the river and Mayor Wahlberg set out to negotiate with the enemy who had invaded the city along the Kokemäki River. He reached an agreement according to which Pori will be saved from destruction when the enemy is handed over to the city-owned paddle-wheel steamer Sovinto and a dozen other ships in the river port, which had been taken for protection just over ten kilometres upstream of the Kokemäenjoki River to Haistila. The activities of the people of Pori were considered shameful and according to some information, Lieutenant General Alexander Jakob von Wendt would have later demoted the officer who had retreated from Luotsinmäki to sergeant during a review held at the Pori market square.