Robert Nisbet Bain

“ Bernstorff took a leading part, and so closely did he associate himself with everything Danish, so popular did he become in the Danish capital, that a Swedish diplomatist expressed the opinion that henceforth Bernstorff could not be removed without danger. Liberal-minded as he was, he held that “the will of the nation should be a law to the king,” and he boldly upheld the freedom of the press as the surest of safety-valves.
Meanwhile foreign complications were again endangering the position of Denmark-Norway. ”

“ But he was overruled by the crown prince Frederick, who thought such a policy too hazardous, when Russia declined to have anything to do with it. Instead of this the Russian chancellor Nikita Panin proposed an armed league to embrace all the neutral powers, for the purpose of protecting neutral shipping in time of war. This league was very similar to one proposed by Bernstorff himself in September 1778 for enforcing the principle “a free ship makes the cargo free”; but as now presented by Russia, he rightly regarded it as directed exclusively against England. ”

“ He is described at this period as intellectual, upright and absolutely trustworthy, but obstinate and self-opinionated to the highest degree, arguing with antiquaries about coins, with equerries about horses, and with foreigners about their own countries, always certain that he was right and they wrong, whatever the discussion might be. He shared the disgrace of his uncle when Struensee came into power, but re-entered the Danish service after Struensee’s fall at the end of 1772, working at first in the financial and economical departments, and taking an especial interest in agriculture. ”