The great intimacy between them gave rise to a report, that the Grand Pensionary, who was sensible of Grotius’s great merit, and who loved him, designed to have him made Grand Pensionary.  We have this particular from Grotius himself[60], who assures us he never desired that high office, the rather as his health would not then permit him to discharge the many functions belonging to it.  For by the Grand Pensionary the States see, hear, and act; and though he has no deliberative voice, and is the lowest in rank, his influence is the greatest.  He manages Prosecutions, receives Dispatches, and answers them, and is as it were Attorney-General of the States:  before he be called to be Grand-Pensionary, he is nominated Advocate of the States.

FOOTNOTES: 

[60] Apol.  C. 19.

XXII.  There was at that time a high dispute between the English and Dutch concerning the right of fishing in the northern seas.  Two vessels had sailed from Amsterdam to Greenland to kill walrus, a sea-animal, larger than an ox, with the muzzle of a lion, the skin covered with hair, four feet, and two large teeth in the upper jaw, flat, hard, and so white that in colour and value they equal those of the elephant:  some even give them the preference, because, besides their exceeding whiteness, they are not subject to grow yellow.  These two vessels having caught twenty-two walrus, were met by some English vessels bound to Russia, who hail’d them, and demanded whether they had pasports from the King of Great Britain to fish at Greenland?  The Dutchmen answered, that the Sea was free, and they had pasports from Count Maurice their Stadtholder.  “That is not enough, said the English[61]:  and to let you know that that sea belongs to the King our master, if you will not give us instantly the walrus you have taken, with your boats, nets, and instruments for killing them, we’ll send you to the bottom.”  The two Dutch vessels, unable to resist, were obliged to obey.  Returning to Holland, they made their complaint; and the affair being laid before the States, it was resolved that Grotius, who had written on the subject and was more master of it than any one, should be sent to England to demand justice:  But, says the Mercure Francois, he found the old proverb true:  The strongest are masters of the sea, and such never care to make restitution:  so that he could obtain no satisfaction.

This denial of justice from the English determined the Dutch not to go to Greenland for the future without a force sufficient to revenge themselves on the English, or to have nothing to fear from them.