The voyage to the Brasils did not take place. Peter Grotius came to his father in summer, 1637. He seems to have been well satisfied with him, as we may judge by a letter written to his brother[756], Aug. 15, this year. "Peter is arrived here: he is much indebted to you, to his grandfather, and all his friends and relations, for instilling into him such good principles. I am very well satisfied with his diligence." He writes six months after[757], "I am only afraid for his ambition, which is the vice of youth: he will live with more ease, and gain more as an Advocate. I would beg of you, that as soon as he returns, which will be immediately, you would put him upon studying the precedents in law. But what is chiefly to be inculcated is diligence and love of labour." Peter was preparing to return to Holland, when a Surgeon undertook to make him walk without halting[758]. There were some hopes of his succeeding in whole or in part; but the event did not correspond with the Surgeon's promises, and Peter set out soon after for Holland, in the end of April, 1638. Grotius did not regret the time his Son had passed in France. "The time Peter has been here, he says to his brother[759], was not lost either for him or me: for he has learnt several useful things, and it has been a great pleasure to me to communicate what I have learnt to one of my children, or at least to have put him in a way of informing himself. I recommend him to you, and would beg of you to give him such exercises as may fit him to hold a distinguished rank amonst the Orators and Advocates, that his merit may silently reproach the Dutch for what they did against his Father. But, above all things, I would recommend to you the cultivation of those sentiments of piety which I have instilled into him, and to keep him from bad company."
Grotius wrote to Vossius[760], when his Son set out on his return to Holland, begging of him to continue to watch over the studies of this youth; and assuring him at the same time, that the friendship, which the city of Amsterdam preserved for him, was the only reason which induced him to consent that any part of him should live in a country where he had been so ill-treated.
Vossius and William Grotius were highly satisfied with Peter Grotius, and made great encomiums on him to his father, who wrote to his son, commending his diligence in the study of the Law. He informed him at the same time of a successful method of pleading, which he himself had formerly used with advantage. We have spoken of it elsewhere[761]. He was desirous of settling him as soon as possible at Amsterdam, that he might learn navigation and commerce, the municipal laws of the town, and whatever might contribute to raise his fortune. He wanted to accustom him to a labour, by which he might live without his father's assistance. "If he thinks, says Grotius to his brother[762], to make his fortune with what money he will get from me, he is greatly deceived: let him do as I did, and cut out a path for himself; otherwise he must not count upon my liberality." April 21, 1640, he caused him to be chid[763] for running about too much, and for his learning Italian and several things for which he had little occasion. "That is not the way, says he, to please me, nor to be useful to himself."
In fine, Peter Grotius began to plead at the Hague, in[764] spring 1640. There was a prospect at that time of getting him made Pensionary of Boisleduc: this design required some money, which Grotius refused not to advance; but he could scarce believe that the Prince of Orange would consent to have his son in this place, unless he abjured Arminianism. Besides, Peter Grotius had so little experience in the law, that his father did not yet think him capable of filling a place, the difficulties of which he knew by experience: he would much rather have had his son go to Amsterdam, to follow the bar, and seek some advantageous match, that his children might one day enter into the magistracy of a city, which alone kept alive expiring liberty.
Peter Grotius seems to have had a dislike to Amsterdam; for his father writes thus to his brother William Grotius[765], March 9, 1641. "I have consulted with my wife about Peter's affairs: we are of opinion that he should go to Amsterdam, if he can be prevailed with; if not, you must tell him to come here: he will serve me for Secretary, and I shall give him lectures in law, which perhaps he would not have received from any other. Let him bring with him what he has translated of the Institutes of the Laws of Holland." Grotius soon changed his opinion; for he writes to his brother[766], April 13, in the same year: "I would not have Peter come here: therefore keep him with you."
The irresolution of Peter Grotius chagrined his father: "I am much afraid, he writes to his brother[767], that he will some day smart for his continual disobedience." Grotius told his son[768], that he must expect no letters from him, unless he sent him the Latin translation of the Institutes of the Laws of Holland, which he had long before enjoined him to set about. Writing to his brother[769], he says, "I am much afraid, that the counsels which Peter follows, and will follow hereafter, are inconsistent with a good conscience. I am resolved to refer the whole to God, and not intermeddle in it. I should be sorry to have a repetition of the grief I suffer on his account."
Some time after, he was better satisfied with him, and wrote to his brother William[770], Feb. 28, 1643, "I commend Peter highly for applying to the bar: it is the way to acquire much useful knowledge, to gain a character, and in time to lay up something, or to rise higher." This is all that Grotius's letters inform us about his son: the sequel of whose life is more interesting.
In 1652, he married, for love, an Attorney's daughter, rich and handsome; but his mother and his other friends disliked the match. In the year following, a powerful party wanted to get him made Greffier of Amsterdam; but Veue Linchovius opposed him with great virulence and violence; maintaining that such a place ought not to be given to the son of an out-law, whose religious sentiments were erroneous. The declamations of this hot-headed man preventing Grotius from being nominated to the place, he bore the disappointment with great tranquility. In 1655, he purposed to publish a complete edition of his father's works, as appears by the privilege of the Emperor Ferdinand III. dated Oct. 2, 1655, prefixed to his theological works. This edition, which unfortunately he did not go on with, was to be in nine volumes in folio. The first was to contain his Annotations on the Old Testament; the second, the Commentary on the New; the third would have comprehended his smaller theological pieces; the fourth, the treatise De Jure Belli & Pacis, the Apology, and the work De Imperio summarum potestatum circa Sacra; the fifth, Law Tracts; the sixth, Writings Historical; the seventh, Philological Works; the eighth, Poetical Translations, the Anthologia, Stobæus, and the Extracts from the Tragedies and Comedies; and, lastly, the ninth, his Poems and Letters. It is probable, that this design was defeated by Grotius's departure from Holland. It was not till long after, in 1679, that the handsome edition of Grotius's theological works was published in three volumes in folio, dedicated to King Charles II. of England by Peter Grotius, Feb. 28, 1678. The bookseller promised, in an advertisement prefixed to it, to print all Grotius's other works, even those that had never been published; but he did not fulfil his engagements.
Grotius's enemies still opposing his son's advancement, he entered into the service of Charles Lewis, Elector Palatine, to whom Hugo Grotius had done singular service during his misfortunes. This Prince nominated him his Agent at the Hague.
The ferment in mens minds having subsided, and the face of affairs being changed in Holland, Peter Grotius was nominated Pensionary of Amsterdam in 1660; which important place he filled for seven years with great reputation. This office was the height of Hugo's wishes for his son. The Count D'Estrade, at that time Ambassador from France in Holland, was dissatisfied with the Pensionary of Amsterdam, who opposed the interest of the French King, in resentment of that Prince's having driven Mombas, Peter Grotius's brother-in-law, out of France. Feb. 1, 1633, he writes to the King, "I have not been at Amsterdam, because the Pensionary M. de Groot is brother-in-law to M. de Mombas, whom your Majesty ordered to quit the kingdom for some affair in which you were dissatisfied with his conduct: since that time M. de Groot has constantly opposed your Majesty's interest at Amsterdam. He is a man of spirit and firmness; and has much credit in that city. I shall neglect nothing to bring him back to his former sentiments." The King answered him, May 23, 1633, that he had had reason to be dissatisfied with Mombas's conduct; that if any consideration could make him forget it, it would certainly be a regard for M. de Groot, whose person, says the King, I esteem: In fact, Lewis XIV, as he writes to his Ambassador, Sept. 22, 1665, dropt his resentment against Mombas out of consideration for the Pensionary of Amsterdam. After the conclusion of the triple alliance, the necessity of regulating the subsidies with the northern powers induced the States of Holland to send Grotius to Denmark and Sweden. He went first to Copenhagen, and afterwards to Stockholm, where he assumed the quality of Ambassador in ordinary. The States used only to keep a Minister of the second rank at this Court; but it was thought proper, says Wicquefort, to do something more than common for such an extraordinary person; and he was ordered to make a splendid entry at the expence of the States.