He arrived at Franckfort in May, 1634[208], and was received with the greatest politeness by the High Chancellor, who did not however explain his intentions:  Grotius wrote to his brother, July 13, 1634, that the Chancellor proceeded with great slowness in his affair; but that every body assured him he was a man of his word:  “If so, he adds, all will go well.”  He wrote for his wife, and she arrived at Franckfort, with his daughters and son Cornelius, in the beginning of August.  The Chancellor continued to heap civilities[209] on him without mentioning a word of business:  but ordered him to follow him to Mentz; and at length[210] declared him Counsellor to the Queen of Sweden and her Ambassador at the Court of France.

The authority of Oxenstiern was so great that this kind of nomination needed not the Queen’s confirmation:  it was not till almost two years after[211] that Christina ratified by her letters Grotius’s embassy.  Before their arrival he enjoyed the same honours and prerogatives as if the Queen herself had nominated him.

As soon as he could depend upon an establishment, he purposed to make it known by some public act that he considered himself no longer as a Dutchman.  On the 13th of July, 1634[212], he sent his brother letters for the Prince of Orange and the Dutch:  but desired him to read them first himself, and advise with the Counsellor Reigersberg and Beaumont about them.  “I have ceased, says he in another place[213], to be a Dutchman since I entered into the service of Sweden; which I have sufficiently intimated to the States of Holland.  I have written to them, but not as their subject.  Thus the Spaniards used to act in such cases, as Mariana informs us in several places of his History of Spain.  When I bad adieu to the United Provinces (he writes again[214]) I signified to them that I was a member of another nation; that I should give myself little trouble about what might be said or thought of it; and that I reckoned never to see the Country again.”  We may judge by these expressions that his patience was at length worn out.

He wrote to the City of Rotterdam, which had deferred nominating a Pensionary since the sentence passed against Grotius, that they might now chuse one, since they ought no longer to look on him as a Dutchman.

FOOTNOTES: 

[207] Ep. 349. p. 125. & ep. 346. p. 124.

[208] Ep. 330. p. 849.

[209] Ep. 352. p. 127.

[210] Ep. 337. p. 851.

[211] Ep. 577. p. 227.

[212] Ep. 330. p. 849.

[213] Ep. 572. p. 958.

[214] Ep. 719. p. 970.