Two days after this wretched indictment, which was merely handed in to the commission as a matter of form, the defence was delivered by Advocate Bang to the same judges, and was to the following effect:—
BANG'S DEFENCE OF COUNT BRANDT.
By the most gracious commands of his royal Majesty, of March 23, which are attached to this under lit. A, I shall lay before this high commission Count Brandt's defence—not the defence of the actions of which he is accused, but his defence in so far as the accusations are incorrect.
It must reasonably insult Count Brandt to find that he whom his Majesty, through his own special favour, and as a reward for his faithful services to his king and master, raised to the rank of Count, selected for his daily intimate society, and honoured with many superfluous proofs of favour and confidence,—that he, I say, should see himself condemned to lose his dignity of count, his honour, life, and fortune, and have his body ill-treated by the executioner. But, according to his own declaration, made to me, his defender, neither his death, his disgrace, nor his torture, will be so painful to him as the sole idea that he has failed in the most submissive reverence, willingness, devotion, and fidelity, which his duty to his king and benefactor commanded, and by which he would have descended below humanity, and, so to speak, have borrowed a model of his actions from the evil spirits. If his conscience reproached him on these points, the bodily punishments would be no torture as compared with this grief; but he has, with a calm conscience, and unassailed by its gnawings, listened to the charges brought against him, and requested me to bring forward the following in his defence:—
Ad Præliminaria.
The Fiscal General accuses Count Brandt (a) that by Count Struensee's regulation, and in liaison with him, he was employed at court after his foreign tour, so that Count Struensee might have in him a man in whom he could trust, who would neither betray his designs, nor allow any one else to reveal them; (b) that Count Brandt kept people from the king who did not belong to the party; (c) that he shortened the attendance of the valets on the king's person, and, instead of it, arranged that Professor Berger, contrary to the king's wish, should wait on his Majesty in the mornings for the purpose of giving him powders, which were innocent, however; and (d) that he compelled the king to live with him, and treated him harshly.
Count Brandt has never regarded it as a crime to have allowed himself to be recommended to his Majesty by the man to whom the king granted his favour and confidence. What he attained through Struensee's recommendation was only a continuation of what Privy Councillors Saldern and Bernstorff had begun. The aforesaid post was neither given him to keep things secret, nor to conceal from the king things which, according to the Fiscal General's opinion, his Majesty must not be allowed to know. As it is not specially mentioned what the things were which must be concealed from the king, while the counsel only appears to refer to that which is alleged under the third chief point, I will reserve my special reply to it, and here content myself with offering a general denial to the general statement. I do not know what sort of party it was of which the Fiscal General speaks when he says that Count Brandt prevented persons having access to the king who were not useful to the party. He probably supposes a party which was opposed to the king or the welfare of the country; but as he does not state of what persons the assumed party was composed, the nature of their actions, what designs they entertained, or by what means they were to be realised, I am here dispensed from the obligation of answering this specially, and can content myself with the remark that there was no such party hostile to the king and country so far as came to Count Brandt's knowledge. He certainly had the permission to be near the king's person, but had neither the power nor the wish to keep any one away from his Majesty; and the Fiscal General has not been able to mention a single person of sufficient dignity to have access to the king, and who was refused it by Count Brandt. I must remark here that the king was lord and master, and had merely to command by a sign who was to come and who to go, and how long each was to remain, in which Count Brandt never opposed the king's will.
Had the king wished that the valets should remain longer with his Majesty, Count Brandt would not have prevented him; and this charge can the less be brought against him, as it can be seen from valet Schleel's evidence, how it had been ordered long before that not the valet, but Von Warnstedt, who formerly occupied Count Brandt's post, should dress and undress the king; and after Count Brandt, the black boys were ordered to perform this duty. Equally little can Professor Berger's morning visits be brought as a charge against Count Brandt, even if they had had evil consequences; while, on the contrary, the powders which the king took did not impair his health. Berger paid these visits so long as the king was willing to accept them; but when his Majesty no longer desired them, Berger kept away.
The words in Count Brandt's letter to Count Struensee, which the Fiscal General treats as a crime, have been so fully explained by Count Brandt's reply to questions 92 and 93, p. 120 of the examination, that I have nothing to add but refer to it, and this explanation deprives that passage in the letter of all the harshness which might otherwise be found in it. With what right Count Brandt could be accused of having an understanding with Count Struensee, and of striving to sustain him, is proved by his explanation to questions 64, 65, and 68 of the examination, in which he gives a full account how he had resolved to overthrow Count Struensee, from the time when he perceived the encroachments of the latter; that he consulted with Count von der Osten about this operation, by which Count Struensee was to be placed under arrest at Kronborg—a proposal which was not carried into effect, solely through an earlier, riper, and more successful interruption. As regards this disposition, the count has appealed to the testimony of Privy Councillor von der Osten, and I am convinced that this statement of Count Brandt has been imparted to his excellency, who has not disavowed it. Count Brandt's letter to Struensee, and the answer of the latter, which have been produced by the Fiscal General, prove how little desire Count Brandt had to enter into Count Struensee's views; that his whole conduct and thought was to surrender the post which he occupied, and to be allowed to quit the court. There is further evidence of this in the fact that when Count Struensee offered him the ministerial post of Privy Councillor von der Osten, he refused it, and preferred retirement from court to this pleasant office. All this destroys the charges which the Fiscal General has alleged in the preliminary part of his indictment of Count Brandt.