These decisions the commissioners made known to the persons concerned with the solemn warning that, after the king had pardoned them this time, through special mercy, for their incautious, thoughtless, and criminal conduct, they must be very careful not to give rise to greater suspicion by word or writing, as, in that case, they would be subjected to a further examination, and might expect the king's most serious displeasure.
The sovereign lord over the life and death of his subjects was consequently of a different opinion from the commissioners, who had found the accused guilty of no offence. But it was considered desirable to get rid of those persons most hated, and, in order to convict them, it was requisite to accuse them of offences at the expense of truth.
Lieutenant-Colonel von Hesselberg, who was referred to the Commissariat College, learnt there that the king had appointed him Commander of the 2nd National Battalion of Schleswig-Holstein. This distinguished officer afterwards became colonel of an infantry regiment in Norway, where he died in 1808, a lieutenant-general, and commandant of the fortress of Bergenhuus.
Rear-Admiral Hansen was informed by the Admiralty that he had forfeited his post as deputy of the latter college, but would continue to serve the state. He died a few years after the catastrophe.
Lieutenant Aboe, who also learnt his future fate from the Admiralty, received orders to pass two years abroad, but retained his commission and pay. Eventually, he left the service with the rank of captain, set up as a merchant in Copenhagen, failed, made voyages to the East Indies, and died after many hard adventures in Copenhagen.
The three exiles, Legations-rath Sturtz, Etats-rath Willebrandt, and Professor Berger, in obedience to the royal commands, quitted the capital, and proceeded to their several destinations. When Falckenskjold was recalled from Switzerland by the crown prince in 1788, he found Willebrandt still in exile: Berger was a practising physician at Kiel, but Sturtz had died of grief.[26]
The public of Copenhagen were astonished at this mild treatment of persons who had been kept in such close arrest. Much worse had been anticipated. But three state criminals still remained in prison, and what had been spared their associates, who were punished for having been proved innocent, could be done to them.
Lieutenant-General von Gähler, Colonel and Chamberlain von Falckenskjold, and Justiz-rath Struensee, were still awaiting their sentence. But on May 10 an order had been issued to the commission to lay before the king a full report of the crimes of these men, for his Majesty's most gracious consideration and resolution. In obedience with this command, the commission sent in its report on May 30.
With respect to Gähler, it was alleged that he was mixed up both in the Traventhal league and the abolition of the council. It was true that he had denied both, but, on the first point, the letters found at his house contradicted him. As regards the council, he had not, as his duty ordered, sufficiently represented the value of the council in his answers to the questions laid before him for explanation on Sept. 24, 1770, and there were even strong reasons for conjecturing that he proposed and promoted the abolition of the council, because he was Struensee's principal adviser about this time. In the same way he had recommended to his friend Struensee, the abolition of the verbal reports of the colleges. By this, the general had helped to conceal Struensee's audacious conduct from the king, and given him, Struensee, opportunity for filching all the power and authority. It was allowed that Von Gähler, by his propositions, had no intention of sustaining Struensee in his situation and promoting his autocracy. Still, he ought, and must have noticed Struensee's boundless ambition, when he perceived that the latter "wished to apply the practice of his profession to the state, and began by amputating from it so important a limb as the council was." General von Gähler ought the less to have attempted to promote Struensee's views, as he was not adapted either by nature or Providence to regulate or remodel a state. He ought not to have furnished Struensee with projects, all the consequences of which he could not foresee. More especially, he ought not to have advised the suppression of verbal reports, but to have always opposed it. But he appeared to have been possessed by a mania for reformation. As a proof, it might be mentioned that he proposed the reform for which was introduced into Norway by the regulation of January 14, 1771, that lands, after ten years' tenure, should become freehold, which no man of perspicuity could have advised.[27] The commission found a second instance in the reform of the two Chanceries, although the division of business, according to provinces, had had the best results.
Before all, however, Von Gähler wished to remodel the navy. It was quite incredible what tricks he employed to get it into his hands, and the commission reports that the misfortune which befel the Algerine expedition gave Von Gähler the desired opportunity for effecting it. Herr von Gähler's crime, therefore, principally consisted in the fact, that he interfered in everything, and wished to reform all the regulations of the state, without possessing the requisite knowledge and insight, without knowing the advantages or defects of what existed, and without sufficiently pondering over the consequences of his propositions. The commission, however, could find no excuse in the circumstance that Von Gähler's proposed reforms only consisted of ideas and thoughts, whose trial by experiments injured nobody, because most of the affairs in which he interfered in no way concerned him, and the trouble he took in order to obtain a justification for doing so, proved a greater offence; for he had applied to Struensee, a man who was even more ignorant than himself in such things, and blindly followed everything that was proposed to him, especially when such propositions suggested radical changes. The commission, however, would not omit mentioning that the general, since May, 1771, had possessed no special influence over Struensee, because he had joined the opposition against the reduction of the Horse Guards, and besides, he had not commended himself to the cabinet minister, by representing to him how little the power he had appropriated agreed with the royal law. Lastly, the general also displayed firmness when the Foot Guards were disbanded; he had likewise resisted the removal of the two regiments, and in the Generalty represented to Chamberlain von Falckenskjold how improper it was to propose the regiment of the hereditary prince for such a dislocation, without first asking whether this would be agreeable to the prince.