Part 11 (1/2)
[Sidenote: CHAP. IX. 1621--1634.]
In the meantime, the situation of Grotius at Paris, became very uncomfortable. His resources, and those of his wife, were small; and his pension was paid irregularly. Cardinal de Richelieu wished to attach Grotius; but required from him an absolute and unqualified devotion to him, which was utterly irreconcileable with the slightest degree of honourable independence. Grotius therefore declined the offers of the Cardinal. From this time, the Cardinal regarded him with an evil eye, and often made him feel the effects of his displeasure.
This rendered Grotius desirous of quitting France. Trusting to some protestations of friends.h.i.+p, which he had received from Prince Frederick; to his numerous friends, to his claims upon the grat.i.tude of the States of Holland, to his feelings of innocence, and to the effect produced, as he flattered himself, by his _Apology_, he ventured into Holland in 1631. But he met with no countenance: and in that year was banished a second time. Upon this, he formally bade a final adieu to Holland, and determined to seek his fortune elsewhere: He then fixed his residence at Hamburgh.
[Sidenote: From the Escape of Grotius till his appointment of Amba.s.sador.]
He sought to preserve his friends in France; but announced to them his intention to receive no more money from the French government.
”I shall always,” he said in a letter to the First President of the Cour des Monnoies, ”be grateful for the King's liberality; but it is enough that I was chargeable to you, while I resided in France. I have never done you any service, though I made you an offer of myself. But it would not be proper that I should now live, like an hornet, on the goods of other men. I shall not, however, forget the kindness of so great a king, and the good offices of so many friends.”
[Sidenote: CHAP. IX. 1621-1634.]
It may appear surprising that Prince Frederick of Orange should pertinaciously exclude Grotius from his native country. But ambition listens to nothing that conflicts with its own views. Prince Frederick inherited from his father and brother the wish of becoming the sovereign of the United Provinces. To this, he knew he should always find a zealous and able opponent in Grotius: hence, notwithstanding his great personal regard for Grotius, he always kept him a banished man. Grotius wished to be employed by the Government of England, and Archbishop Laud was sounded upon this subject; but the application was coldly received[034]. Prince Frederick sustained, both in military and civil concerns, the character of the former princes of his family. Under his administration, the affairs of the republic prospered at sea and land.
Peter Haim captured the Spanish flotilla, estimated at twelve millions of florins. The Prince took Bois-le duc, Maestricht, and Breda, and reduced the Dutchy of Limburgh. Under his auspices, the celebrated Van Tromp commenced his career of naval glory, by obtaining a complete victory over the Spanish fleet, consisting of seventy men of war. Prince Frederick died in 1658.
From the close of his Stadtholderate, we may date the origin of the jealousy entertained, by France and England, of the rising power of the United Provinces. It is to be observed that Prince Frederick was Stadtholder only of the Provinces of Holland, Zealand, Utrecht, Gueldres and Overyssell: Count Ernest Casimir of Na.s.sau was Stadtholder of the provinces of Groningen, Frizeland, and the county of the Drenta. In 1631, their eldest sons were chosen, in the lifetime of their fathers, their successors in their respective Stadtholderates. This was a great step towards making the Stadtholderate hereditary in their families,--one of the leading objects of their ambitious views.
CHAPTER X.
SOME OF THE PRINc.i.p.aL WORKS OF GROTIUS.
1. _His Edition of Stobaeus_.
2. _His Treatise de Jure Belli et Pacis_.
3. _His Treatise de Veritate Religionis Christianae_.
4. _His Treatise de Jure summarum potestatum circa sacra_.
5. _His Commentary on the Scriptures_.
6. _Some other Works of Grotius_
[Sidenote: CHAP. X. 1621-1634]
That literature is an ornament in prosperity, and a comfort in adverse fortune, has been often said by the best and wisest men; but no one experienced the truth of this a.s.sertion in a higher degree than Grotius, during his imprisonment at Louvestein. In that wreck of his fortune and overthrow of all his hopes, books came to his aid, soothed his sorrows, and beguiled the wearisome hours of his gloomy solitude. His studies often stole him from himself, and from the sense of his misfortunes. In the exercise of his mental energies, he was sensible of their powers; and it was impossible that he should contemplate, without pleasure, the extent, the worth, or the splendour of his labours; the services, which he rendered by them to learning and religion, and the admiration and grat.i.tude of the scholar, which he then enjoyed, and which would attend his memory to the latest posterity. He himself acknowledged that, in the ardour of his literary pursuits, he often forgot his calamities, and that the hours pa.s.sed unheeded, if not in joy, at least without pain.
X 1.