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76*] ANNUAL REGISTER

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and melancholy air of solemnity, which the present state of affairs demanded, the court presented a round of balls, operas, entertainments, and concerts; two birth days, which immediately succeeded the revolution, were celebrated with extraordinary magnificence, and every thing bore the marks of dissipation and levity.
 Most of the ladies of the Queen's houshold were permitted to follow her to Cronenburgh; it does not appear that her confinement in that place was at any time very strict; she was permitted to walk upon the ramparts, and to take the air in a coach, under a guard. Her son, the prince royal, who was entered into his fifth year, was put into the care of a lady of quality, who was appointed governess, under the superintendency of the Queen Dowager.
 Struensee and Brandt were hardly treated in prison. Under pretence that they intended to make away with themselves, they were removed from the neighbourhood of the walls in their respective dungeons, and chained down to the middle of the floor. Brandt, in the beginning, had amused himself with playing upon the flute; but upon a supposition that he intended to choak himself with it, it was taken away; and they were both deprived of the use of tobacco upon some similar pretence. Several of their adherents were banished the kingdom, and others to their native provinces for life. Struensee's brother was discharged, and received money to carry him out of the kingdom, as nothing appeared against him, which seems to have been the case of the others. General Gahler's lady was permitted to withdraw from the citadel to her own house; General Gude, and the two cabinet secretaries, were set at liberty, and Baron Bulow, the master of the horse, was enlarged upon parole, that he would not go without his own house.
 Struensee at his first examination before the commissioners, was shewn the instruments of torture, which were brought into the room on purpose to intimidate him; we do not find, however, that either he or Brandt were put to the question. They both underwent frequent and long examinations, and were once confronted. Upon that trying occasion, they both behaved with dignity and resolution; they neither accused, nor blamed each other, nor lamented their situation. It is said that the whole number of questions proposed to Struensee in the course of his examinations, amounted to 637. It is also said, that he and Colonel Falkenschiold were confronted at one of these examinations, and that the latter having made very heavy charges upon him in his evidence, Struensee replied, that he would willingly submit to all those accusations, provided his doing so could be of service to the colonel. If this circumstance be true, it is far from indicating a heart totally depraved and abandoned.
 After more than two months examination, the grand commission at length passed sentence of death, forfeiture of estate, and degradation from their rank, upon the two counts, Struensee and Brandt. Among the crimes with which the former was charged, were the assuming of an extraordinary and unconstitutional power; his having been guilty of high treason, in expediting

For the YEAR 1772.   [*77

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expediting several orders from the privy council without the King's consent or knowledge; his having made useless and dangerous changes in the government, and suspicious arrangements in the capital and palace; his having discharged the guards; and his having been guilty of peculation in his office, and embezzling large sums of the public money. Brandt was charged in general, with having been his confident, and privy to all his crimes; and in particular, with some disrespectful familiarity with the King's person, which was brought within the construction of a law, that makes it death to lay violent hands on him.
 The King signed the sentence, which contained the order for cutting off their right arms, and then their heads, for dismembering and disembowelling their bodies, for fixing their heads and hands upon iron spikes, and exposing their quarters upon the wheel, with great unconcern, and went immediately after to the Italian opera.
 The unfortunate criminals behaved with great intrepidity, and were publicly executed three days after the sentence was past, surrounded by great bodies of foot and dragoons, and by an infinite number of spectators. [["Apr. 28th" wrapped within the text]] They did not see each other, and Brandt was first executed. He was attended by a clergyman, and behaved with decency upon the scaffold, but shewed an unconcern and indifference, which seemed to the populace in some degree a confirmation of the report that had been spread of his being an Atheist. Struensee, shewed equal firmness; but more devotion, and a more awful sense of the change which he was to undergo. It is said, that he read the sentence in the prison, with a composure that surprized every body present, until he came to the part which related to Brandt, when he seemed to be greatly affected, at finding that his punishment was to be equal in degree with his own.
 There were no other capital executions exhibited; a Count Wolinsky, is said to have had his tongue cut out, for having said some things that reflected upon the King, and upon the Queen Julia, and to have been banished the Danish dominions for ever. Orders were given to the commission to stop all proceedings against Colonel Hesselburg, Admiral Hansen, Lieutenant Aboe, the Privy Counsellor Willebrandt, Counsellor Sturtz, and Professor Berger, and they were all set at liberty, without any declaration either of their guilt or innocence. willebrandt, and Sturtz, were however obliged to retire from the island of Zealand, and had pensions bestowed on them, and Berger was banished to Aalberg; Colonel Hesselburg, was ordered to retire to Holstein, and promised a regiment. Falkenschiold, General Gahler, and some others, were continued in prison.
 It seems pretty evident, by the discharge of so many members of the late administration, and of the particular friends and adherents of the late favourites, that the charge of their intending to force the King to sign an act of renunciation, and to the appointment of a regency, was not founded in fact, and was only calculated to answer the present