The Life of Hugo Grotius Part 11

[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 friendship, 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.

_His Edition of Stobaeus_.

Being ourselves unacquainted with this work, we cannot do better than present our readers with the account given of it by Burigni.

"The year after the publication of his _Apology_, that is to say in 1623, Nicholas Huon printed at Paris, _Grotius's improvements and additions to Stobaeus_. This author, as is well known, extracted what he thought most important in the ancient Greek writers, and ranged it under different heads, comprehending the princ.i.p.al points of philosophy. His work is the more valuable, as it has preserved several fragments of the Ancients, found no where else. Grotius, when very young, purposed to extract from this author all the maxims of the poets; to translate them into Latin verse, and to print the original with the translation. He began this, when a boy; he was employed in it at the time of his arrest; and continued it as an amus.e.m.e.nt, whilst he had the use of books, in his prison at the Hague. He tells us that, when he was deprived of pen and ink, he was got to the forty-ninth t.i.tle, which is an invective against tyranny, that had a great relation to what pa.s.sed at that time in Holland. On his removal to Louvestein, he resumed this work, and finished it at Paris. He made several happy corrections in the text of Stobaeus; some, from his own conjectures or those of his friends; others, on the authority of ma.n.u.scripts in the King's library, which were politely lent him by the learned Nicholas Rigaut, librarian to his majesty.

[Sidenote: His edition of Stobaeus.]

[Sidenote: CHAP. X. 1621-1634]

"Prefixed to this book, are _Prolegomena_, in which the author shews that the works of the ancient Pagans are filled with maxims agreeable to the truths taught in holy writ. He intended to dedicate this book to the Chancellor Silleri: he had even writ the dedication, but his friends, to whom he shewed it, thought he expressed himself with too much warmth, against the censurers of his _Apology_. They advised him therefore to suppress it; and he yielded to their opinion. It may be observed in reading the royal privilege, that the present t.i.tle of the book is different from what it was to have had. To these extracts from the Greek poets translated into Latin verse, Grotius annexed two pieces, one of Plutarch, the other of St. Basil, on the use of the poets; giving the Greek text with a Latin translation."

The work was received with universal approbation.

X. 2.

_His Treatise de Jure Belli et Pacis_.

Grotius may be considered as the founder of the modern school of _the Law of Nature and of Nations_. He was struck with the ruthless manner, in which wars were generally conducted; the slight pretences, upon which they were generally begun; and the barbarity and injustice, with which they were generally attended. He attributed these evils to the want of settled principles respecting the rights and duties of nations and individuals in a state of war. These, he observed, must depend on the previous rights and duties of mankind, in a state of peace: this led him to the preliminary inquiry into their rights and duties in a state of nature.

Thus, an ample field was opened to him. He brought to it, a vigorous discerning mind, and stupendous erudition. From antient and modern history, philosophy, oratory, and poetry, he collected facts and sayings, which appeared to him to establish a general agreement of all civilized nations upon certain principles. From these, he formed his system; applying them, as he proceeded in his work, to a vast mult.i.tude of circ.u.mstances. These are so numerous, that some persons have not scrupled to say, that no case or international law, either in war or in peace, can be stated, to which the work of Grotius does not contain an applicable rule.

[Sidenote: X. 2. _The Treatise de Jure Belli et Pacis._]

[Sidenote: CHAP. X. 1621-1634]

Three important objections have been made to this celebrated work,--one, that the author defers in it, too little, to principle, too much, to authority;--another, that the work is written in a very desultory manner, with small attention to order, or cla.s.sification;--a third, that his authorities are often feeble, and sometimes whimsical. "Grotius,"

says Condillac, "was able to think for himself; but he constantly labours to support his conclusions by the authority of others. Upon many occasions; even in support of the most obvious and indisputable propositions, he introduces a long string of quotations from the Mosaic law, from the Gospels, from the fathers of the church, from the casuists, and not unfrequently, even in the very same paragraph, from Ovid, and Aristophanes." This strange mixture is subject of many witticisms of Voltaire. But let us hear what is urged in the defence of Grotius, by a gentleman, of whose praise the ablest of writers may be proud:

"Few writers," says Sir James Mackintosh, in his Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations, "were more celebrated than Grotius in his own days, and in the age which succeeded. It has, however, been the fashion of the last half century to depreciate his work, as a shapeless compilation, in which reason lies buried under a ma.s.s of authorities and quotations. This fashion originated among French wits and declaimers, and it has been, I know not for what reason, adopted, though with far greater moderation and decency, by some respectable writers among ourselves. As to those, who first used this language, the most candid supposition that we can make with respect to them is, that they never read the work; for, if they had not been deterred from the perusal of it by such a formidable display of Greek characters, they must soon have discovered that Grotius never quotes, on any subject, till he has first appealed to some principles; and often, in my humble opinion, though, not always, to the soundest and most rational principles.

[Sidenote: His treatise de Jure Belli et Pacis.]

"But another sort of answer is due to some of those, who have criticised Grotius; and that answer might be given in the words of Grotius himself. He was not of such a stupid and servile cast of mind as to quote the opinions of poets or orators, of historians and philosophers, as those of judges, from whose decision there was no appeal. He quotes them, as he tells us himself, as witnesses, whose conspiring testimony, mightily strengthened and confirmed by their discordance on almost every other subject, is a conclusive proof of the unanimity of the whole human race on the great rules of duty, and the fundamental principles of morals. Of such matters, poets and orators are the most unexceptionable of all witnesses; for they address themselves to the general feelings and sympathies of mankind; they are neither warped by system, nor perverted by sophistry; they can attain none of their objects; they can neither please nor persuade, if they dwell on moral sentiments not in unison with those of their readers. No system of moral philosophy can surely disregard the general feelings of human nature, and the according judgment of all ages and nations. But, where are these feelings and that judgment recorded and preserved? In those very writings which Grotius is gravely blamed for having quoted. The usages and law of nations, the events of history, the opinions of philosophers, the sentiments of orators and poets, as well as the observation of common life, are, in truth, the materials out of which the science of morality is formed; and those who neglect them, are justly chargeable with a vain attempt to philosophise without regard to fact and experience, the sole foundation of all true philosophy.

[Sidenote: Chap. X. 1621-1634]