Under the pretext of a more rapid expedition of various matters, and in order to display the royal authority in its right supremacy, he issued cabinet decrees, which were carried out without the colleges concerned being informed of them,—a conduct which necessarily produced the greatest confusion, and which a man dared, who was neither acquainted with the country nor its laws, its condition nor its language. But this did not trouble him at all, so long as he could grasp all the respect and all the power.
This ignorance of Count Struensee in everything, which every minister in Denmark must know, and his extremely slight efforts to obtain a knowledge of it, entailed innumerable disadvantages, both generally and for private persons.
In the colleges, which were formerly accustomed to send in their reports in Danish, a special official had to be appointed to translate them into German, so that Count Struensee might read them in this language. The Danish Chancery, the only college which continued to report in Danish, had only too often opportunity for learning that these representations were not read at all, as only an extract of the proposition, which, by command, was inserted in what was called the Rotulus, was translated into German and seen by Count Struensee, after which the resolution ensued in the German language, and was again translated into Danish in the Chancery. It could not fail but that the resolution often proved equivocal, incomprehensible, and but little adapted to the affair, of which the man who represented it to his Majesty had only rarely a correct idea.
Private persons who wished to send in petitions to the cabinet, and had drawn them up in the Danish language, ran about to find a German translator, as they were of the possibly not incorrect opinion that their memorial, if such was only in Danish, would not be read, while these cheap translations often turned out so, that it was impossible to discern what was the real object of the petition.
Count Struensee's ignorance of the organization of the colleges, his unwillingness to instruct himself about it, and his exertions to reform the entire old state constitution, and to increase the number of his adherents by appointing persons everywhere, and to the highest offices, who owed their fortune to him—all this led him to lay hands on one college after the other. And as he would not and could not work himself, he employed other men in carrying out the important reforms, several of whom afterwards confessed that they had no knowledge of the advantages and defects of the former organization of these colleges, nor attempted to acquire it, as they were only ordered to draw up a plan of the new arrangements after a certain predetermined date.
After Count Struensee had drawn all power and authority into his own hands by removing the privy council, by weakening and reconstituting, and by the exclusion of verbal reports, it was not long ere his Majesty's subjects perceived the effects of his, Struensee's, despotic principles and ideas.
As a consequence of the before-mentioned paternal and mild government, to which people had been long accustomed in Denmark, and which had to some extent acquired a traditional right, every one who had obtained a royal appointment considered himself justified in believing that he should retain it so long as he behaved himself properly and attended to his duties, and therefore ran no risk of losing his post against his will, so long as he was not declared unworthy of it through a judicial sentence on account of malversation, errors, or negligence. These moderate principles, which characterised the mildness of the government, and had many excellent results, were not at all to Count Struensee's taste, who did not wish to be in the least degree impeded when the object was to ruin people, and imbue others with terror.
For this reason it was heard frequently, nay, almost daily, that first one, then the other, royal official was removed by a cabinet order, without their learning what error they had committed, or in what their offence consisted.[7]