[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.
We have still several of his letters written from Louvestein, which acquaint us in what manner he spent his time. He gave Vossius an account of his studies. In the first of those Letters, without date, he observes to him that he had resumed the study of the Law, which had been long interrupted by his multiplicity of business; that the rest of his time he devoted to the study of Morality; which had led him to translate all the Maxims of the Poets collected by Stobæus, and the fragments of Menander and Philemon. He likewise purposed to extract from the Comic and Tragic Authors of Greece what related to Morality, and was omitted by Stobæus, and to translate it into free verse, like that of the Latin Comic writers. With regard to his translation of the fragments of the Greek Tragic authors, he intended that the verses of his Latin translation should resemble those of the original, excepting in the chorus's, which he would put into the verse that best suited him. He was in doubt whether he ought to print these additions with Stobæus, and asks Vossius's opinion whether he should place them at the end, or entirely new-mould that collection. Sundays he employed in reading treatises on the truth of the Christian religion, and even spent some of his spare hours in this study: on other days, when his ordinary labour was over, he meditated some work in Flemish on religion. The subject which he liked best at that time was Christ's love to mankind: he no doubt intended to confute the extravagant opinions of the Gomarists. He purposed also to write a Commentary on the Sermon on the mount.