The decree of July 14, 1771, states that the cabinet minister shall draw up the commands which the king gives him verbally, and either lay them before the king for signature, or issue them in the king's name with the seal of the cabinet, after which they shall be obeyed by every one.
It is not, therefore, the person of the cabinet minister, but the orders given him by his Majesty himself, and which the king makes known through him, that acquire value through this order.
The cabinet was nothing else but the king himself, and Count Struensee was so far from apprehending that he should be confounded with it, that, whenever any one wrote to him as cabinet minister on business matters, he answered that application must be made to the cabinet or the king. He especially remembers that this was the case with General Huth. In the cabinet nothing took place, and not the slightest order was issued from it save under royal authority. The king saw and heard everything that was sent in from the colleges or elsewhere; and himself gave the decision, sometimes in writing, sometimes verbally. Nothing could escape his Majesty's attention, because affairs were repeatedly brought before him: first, when the cabinet order was issued; secondly, when the report was sent in about it by the persons concerned; and, lastly, when the weekly extract of the cabinet orders was approved. Everything was done in the king's name. His Majesty signed the decree in question with his own hand, and from his own most gracious motu proprio appointed Count Struensee cabinet minister.
Just as there cannot lie in this the slightest supposition of a surprise, so we cannot see in it any encroachment on the royal authority. It seems, therefore, as if Count Struensee were reproached more for what might have happened than for what really did happen, for the Fiscal General dwells more particularly on the danger which was to be apprehended, in the event of the count misusing the king's confidence in issuing other orders than those which the king gave him.
In order to prevent this, it is said the Lex Regia has commanded the king to sign everything himself, and declared any man guilty of encroachment on the king's supremacy who appropriated any function opposed to this. But I trust I shall have no difficulty in proving that this reasoning is incorrect. How most unfair a law would be that punished a man because he possessed the opportunity for sinning, although he never made an attempt to take advantage of the opportunity! Hence Count Struensee cannot be punished because he might possibly have misused the king's confidence, unless it is notorious that he did so.
The royal law never desired such a thing, for the two articles quoted from it do not agree with it. It is true that article 7 orders that all letters on business of the government shall be issued in no other name but the king's, and under his seal, and that he must sign himself, if he has attained his majority (his fourteenth year). Furthermore, it is true that article 26, states that the man who acquires anything which might encroach on the king's authority shall be regarded as an insulter of his Majesty. But what is it that Count Struensee acquired, and which was injurious to the king's supremacy? The count cannot be accused of this by the first part of article 7 of the Lex Regia; for no one will deny that the letters and decrees of the government were issued in the king's name. But if it be true that his Majesty did not always himself sign the cabinet decrees, it must be remembered that this point concerns his Majesty, and no one else. It is clear that Count Struensee cannot be made accountable because it did not always please his Majesty to sign, and that the royal authority has suffered, or could suffer, no encroachment, as it was dependent on the king's will whether he would sign an order himself, or specially command Count Struensee to sign it in his Majesty's name.
To this argument must be added, that the Lex Regia does not regard it as an important part of or an insult to the royal authority to sign in the king's name, for article 9 prescribes that the regents should sign in the event of the king's minority, although article 13 orders them to take oath that they will maintain the supremacy uninjured, an oath which would be contradictory if the signature formed a material part of the supremacy: that, consequently, the Lex Regia, like other states, for instance, France and Spain, regards the expedition, and not the signature, as the true symbol of supremacy. Formerly this was understood in such a way, as both the colleges and other royal officials, in many instances, made the king's will known, and still do so, in his name, but without his signature. Nor did any one represent to Count Struensee that it was a thing contrary to the Lex Regia to do so. And, lastly, his Majesty's own special order of July 14, 1771, is sufficient to remove the responsibility from him, even if there were a crime in doing so, as it was only in accordance with his Majesty's commands, and to prove his most submissive obedience to the king's will that he acted thus, and were it otherwise, no one would be secured by a royal order.
The Fiscal General, in points 5, 6, and 7, of his indictment, brings forward several charges, in order to prove that Count Struensee really misapplied the king's confidence in his signature. Of these instances, the one referring to the dismissal of the body-guard is the first, and it is even supposed that it was based on dangerous designs.
What was really the motive for this operation, namely, that the Guards were in many respects injurious to the army, is seen both from Count Struensee's answers and from the documents, to which he appeals in his own memorial.
That it was done, however, without his Majesty's knowledge, or that the latter was surprised by it, is, according to Count Struensee's assurance, incorrect. As regards the cabinet order of December 21, concerning the reduction, he positively remembers having read it to the king before it was sent off; and further, that the king approved of it with his own signature, after the college had sent in an appeal against it; and his Majesty himself signed the order of December 24, for dismissal, before it was sent to Lieutenant-General von Gähler, as it was generally reported that the Guards refused to obey the first order.