the Ambassador and Grotius was probably cut off till the beginning of 1621; for it is not till the fifteenth of January that year, he returns him his thanks[106].  He says it is impossible for him to express his obligations to the Most Christian King, to his wife Council, and to Du Maurier in particular, for the pains they took to assist him in his misfortunes; that tho’ their intentions had not the effect which might have been hoped for, it gave him great consolation to find persons of such importance interest themselves in his troubles.  He calls his conscience, as the judge he most respected, to witness, that all he intended was the prevention of schism; that he never had a thought of making any innovation in the Republic; that he only purposed the supporting the rights of his Sovereigns, without invading the legal authority of the States-General; that such as were in the secret of affairs knew that his whole crime was refusing to comply with the caprices of those who wanted to rule according to their fancies; and that he chose rather to lose his estate and his health, than to ask pardon for a fault he had never committed.

Du Maurier losing his lady about this time, Grotius writes him, February 27, 1621, a very handsome consolatory letter, in which he deduces with great eloquence every ground of support that Philosophy and Religion can suggest in that melancholly event.  The only method he took to unbend and recreate himself, was to go from one work to another.  He translated the Phoenissae of Euripides:  wrote his Institutions of the Laws of Holland in Dutch:  and composed some short Instructions for his daughter Cornelia[107] in the form of a Catechism, and in Flemish verse, containing an hundred and eighty-five Questions and Answers:  it was printed at the Hague in 1619.  The author afterwards translated it into the same number of Latin verses for the use of his son:  it is added in the later editions of his Poems.  He wrote also, while under confinement, a Dialogue in Dutch verse between a father and a son, on the necessity of silence, explaining the use and abuse of Speech, and shewing the advantages of taciturnity.  In fine, he collected, when in prison, the materials of his Apology[108].

FOOTNOTES: 

[102] Apolog.  Pref.

[103] Ep. 126.

[104] Ep. 23. p. 761.

[105] Ep. 132.

[106] Ep. 133.

[107] Mem.  Litt. de la Gr.  Bretagne, t. xi. p. 66.

[108] Ep. 144.

XV.  Grotius had been above eighteen months shut up in Louvestein, when, on the eleventh of January, 1621[109], Muys-van-Holi, his declared enemy, who had been one of his judges, informed the States-General, that he had advice from good hands their prisoner was seeking to make his escape:  some persons were sent to Louvestein to examine into this matter; but notwithstanding all the enquiry that could be made, they found no reason to believe that Grotius had laid any plot to get out.