GROTIUS, or DE GROOT, Him, Dutch scholar and statesman: b. Delft, 10 April 1583; d. Rostock, 28 Aug. 1645. He was a pupil of Joseph Scaliger at the University of Leyden, conducted his first lawsuit in his 17th year; and in his 24th was appointed advocate-general. In 1613 he became syndic, or pensionary, of Rot terdam. In 1615 he was sent to En land in order to arrange the difficulties arising from the claims of the English to exclude his countrymen from the Greenland whale-fishery. He declared himself on the side of Barneveldt (q.v.) in the struggle between the Remonstrants and their opponents, and was sentenced to imprisonment for life in the fortress of Loevenstein. He succeeded in escaping by concealing himself in a chest, and after wandering about for some time in the Catholic Netherlands escaped to France, where Louis XIII gave him a pension of 3,000 livres, withdrawn in 1631. He re turned to Holland, but through the machinations of enemies was condemned to perpetual banish ment. He later went to Hamburg, and in 1634 to Stockholm, where he was appointed coun sellor of state and Ambassador to the French court, in which post he remained for 10 years. On his return to Sweden by way of Holland he met in Amsterdam with a distinguished re ception. Most of his enemies were dead, and his countrymen repented of having banished the man who was the honor of his native land. With the talents of the most able statesman, Grotius united deep and extensive learning. He was a profound theologian, excellent in exege sis, his 'Commentary on the New Testament' being still esteemed; a distinguished scholar, an acute philosopher and jurist and a judicious historian. His writings have had a decisive influence on the formation of a sound taste and on the diffusion of an enlightened and liberal manner of thinking in affairs of science. As a critic and philologist he seizes the genius of an author with sagacity, illustrates briefly and pertinently and amends the text with facility and success. His metrical translations from the Greek are executed with the spirit of a poet.
Among the modern Latin poets he holds one of the first places and he also tried his powers in Dutch verse. But the philosophy of jurispru dence has been especially promoted by his great work on natural and national law, 'De Jure Belli et Pacis,' which represented the study of 20 years and laid the foundation of the new science of international law; besides which he wrote 'Annales et Histories de Rebus Belgicis' (1657) ; 'Annotationes in Vetus Testamentum' (1644) ; 'Annotationes in Novum Testamen turn' (1641-46) ; Veritate Religionis Chris tiana' (1627). As an awakener of the con science of humanity, Grotius' writings have had profound influence on American jurisprudence and diplomacy. This was acknowledged, es pecially at the first International Peace Con gress, held at The Hague in 1899. The presi dent of the American delegation, Andrew D. White, laid upon the tomb of Grotius, in the Great Church at Delft, a silver-gilt metal wreath, in the name of the government of the United States. By invitation of the city au thorities, a banquet was tendered in honor of the Americans. Still more has Grotius in fluenced the New England theology, his gov ernmental theory of the Atonement being that which dominated the American pulpits for a century or more; the modified Calvinism of Andover, championed by Jonathan Edwards, Bellamy, Edmunds and Park, being opposed to the purer Calvinism of Princeton and New Brunswick. A superb statue of Grotius, by Stvadcie, stands in the public square in Delft. In the pavement are wrought, in white letters, his motto "Let each one walk with God.' Con sult Bertens, H., (Hugo de Groot en zijn rechtsphilosophie' (Tilburg 1905) ; Butler, (Life of Hugo Grotius' (London 1826) ; Creuzer, and Hugo (Heidel berg 1846) ; De Vries, de Groot en Maria van . Reigersbergen ' ( Amsterdam 1827) • Vreeland, 'Hugo Grotius, the Father of the Modern Science of International Law' (New York 1917) ; White, Ahdrew D., 'Seven Great Statesmen in the Warfare of Humanity with Unreason' (ib. 1910).