This work was printed without Grotius’s knowledge, and published without his consent.  He appears not to have been quite satisfied with it:  “My intention (says he in a letter to Camerarius, May 20th, 1637) was good; but the work favours too much of my want of years.”  They wrote against him in Spain:  “I know (he writes his brother, April 1, 1640) that a treatise was written some time ago, at Salamanca, against mine Of the Freedom of the Ocean, but it was suppressed by the King of Spain.”  Another appeared, in 1625, at Valladolid, entitled, De justo imperio Lusitanorum Asiatico, by one Francis Seraphin de Freiras. The Freedom of the Ocean was refuted in England by the famous Selden in his work entitled Mare clausum, seu de dominio maris.  Grotius thought the Spanish author’s book not ill done, and deserving of an answer[53]; and was pleased with the politeness shewn him by Selden[54].  But at the time these Answers appeared Grotius was so dissatisfied with the Dutch, he did not think himself obliged to employ his time for people void of gratitude.  “Let them seek among my Judges (said he by way of irony on their ignorance) for one to answer the Spaniard[55].”  As to Selden’s book, Grotius seemed not to mind it; he looked on himself as no longer concerned in the controversy.  “I wholly forget what I have been, says he, when I see those to whom I have done so great services, remember me only to hurt me.”  These sentiments of an indifference bordering on hatred he did not entertain till after the Dutch had done every thing to make him uneasy, as we shall see in the sequel.

FOOTNOTES: 

[53] Ep. 144. p. 796.

[54] Ep. 364. p. 858.

[55] Ep. 144. p. 796.

XX.  The year after the publication of the treatise Of the Freedom of the Ocean, Grotius printed his work De antiquitate reipublicae Batavae, divided into seven chapters.  In the first the author shews what is an aristocratical government:  In the second he gives the history of the ancient Batavi, whose government, he says, was aristocratical, under the command of a head, who was sometimes styled King.  He explains, in the third, the state of the Republic of the Batavi in the time of the Roman empire; and building on a passage of Tacitus he pretends they were allies, and not subjects of the Romans.  In the fourth he enquires into the government of the Batavi after the fall of the Roman empire; from which aera till the establishment of the Counts of Holland we know very little of that nation.  The author treats, in the fifth chapter, of the government of Holland in the time of the Counts.  The first elected to that dignity was named Diederic, of Friesland, and was Count of the whole nation:  He was not a vassal of the Empire, and, as Philip of Leyden observes, he was Emperor in his County.  He was not so absolute as a Monarch, and though the Dutch in chusing their