The Judges who condemned them were so ignorant of the laws, that they decreed penalties which are only enacted against persons convicted of high treason, yet omitted mentioning in the sentence that Grotius was guilty of that crime.  They were told of this irregularity, and saw they were in the wrong:  to remedy it, they declared, a whole year after the trial, without rehearing the cause, that their intention was to condemn Grotius and his accomplices as guilty of high-treason; which step was the more irregular[101], as delegated judges cannot, by law, add to their sentence after it is passed.  This addition deprived Grotius’s wife of the liberty of redeeming, at a moderate price, her husband’s estate; a privilege which the law allows in all cases but those of treason.  His estate was therefore confiscated:  but by this he was no great loser.  At that time he was very far from being rich:  his father being alive, what properly belonged to him was only the savings of his salary and his wife’s fortune.

FOOTNOTES: 

[91] Hug.  Grotii votum, p. 664.

[92] Apol. c. 13.

[93] Mare clausum l. 1. p. 198.

[94] Apol. c. 15.

[95] Apol. c. 13.

[96] Ibid. c. 16.

[97] Ibid. c. 19.

[98] Dedication of his Apology.

[99] Apol. c. 13. 17.

[100] Hug.  Grotii votum, p. 669.

[101] Ep.  Gr. 161.

XIV.  In consequence of the sentence passed against Grotius, the States-General ordered him to be carried from the Hague to the fortress of Louvestein near Gorcum in South Holland, at the point of the island formed by the Vahal and the Meuse; which was done on the 6th of June, 1619; and twenty-four sols per day assigned for his maintenance, and as much for Hoogerbetz:  but their wives declared they had enough to support their husbands, and that they chose to be without an allowance which they looked on as an affront.  Grotius’ father asked permission to see his son; but was denied.  They consented to admit his wife into Louvestein, but if she came out, she was not to be suffered to go back.  In the sequel it was granted her that she might come abroad twice a week.

Grotius became now more sensible than ever of the advantages men derive from a love of the Sciences.  Exile and captivity, the greatest evils that can befal Ministers of ordinary merit, restored to him that tranquillity to which he had been for some years a stranger.  Study became his business and consolation.  From the time he was a prisoner at the Hague[102], whilst he had the use of pen and ink, he employed himself in writing a Latin piece on the means of accommodating the present disputes.  This treatise was presented to Prince Maurice; but it did not mollify the indignation he had conceived against the Remonstrants.  Grotius maintained in it, as he had done often before, that notwithstanding difference of opinion in some points relating to grace and predestination, a mutual toleration ought to take place, and no separation be made.