The Danish and Norwegian subjects have been for many hundred years accustomed to be treated mercifully, as their fidelity and sincerity deserves. The affection and veneration which they feel for their king cannot be described, and they are in return beloved by their regent. They generally feel a deep reverence for the Supreme Being and God's word, are all sensible, and have a feeling of shame for sins committed: they are quiet, and everybody lives securely in the country, so that foreigners said: "It is pleasant to live here," and built themselves all sorts of abodes among us, though without despising and offending the nation. But, during the last few years, this has become quite different, and has assumed a strange and confused aspect. Attempts have been made to render the king—that dearest part of everything temporal to his people—odious to his subjects, and the latter in turn to him. No one could obtain access to his Majesty unless he belonged to the party which did not mean well with him. Impudence and contempt were emboldened to rise against so highly venerable a royal house. The Almighty and His word were rendered ridiculous. People strove to drive away virtue and honour, and to open a gate to immorality, seeing no shame in it, but evidently seeking honour in it. The audacity was carried so far that the authority which the nation voluntarily committed to Frederick III. and his descendants, was solely exercised by a subject, and was even about to be extended, so that the man who exercised it might be absolute.
Like the nation, their language was despised. It was heart-torture for every honest man and lover of honour to see and hear all that which can be read in printed documents.
The ruin of families was like the deed of a fallen angel. But who was this fallen angel? It was John Frederick Struensee, the most foolhardy person who can be imagined, and who for this reason deserves the name of more than vir unius seculi, formerly a doctor, up to the present time a count, but of whom (as I hope), before I let him go, nothing will be left but horror, condemnation, and punishment.
Count Struensee was born at Halle, in 1737. His father is the present superintendent in Holstein. He studied medicine at Halle, passed his examination there, and lived at Gundern with his uncle, who was the private physician of Prince von Stolberg. A year later, 1758, he became city physician of Altona, where he received, as is said, veniam occidendi per totam urbem, which liberty he afterwards employed as cabinet minister, per utrumque regnum. After he had been physician for ten years at Altona, he became, in the year 1768, physician in ordinary to his royal Majesty, when his Majesty travelled abroad, as may be seen from his statement of February 25.
It required either a supernatural intellect or great daring and foolhardiness to undertake, in his twenty-first year, to be city physician and surgeon in Altona; but I believe the latter, because at the expiration of a short period he also took on himself to be the state physician; and we must consequently conclude from this, that he was as good a doctor for the city as he was in the state, and that the number of deaths in Altona, in his times, necessarily exceeded the births, unless the number of the latter was augmented by him in another way.[85] The reputation follows the man. I derive everything from documentary evidence, and in this his most intimate friend, Count Enevold Brandt, said, in his reply to question 122, "That seven or eight years ago it was generally known of Struensee that he had no religion, and that he had intercourse with women at an early age, which was reproved by many respectable people."
This "medicus," of whom common report says that he was not particularly well provided with his father's blessing, and hence could found no hopes on the promises of the fifth commandment, formed the acquaintance of Count Enevold Brandt, at the time he was attending the late Privy Councillor Söhlenthal, Brandt's step-father. He revealed to Count Brandt that he should like to be a physician in ordinary at the Danish court, just as if Denmark had a want of clever doctors, and required them as much as France did the Danish Winslöw.[86] Count Brandt promised him his good offices. Count Struensee was therefore engaged to travel with his Majesty abroad, not because his royal Majesty's health required this, but in order that he might be at hand in any unforeseen emergency, and because a physician fills up the number of the suite of such exalted personages, without being exactly regarded as superfluous. I have credible information that during the journey, when he found time heavy on his hands, he mocked at religion and the word of God (just as at a later date people mocked at his and his partisans' regulations, projects, and ridiculous enterprises), and would celebrate his pretended victory by a contemptuous laugh. I should be able to prove this, and mention it here, partly because in a criminal case nothing must be forgotten that throws light on the character or conduct of the culprit, and partly to contradict Struensee's excuse, that it was not his intention to inflict any injury on religion.
When he returned home he remained with his most gracious Majesty as physician, and to read to his Majesty whatever his Majesty might order him to read; and for this purpose waited on the king every morning, mid-day, and evening, as will be seen from his answer to question 1. Count Struensee, who had already determined to acquire honour and wealth, no matter in what way, from the "respect and purse" of the Danish and Norwegian nation, clearly saw that it would not do to serve two masters in the way he intended, and that he, as a foreigner, who had just come into a country where he had no connexions, would be unable to sustain himself. He easily perceived that, while he secured his fortunes on one side, his misfortune could be founded on the other. To be constantly about his Majesty, would be so much as to neglect those plans which must remain hidden from the king. Nor could the duty of being constantly about the king's person be safely entrusted to any one. It must be some one, in whose care he could trust as fully as in Count Brandt, who, as he was compelled by command to keep away from court, would be attached to him if he again procured him admission to it. Thus it came about that Count Brandt received leave to return to court, though he did not occupy any permanent post till the departure of Chamberlain Warnstedt, when he was attached to his Majesty, and the duty was imposed on him of so watching the king that no one reached him, and if any one came, of reporting to Struensee who it was and what was said, which Brandt faithfully carried out. All this is to be seen in Brandt's statements before the commission on March 2, to question 8.
I will now submissively proceed to prove the nature of both Count Struensee and Count Brandt's behaviour in their intercourse with his most gracious Majesty.
After Count Struensee had, in this way, secured his position—for up to then this had not been fully the case—he writes about it in his reply to Count Brandt's warnings: "Après avoir gagné la confiance, la faveur du roi et de la reine et le crédit dans le public, et cela par mes propres forces, avec tout le risque et toutes les peines attachées à une telle entreprise que vous n'auriez certainement pas supporté: et laquelle, j'ose l'assurer, vous n'auriez pas fini, je vous appelle et je partage avec vous l'effet, et tout les agréments qui en pouvaient resulter." But what could have induced him, when Count Brandt, in his aforesaid warning, gave him to understand his annoyance in a rather harsh way, to urge the said Count Brandt to remain at his post, when he writes in the following terms: "Examinez votre position et les motifs qui vous y tiennent! Rangez d'un côté les agréments et de l'autre les désagréments et comparez cela avec vos situations passées et avec celles auxquelles vous pouvez attendre et faites alors la conclusion." When he was certain of a friend who would watch the king and pay attention to everything that happened or was said, who was to take care that none should reach the king who might repeat the general dissatisfaction at a report which wounded every honest heart, and other things which it would lead me too far to mention, he began very seriously to play the master and prove how it was his intention to become the first man, if not nominally and in respect, still in might and authority. He filched the greatest power in the most impudent way, as I shall presently prove, and he also acquired adherents, not substantial ones, but men who wished to make their fortune, and obtain something through this omnipotent maître des requêtes.