[2] Ibid.
General Gahler, the minister for war, was also disaffected, and had frequent quarrels with Struensee on matters connected with the army. But Gahler was too deeply committed to Struensee’s policy to make any course possible to him except that of resignation. And Gahler was reluctant to resign, not only because he was a poor man and loved the emoluments of office, but also because his wife was a great friend of the Queen, and one of the ladies of her household. Both Osten and Gahler from time to time remonstrated with the arbitrary minister on the wanton way in which he stirred up public feeling against his administration, and counselled more conciliatory policy; but Struensee would not hear.
Even Brandt, whom Struensee trusted absolutely, and whom he had loaded with benefits, was jealous and discontented, and ready at any moment to betray his friend if thereby he could benefit himself. Brandt was greatly dissatisfied with his position, though Reverdil had relieved him of his most onerous duties, and said with regard to some reproaches he had received from the Queen, “that alone is hell”. He made so many complaints to Struensee that the Minister requested him to formulate them in writing. Brandt then addressed him a lengthy letter in which he complained bitterly of Struensee’s interference in his department at the court, which, he declared, rendered him contemptible in the eyes of all. He told Struensee that his was a reign of terror. “No despot ever arrogated such power as yourself, or exercised it in such a way. The King’s pages and domestics tremble at the slightest occurrence: all are seized with terror; they talk, they eat, they drink, but tremble as they do so. Fear has seized on all who surround the Minister, even on the Queen, who no longer has a will of her own, not even in the choice of her dresses and their colour.” He also complained that Struensee compelled him to play cards with the King and Queen, with the result that he lost heavily, and his salary was thereby quite insufficient. He therefore requested permission to leave the Danish court, and resign all his offices in consideration of the yearly pension of five thousand dollars a year. With this handsome annuity he proposed to live in Paris and enjoy himself. He also asked for estates in Denmark to sustain his dignity as count. His letter ended with a covert threat that if his requests were not granted it was possible that he might be drawn into a plot against Struensee, or put an end to an intolerable position by “poison or steel”.[3]
[3] This letter is still preserved in the archives of Copenhagen. It is not worth while quoting it in full.
THE ROSENBORG CASTLE, COPENHAGEN.
This letter was not only very insolent, but also incoherent, and showed every sign of an unbalanced mind. Yet Struensee, who apparently cherished a peculiar tenderness for Brandt, treated the epistle quite seriously, and instead of dismissing him from court, as he might well have done, he replied in a lengthy document which almost assumed the importance of a state paper. He traced the whole of Brandt’s discontent to his amour with Countess Holstein, whom he disliked and distrusted. He justified his interference in court matters on the ground that Countess Holstein and Brandt together had introduced changes which were displeasing to the Queen, and with respect to the Queen’s dresses he wrote: “The Queen, though a lady, is not angry with me when I recommend retrenchment in respect to her wardrobe.” With regard to Brandt’s losses at cards, he replied that loo was the only game the King and Queen liked, and therefore it was impossible to change it, and if Brandt and Countess Holstein did not understand the game and consequently lost, he recommended them either to learn it better or put on more moderate stakes. He took no notice of Brandt’s demand for a pension, but he declared that neither for him, nor for himself, would he ask the King to grant estates to maintain their new dignities. Brandt received Struensee’s letter with secret anger and disgust. The minister’s evident wish to conciliate him he regarded as a sign of weakness, and he immediately began to plot against his friend.
Thus it will be seen that Struensee’s colleagues were all false to him, and were only waiting an opportunity to betray him. The Queen still clung to him with blind infatuation, and lived in a fool’s paradise, though her court was honeycombed with intrigues and she was surrounded with spies and enemies. Even her waiting women were leagued against her. They sanded the floor of the passage from Struensee’s chamber to the Queen’s at night, that they might see the traces of his footsteps in the morning; they put wax in the lock, and listened at the keyhole; they laid traps at every turn, and the unconscious Queen fell readily into them. All these evidences of her indiscretion were carefully noted, and communicated to the Queen-Dowager at Fredensborg. In Copenhagen and in the country the discontent daily grew greater, and the boldness of Struensee’s enemies more and more manifest. In giving freedom to the press he had forged a terrible weapon for his own undoing, and papers and pamphlets continually teemed with attacks on the hated minister. Threatening and abusive letters reached him daily, coarse and scurrilous attacks were placarded on the walls of the royal palaces, and even thrown into the gardens at Hirschholm, that the Queen and Struensee might see them on their daily walks.
When such efforts were made to fan the embers of popular discontent, it is no wonder that they soon burst into a flame. The first outbreak came in this wise. An inglorious and expensive naval war against the Dey of Algiers, inherited from the Bernstorff administration, was still being prosecuted, and Struensee had ordered new ships to be constructed, and sent to Norway for sailors to man them. Such was the maladministration of the navy department that the work proceeded very slowly, and the Norwegian sailors who had been brought to Copenhagen wandered about in idleness, waiting for the vessels to be finished. The Government, with manifest injustice, would neither give these sailors their pay nor allow them to return to their homes. The only effect of their remonstrances was that the dockyard men were ordered to work on Sundays so that the vessels might be finished sooner. The dockyard men asked for double pay if they worked on Sundays, and this being refused, they struck off work altogether, and joined the ranks of the unemployed sailors, who had been waiting eight weeks for their pay, and were almost starving. The Norwegians had always taken kindly to the theory of the absolute power of the King. Their political creed was very simple: first, that the King could do no wrong, and secondly, that he must be blindly obeyed. It therefore followed naturally that, if an act of injustice like the present one were committed, it must be committed by the King’s subordinates, and not by himself, and he had only to know to set matters right. Having petitioned the Government repeatedly without receiving any redress, they determined to take matters in their own hands. Early in September a body of Norwegian sailors, to the number of two hundred, set out from Copenhagen for Hirschholm with the resolution of laying their grievance before the King in person, in the confident hope that they would thus obtain redress.