set out important concepts of international
law. He was born in the town of Delft and
was a precocious student of Latin, writing
his first poems in that language at the age
of eight. Schooled by his father and his tu-
tors in classical humanism, he entered the
University of Leiden at the age of eleven.
He graduated four years later, his reputa-
tion as a brilliant scholar rapidly spread-
ing after an appearance at the court of
King Henry IV of France. In 1599 he
earned his doctorate in law at the Univer-
sity of Orléans. Under the patronage of
Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, Land’s Advo-
cate of Holland, he advanced in the ranks
of public officials, and was named by the
Dutch government as an official historian
in 1601.
At this time Holland was at war with
Portugal; the battle was taking place far
from the European continent, in the dis-
tant seas of East Asia and the Spice Is-
lands. In 1603, when a ship of the Dutch
East India Company seized a Portuguese
merchant ship, theSanta Catarina, in the
Straits of Singapore, the arrival of the
seized goods in Holland touched off a le-
gal controversy. Grotius was called on by
the Dutch East India Company to defend
their actions and the seizure of foreign
property at sea. Grotius wroteDe Indus,
also known asThe Law of Prizes, a treatise
that set out first principles of natural law.
A single chapter, “The Free Seas,” was pub-
lished in book form in 1609. Because the
trading company won its case, the full trea-
tise was never published and remained un-
known until 1864, when it was rediscov-
ered and appeared as On the Right of
Capture.
Grotius defended the rights of free
movement and trade inThe Free Seas.The
concept of “freedom of the sea” in effect
meant that nations could harass rivals and
seize their property at will, and that no
court could claim jurisdiction over the
claims of a wronged party. Grotius was
called on to defend the Dutch East India
Company in its disputes with the East In-
dia Company of England; much later En-
gland would pioneer the concept of terri-
torial seas by declaring its sovereignty to
extend 3 miles (4.8km) from its shoreline.
Grotius attained the post of pension-
ary, or representative, of the city of Rotter-
dam in 1613. He was soon involved in a
religious dispute involving Jacobus Armin-
ius, a professor at the University of Leiden,
and those following a strict interpretation
of the teachings of John Calvin. Grotius
was asked by the States of Holland to sup-
port Arminius’s position that Calvinist
doctrine was incorrect, and that religious
belief should be left up to the conscience
of the individual. The dispute flared into
outright rebellion, with Grotius and his
patron Oldenbarnevelt defying the author-
ity of the Prince of Orange, Holland’s head
of state.
For his part in inspiring these events,
Grotius was arrested in 1618 and sen-
tenced to life in prison (Oldenbarnevelt
was executed). Hiding himself in a chest
of books, he escaped in 1621 and fled to
Paris, where King Louis XIII rewarded him
with a pension that allowed him to re-
search and write his most famous works,
includingOn the Truth of the Christian
Religion(1627), which was translated into
many languages and brought to Asia by
missionaries. Grotius also addressed the
issue of a common law among nations in
On the Laws of War and Peace, published
in 1625. This treatise explains a just war as
based on universal principles of “natural
law,” which follow from the natural order
of the world and which should be binding
on all nations.On the Laws of War andGrotius, Hugo