[28] That Sir R. M. Keith was strongly prejudiced against Struensee is seen in his Memoirs. After expressing his dissatisfaction at remaining at a post when he was prohibited from mixing himself up in the internal administration, he adds, "If I am ordered to grapple with these gentry, I already feel (thank God) the superiority which honesty has over low cunning. I am sure, if I had carte blanche, I could already have dismissed half a dozen of the most worthless fellows alive."
[29] In order to gain the confidence of the queen dowager and her party, Rantzau had taken formal leave of the royal family while at Hirschholm, and was living in quasi retirement. At the same time he quieted his creditors by assuring them that, so soon as Struensee was overthrown, he intended to pay off all his debts.—Reverdil, p. 326.
[30] "Authentische Aufklärungen," p. 150.
[31] "Mémoires de Falckenskjold," p. 157.
[32] When the well-known Baron Grimm, some years after the palace revolution of 1772, requested Reverdil to give him a description of Struensee, he answered him: "Tacitus has drawn it for us," and read the baron the following passage from the Annals:—"Poor, unknown, and restless, he managed by secret machinations to satisfy the malicious temper of the prince, and ere long he brought every celebrated man into danger. Thus he attained power with one but hatred with all, and furnished an example how rich men are made poor, and despised men grand, by which he entailed first the ruin of others and then his own."
[33] Reverdil, p. 329.
[34] By Jörgensen Jomton, a well-known literary man, and confidant of Christian VIII.
[35] Struensee is reported to have said of Köller: "He looks as if he had no mother, but was brought into the world by a man. Something innate in him stamps him ruffian."
[36] "Authentische Aufklärungen," p. 152.
[37] "One Beringskjold, an infamous, abandoned wretch, capable of every crime or villany, and whom fame declares to be the man who put Peter, the late Emperor of Russia, to death."—N. W. Wraxall's Private Journal.