“Having practised jurisprudence in public in my own country, with all possible integrity” (such are his own modest words), “I would now, in what remains to me, undeservedly banished from that country, graced by so many of my labours, promote the same subject, jurisprudence, by my private studies.”
The public reputation of the author was thus of itself not unlikely to attract attention to any work which came from his pen. Another circumstance should not be overlooked,—that a school of divines, amongst whom Erasmus was conspicuous, had declared all war to be unlawful, with a similar object, perhaps, to that with which, when a rod has been twisted in one direction, men bend it forcibly in another, under the hope of making it become straight. A writer, therefore, who undertook to moderate, not to interdict, the use of arms, and who sought to mitigate the practice of warfare, whilst he admitted the necessity of war itself, and its lawfulness when it was necessary, would be readily welcomed by statesmen, who were anxious to provide a remedy for the licence which permitted everything in war.
I have observed that the writings of Grotius form an epoch in the political history of Europe. The extraordinary influence which they exercised may be doubted by those who are unacquainted with the disputes of the seventeenth century. His treatise, De Jure Pacis et Belli, was published at Paris in 1625. It was dedicated to Louis XIII. of France. Its appearance worked a positive revolution in the political conduct of princes and statesmen. Mr. Hallam observes that “it may be considered as nearly original in its general platform as any work of man in an advanced state of civilisation and learning. It is more so,
