DENMARK. 65 



present to administer justice in his supreme court ; and therefore, 

 the kings of Denmark not only preside nominally in the sovereign 

 court of justice, but they have a throne erected in it, towards which 

 the lawyers always address their discourses in pleading, as do the 

 judges in delivering their opinion. Every year the king is present 

 at the opening of this court, and often gives the judges such instruc- 

 tions as he thinks proper. The decision of these judges is final in 

 all civil actions ; but no criminal sentence of a capital nature can be 

 carried into execution till it is signed by the king. 



There are many excellent regulations for the administration of jus- 

 tice in Denmark : but, notwithstanding this, it is so far from being 

 distributed in an equal and impartial manner, that a poor man can 

 scarcely ever obtain justice in that country against one of the nobility, 

 or against one who is favoured by the court. If the laws are so clearly 

 in favour of the former, that the judges are ashamed to decide against 

 them, the latter, through the favour of the minister, obtains an order 

 from the king to stop all proceedings, or a dispensation from observ- 

 ing particular laws ; and there the matter ends. The code of laws at 

 present established in Denmark was published by Christian V : it is 

 founded upon the code of Valdemar, and is nearly the same with that 

 in use in Norway. These laws are very just and clear; and, if they 

 were impartially carried into execution, would be productive of many 

 beneficial consequences to the people. But as the king can alter and 

 dispense with the laws as he pleases, and support his ministers and 

 favourites in any acts of violence and injustice, the people of Den- 

 mark are subject to great tyranny and oppression, and have abundant 

 reason to regret the tameness and servility with which their liberties 

 were, in 1660, surrendered into the hands of their monarchs. 



From that period, the peasants, till 1787, had been in a- situation 

 little better than the brute creation ; they scarcely could be said to 

 possess any locomotive power, since they had no liberty to leave one 

 estate, and to settle on another, without purchasing permission from 

 their masters ; and if they chanced to move without that permission, 

 they were claimed as stray cattle. Such was the state of those 

 wretched beings, who, at best, only might be said to vegetate. These 

 chains of feudal slavery were then broken, through the interest of 

 his royal highness the prince and heir-apparent to the crown ; and 

 the prisoners, for such they certainly might be called, were declared 

 free. Notwithstanding the remonstrances, which were made against 

 this by the landed gentry, were very numerous, yet, after a minute 

 examination of the whole, an edict was issued which restored the 

 peasants to their long-lost liberty. A number of grievances, under 

 which the peasantry laboured, were likewise abolished at the same 

 time. 



Revenues. ...His Danish majesty's revenues have three sources : 

 the taxes he levies upon his own subjects ; the duties paid by 

 foreigners ; and his own demesne lands, including confiscations. The 

 taxes consist of those on land and houses, the poll-tax, stamp-duties, 

 taxes on salt and tobacco, and various other imposts. The tolls paid 

 by strangers arise chiefly from foreign ships that pass through the 

 Sound into the Baltic, through the narrow strait of half a mile between 

 Schonen and the island of Zealand. These tolls are in proportion to 

 the size of the ship, and value of the cargo exhibited in the bills of 

 lad'ng. This tax, which forms a considerable part of his Danish 

 majesty's revenue, has more than once thrown the northern parts of 



Vol. I, K 



