Grotius

Grotius, Hugo (1583-1645), a Dutch controversialist and writer upon international law, was born at Delft, where his father was a lawyer.

He was astonishingly precocious in intellect, and at the age of fifteen accompanied the Grand Pensionary and the Count of Nassau on an embassy to France. He studied here for a year, and. returning to Leyden, became a Doctor of Law, and an advocate. He was an adept in Latin verse-writing. In 1603 he became historiographer to the United Provinces, and a question which arose in the Dutch East Indies as to an alleged act of piracy in waters that the Portuguese claimed as their own property led to his writing a treatise, De Jure Prcvdee, which, though not published till the present century, was the undoubted forerunner of his later and widely-known work. In 1610 he published De Antiquitatc Reipubliccv Batavce, and was shortly afterwards Pensionary of Rotterdam. In 1613 he formed one of a deputation to England, to discuss some questions that had arisen between the two nations. In 1617, being involved in the theological dispute then raging between the Arminians and Calvinists, he came into collision with the supreme authority, and was sentenced to imprisonment in a fortress for life. By the aid of his wife he escaped in a chest which was used to bring and take away his books, and went to Paris, where in 1625 he wrote his celebrated treatise, De Jure Belli et Pads, which may be looked on as the foundation of the principles of the law of nations, since then developed and systematlsed by Twiss, Heffter, and others. At a later period Grotius was appointed Swedish ambassador at the Court of France. There are many other works of his extant, but it is to his treatise on international law that he owes most of his reputation.