Bernstorff fell with great dignity. He replied to the King saying "that he accepted his pleasure with all submission, but begged leave to join the resignation of his seat on the council to that of his other employments".[137] He accepted the pension, but how beggarly a reward it was for his long years of service was shown by comparison with that assigned to Count St. Germains, a friend of Struensee and Rantzau, who had been granted 14,000 dollars annually after only three years of office. Count Bernstorff had grown grey in the service of the state, and had sacrificed a large portion of his private fortune in the cause of his adopted country. His great achievement as Prime Minister was the treaty effecting the territorial exchange with Russia; for that alone he deserved the gratitude of Denmark. He had his faults, but he was a man of honourable and upright character, virtuous in private life, and in public matters earnestly desirous of the welfare of the state. Bernstorff's fall called forth loud expressions of regret, not only from the most considerable people in Denmark, but from many foreign courts. Especially was this the case with the court of St. James's. [137] Gunning's despatch, Copenhagen, September 18, 1770. On the return of the Princess-Dowager to England with the news of her fruitless mission, and on receipt of Gunning's despatches, specifying the changes likely to take place in the Danish Government, George III. resolved to write a private letter to his sister, appealing to her directly, and urging her, whatever she did, not to part with Bernstorff, who had shown himself zealous of his country's welfare, and who was, moreover, a friend of England and its royal house. But this letter arrived too late; it reached Copenhagen a week after Bernstorff's dismissal. It was enclosed in a private despatch from Lord Rochford to the English envoy, with orders that he was to deliver it into the Queen's own hand. Gunning thereupon set out at once for Hirschholm "to force the entrenchments," to quote his own phrase; but the Queen, who probably guessed his errand, would not see him. "On my arrival there," writes Gunning, "I had the mortification to find that her Majesty was so much indisposed by a fresh attack of cholick as to render my admission to her impracticable. It not being, therefore, in my power to present the King's letter myself, I took care to have it safely conveyed to her Danish Majesty, who commanded her Grand Master to tell me that I should be informed when she had any orders for me."[138] But Matilda had no orders for the English envoy, and when she wrote to her brother of England, it was to tell him that Bernstorff had already been dismissed, and if he wished to write to her in future about political matters in Denmark, she would be obliged if he would send his communications to her through her ministers. How George III. received this rebuff is not related. [138] Gunning's despatch, Copenhagen, September 22, 1770.