Uldall's Defence of Count Struensee.
The command which his Majesty the King most graciously sent to me on March 23, orders me to conduct this cause in a responsible manner, and according to the law, on behalf of Count Struensee.
It is this duty which I shall now strive to fulfil with all the moderation which the count owes to his judges in his defence.
Among the unfortunate circumstances which beset him at the present moment, there is one which is the more painful to him, because it was unexpected. This circumstance is, that the Fiscal General tries to render all the count's actions contemptible and ridiculous.
That everything should be converted into a motive for finding him guilty is a natural, though unfortunate, result of the situation in which he finds himself placed. But that his external situation, his origin, and his first position; his mode of thinking, even in instances where it was correct, should be subjected to mockery—against this, at least, he believed himself to be protected, if not out of compassion for an unfortunate man, at any rate on account of the favour which the king had formerly shown him, and in consideration of the applause which his Majesty granted to the political principles in accordance with which he, the count, acted.
There is hardly a circumstance, however insignificant it may be, which has not been employed by the Fiscal General for the purpose of rendering Count Struensee odious.
He is called a foreigner, although through the appointment of his father as superintendent in Holstein, in Struensee's youth, the latter became a royal subject. That he was not possessed of the Danish language is certainly a defect, which, however, has also been found in other ministers, although it has never before been constituted a state crime.
If he had a share in the cabinet order which limits the granting of "characters," and which is still in existence, I believe that no patriot ever denied, or does deny, its necessity and advantage, and if the character of a councilor of justice was not fitted for a mathematician, as the count's brother was, this cannot be charged against Count Struensee, because his brother had been Justiz-rath long before he came here.
Even to religion, the only consolation left him in his misfortune, he is not considered worthy to possess it.
It would lead too far were I to examine everything which has in such a way been brought forward without ground in the Fiscal General's indictment. Everybody knows that this mode of conviction, rendering a cause ridiculous and odious, is not conclusive, because there is nothing which cannot be rendered ridiculous in one way or the other; and, moreover, most of the Fiscal General's imputations exceed that which, by the king's command, is to be discussed before this commission.