The Rights of War and Peace: In Three Volumes

The Life of Hugo Grotius

59 the life of hugo grotius To look into the Manners of Antiquity, and recover the Memory of preceding Ages, is an Entertainment of the highest Pleasure and Advantage to the Mind, it establishes very lasting Impressions of Virtue in us, enlarges the Soul, and moves our Emulation to follow and exceltheleading Characters before us; when we are tracing the Exploits of some Worthy of Old, with what Delight do we pursue him in every Circumstance of Action, we admire the Example, and transmit the Beauties of his Life into our own Conduct by Practice and Imitation; for the Mind of Man is of a searching Nature, very wide and extensive in her Speculations;and as she is blind to the Transactions of Futurity, so she receives a greater Lustre from the Reflection of Instances that are past, than from the Rules of Wisdom, or the Determination of the Schools: filosofía e ‹k paradeigma ́twn, Philosophy from Example, in the Opinion of the Historian, advances human Life beyond the Power of Precept, or the Distinctions of Morality, it opens a large Scene for Observation, it displays all the Occurrences and Revolutions of Providence, how far Application and Industry improve the Abilities of the Soul, and offer us to the Notice of Mankind, and the Wonder of Posterity. This Life of GROTIUS is not writ with a Design to enlarge upon his Merit, or to adorn his Character, who has left such Illustrious Testimonies of his Learning, Zeal, and Piety, that the Letter’d World submits to his Authority, and reveres his Judgment so much, that his Name will be venerable to latest Ages: Our present Aim is only to reduce the Circumstances of his Life into such a Method as will shew us by what Steps and Degrees he attained to so high an Esteem, as to derive an Honour upon the Century he lived in, and to recommend him as a Pattern to succeeding Ages. Thucydides. 60 the life of hugo grotius HUGO GROTIUS, in Dutch, de Groot, one of the greatest Men in Europe, was born at Delft the 10th of April, 1583; where his Family had been Illustrious between Four and Five Hundred Years. He made so early a Progress in his Studies, that he writ some Verses before he was nine Years of Age; and at Fifteen he had a great Understanding in Philosophy, Divinity and the Civil Law; but he was still better skill’d in Philology, as he made it appear by the Commentary he writ at that Age upon Martianus Capella, a very difficult Author. So prodigious was his Memory, that being present at the Muster of some Regiments, he remembered the Names of every Soldier there. In theYear1598heaccompaniedtheDutch Embassador, the famous Barnevelt, into France, where Henry IV gave him several Marks of his Esteem; he took there his Degree of Doctor of Law, and being returned into his Country, he applied himselftotheBar, and pleaded before he was Seventeen Years of Age; he was not Twenty four Years old when he was made Advocate-General; he settled at Rotterdam in 1613, and was Pensionary of that Town; he would not accept of that Employment, but upon Condition that he should not be deprived of it; for he foresaw that the Quarrels of Divines about the Doctrine of Grace, which formed already a thousand Factions in the State, would occasion many Revolutions in the chief Towns; he was sent into England in the same Year, by reason of the Misunderstanding between the Merchants of both Nations; he wrote a Treatise upon that Subject, andcalled it Mare Liberum, or a Treatise shewing the Right the Dutch have to the Indian Trade. He found himself so far engaged in the Affairs which undid Barnevelt, that he was arrested in August 1618, and condemned to perpetual Imprisonment the 18th Day of May 1619, and to forfeit his Estate ; he was confined to the Castle of Louvestein the 6th of June in the same Year, where he was severely used for above 18 Months; from whence, by the Contrivance of Mary de Regelsberg his Wife, he made his Escape, who having observed that the Guards, being weary of searching a large Trunk full of Books and Linnen to be washed at Gorcum, aneighbouring Town, let it go without opening it as they used to do, advised her Husband to put himself into it, having made some Holes with a Wimble in the Place where...