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Home , Hugo Grotius

Chapter 3 Hugo Grotius and the of the Sea

M.C.W. Pinto

From the pages of his work, the picture emerges of a man absorbed in his ideals, of a devout and profound seeker after truth and right, and of a passionate and unswerving advocate of himaneness and conciliation— a picture borne out by his life. Arthur Nussbaum, A Concise History of the Law of

Hugo Grotius, Huigh de Groot to his countrymen, was born into a family of con- siderable wealth and influence on 10 April 1583, at in The . Prodigiously talented, he composed poetry in Latin and Greek from the age of seven and was admitted to the practice of law when he was 16. At 24 Grotius was appointed Advocate-General of the provinces of , and (a position said to have been similar to that of Attorney-General in Britain or the United States) and in 1613, when he was 30, he was appointed Pensionary (principal representative and negotiator)of . At a time of acute tension between, on the one hand, Prince Maurits and the Calvinist majority of the United Provinces of The Netherlands, who believed in the reli- gious doctrine of the predestination of souls and on the other, the citizens of the Province of Holland, who held more liberal views, Grotius offered vigor- ous support to the latter,­­ bringing the country to the brink of civil , and incurring thereby, the wrath of the Prince. Grotius was tried and sent to prison, from where he made a dramatic escape, going into exile in . Grotius’ reputation as philosopher and scholar had by then spread throughout Western Europe, and when invited by the Swedish King Gustav IV to be his ambassador in ,he accepted the position. But as scholar and idealist, it seemed that life and work as a diplomat did not engage him. After his recall by , Grotius decided to return to Holland, but the ship on which he sailed was wrecked on the Pomeranian coast. Grotius survived, but while on the way to Lübeck in an open cart, exhausted and alone, he died on 29 August 1645. The life that had begun with so much promise, ended in tragedy. Grotius grew to manhood during the last of the European religious , the Thirty Years War (1618–1648). As a humanist and idealist the carnage and destruction wrought by the conflict would certainly have inspired him to

© koninklijke brill nv, , ���5 | doi ��.��63/9789004283787_004 Hugo Grotius And The 19 write the two important works1 for which he is justly famous: De Jure Praedae (On the Law of Prize, 1604–5, which included, as Chapter XII, his essay Mare Liberum)2 and De Jure Belli ac Pacis (On the and , 1625).3 The second of these, considered his masterpiece, comprises three books. Book I is an inquiry into the lawfulness of war, and the of sovereign power; Book II deals with acquisition and jurisdiction over property, the con- clusion and interpretation of treaties, the of embassies, the obligation to make reparation for damage caused by injury, what constitutes an unjust war, and precautions against rashly engaging in war; Book III is a detailed treatment of the conduct of a lawful war, and includes obligations toward non- combatants and neutrals, the conclusion of treaties of peace, the institution of arbitration, and the detention and redemption of hostages and pledges.4 The work concludes with a fervent admonition that throughout any war, the objective of peace should be kept in mind, and to that end, the preservation of good faith:

For good faith, in the language of , is not only the principal hold by which all are bound together, but is the key-stone by which the larger of nations is united. Destroy this, says , and you destroy the intercourse of mankind.5

On his masterwork De Jure Belli ac Pacis rests Grotius’ right to be recognized as the “Father of the Modern Law of Nations”. Drawing on Roman Law sources,

1 For a list of the principal works of Grotius, see W.S.M. Knight, The life and work of Grotius (London, 1925) p. 291; for a more extensive list, H.C. Rogge, BIbliotheca Grotiana, 1883). 2 For references to the publication and translation of this work, which includes Mare Liberum as Chapter XII, see The , A Dissertation By Hugo Grotius, translated by Ralph van Deman Magoffin, pp. vi–ix (Oxford University Press, New York, 1916). The English translation of Mare Liberum often referred to in this essay is that by Magoffin, and is throughout abbreviated to “ML”. 3 The English translation entitled The Rights Of War And Peace to which reference is made in this essay is by A.C. Campbell and published in the series Universal Classics Library by M. Walter Dunne, New York and London, 1901, and is abbreviated to “DJB (Campbell)”; and to Prolegomena translated by Francis W. Kelsey, New York (Reprint) 1964, abbreviated to “PRO (Kelsey)”. 4 For recommended analyses and discussions of Grotius’ works see Arthur Nussbaum, A concise history of the law of nations (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1954), Chapter IV, n. 134. 5 DJB (Campbell): 417.