Eminent titles, such as those of Count or Baron, retained a portion of their privileges: those who held them could not be arrested for debt, and they found at their manors an asylum against criminal prosecutions until sentence was passed. These estates, which were partly free from taxes, could not be confiscated even for high treason, and were transmissible by inalienable succession from eldest son to eldest son. These noble landowners exercised the rights of high and low jurisdiction on their estates, and these privileges recalled the olden times of lordly rule. But nothing recalled it so much as the serfdom which continued to oppress the class of peasants, and the militia duties appeared to double the burden. Nevertheless, we must allow that this numerous and interesting portion of the population was not quite forgotten. In each district, a bailiff administering on royal account either the lands taken from the clergy at the Reformation, or lapsed feudal estates and the other domains of the crown, had among his other duties that of hearing the complaints of the peasants against their lords, and protecting them against oppression. But the bailiff could not always be found at home, and was not always disposed to compromise his own interests in sustaining those of the peasants. A portion of the woes of Denmark evidently resulted from these old institutions; and many of the abuses would have sprung up without the interference of foreigners. Besides, it is indubitable that there were men of merit among the foreigners called in to govern the country: but the best intentioned nearly all committed the error of trying to introduce a system successfully carried out in other countries, without considering that it agreed neither with the wants of Denmark nor her resources; in this they resembled a farmer who plants exotics in his fields, instead of cultivating those suited to the ground and the climate. In this way, academies of science and fine arts were established at Copenhagen, in imitation of the nations farthest advanced in civilization. Under the ministry preceding Struensee, learned men had been sent at the king's expense to the East, for the purpose of studying its monuments and antiquities, as if Denmark were in a position to make such sacrifices to satisfy curiosity: thus new trades were introduced, new manufactures undertaken, without consulting the resources of the country and the merchants, and they had no other effect but impoverishing the Treasury. In the same way money was squandered in sending envoys to look after interests unconnected with the country; and following the example of powerful nations, armaments were made, intended to be imposing, but which, being disproportionate to the real strength of Denmark, only served to prove her weakness.