Whilst he was thus tormenting himself without much reason, he received two letters from the High Chancellor which made him easy.  He thanked him for them, assuring him that he desired information of what passed, not from any eager desire for news, but to enable him better to fulfil the functions of his embassy.  Oxenstiern fully satisfied him; and Grotius was extremely pleased, in the end of 1635 and the beginning of 1636, with the attention paid him by that great minister.  Dec. 20, 1635[294], he writes, “I cannot sufficiently thank your Sublimity for the care you have taken of my private affairs and my dignity; it is my duty so to act as not to appear unworthy such great and continual favours.  God forbid that I should want to penetrate into those things which prudence requires to be buried in mystery; but as to public matters, I would not be the last to know them, and to learn them from strangers.”  “It gives me great satisfaction (he writes to Oxenstiern’s Secretary[295]) that the High Chancellor is pleased to remark that I discharge my embassy with honour.”

Besides the embarrassment which always attends difficult negotiations, the trouble of contenting several masters, and the difficulty of treating with Ministers to whom one is disagreeable, Grotius, who thought it essential to an Ambassador to live with dignity, received almost continual uneasiness from the ill payment of his appointments.  Sep. 14, 1635, he wrote to the High Chancellor[296], that the Treasurer of Sweden refused to pay his quarter’s salary; that the expences of his journies were still unpaid, and that he had exhausted all his private resources.  He repeats in a letter of the 8th of November, 1635[297], that he had received but one quarter, which was owing even before his arrival at Paris; that there were two others due since:  that he spared no expence in order to live with more dignity; that his journies and the furnishing of his house were very expensive; that he could borrow no more, and what he had already borrowed, was done on very disadvantageous terms.  At the end of 1638 there were six quarters owing, amounting to twelve thousand rixdollars, besides twelve hundred which he had laid out for the service of Sweden.  He was desirous of being permitted to pay himself out of the subsidies given by France.  He represented that his expence was considerably increased by the high tax laid on all sorts of goods, which made living so dear, that his salary was insufficient for supporting his dignity.  For two whole years he received no remittance, and in the end of May, 1639[298], there were forty thousand francs owing besides what he had laid out on several occasions.  His salary was, therefore, twenty thousand francs per annum.  Salvius ordered one half of what was owing him to be paid out of the subsidies received by Sweden from France; but it was long before Grotius got the money:  for on the 9th of July, 1639[299], he pressed Salvius very warmly to order immediate payment; and went so far as to tell him that if he still left him in this perplexity, he would demand to be reimbursed and recalled.  It was in these critical circumstances that the French Ministry offered him a supply, which he refused with great disinterestedness[300].