Note 56 — Chapter IX

Münter wrote a full and particular account of his efforts, entitled, Narrative of the Conversion and Death of Count Struensee, by Dr. Münter. This book was translated into the English by the Rev. Thomas Rennell: Rivingtons, 1824. It contains long and (to me) not very edifying conversations on religion which are alleged to have taken place between Struensee and the divine. But since these are matters on which people take different views, it is only fair to say that Sir James Mackintosh awards the Narrative high praise as a “perfect model of the manner in which a person circumstanced like Struensee ought to be treated by a kind and considerate minister of religion” (Misc. Works, vol. ii.). To support this view he suggests that “as Dr. Münter’s Narrative was published under the eye of the Queen’s oppressors, they might have caused the confessions of Struensee to be inserted in it by their own agents without the consent, perhaps without the knowledge, of Münter”. But even he is fain to admit that the “internal evidence” does not favour this preposterous hypothesis. The confessions extorted by Münter from Struensee were used not only against the wretched man, but to the prejudice of the Queen.