In 1582 he married Alida Averschie, of one of the first families in the
Country; by whom he had three sons and a daughter. He died in the month
of May 1640. In the same year his wife lost her eyesight; she lived till
the beginning of the year 1643[7].

FOOTNOTES:

[5] Stobæus, Tit. 98. p. 413.

[6] Ep. xxii. p. 751.

[7] Ep. 499. p. 898. Grotii Ep. 638. p. 948.


V. Of the marriage of John de Groot with Alida Averschie was born the
celebrated Hugo de Groot, better known by the name of Grotius: he was
the first fruit of their coming together. Almost all who have mentioned
his birth[8] fix it on the tenth of April 1583. The President Bouhier
pretends they place it a year too late; and that he was born on the
tenth of April 1582. To prevent the authority of such a learned man,
which has already seduced several writers, from misleading others, we
shall shew that by departing from the general opinion he has fallen into
an error. Grotius writes to Vossius on Easter Sunday 1615[9], that on
that day he reckoned thirty-two years: He dates another letter[10] to
Vossius the twenty-fifth of March 1617; Easter-eve, "which, he observes,
begins my thirty-fifth year." April 11, 1643, he says he had completed
sixty years[11]. On Easter-day 1644 he reckons sixty-one years[12]. He
acquaints us in his Poems[13], that he was fifteen when he went first to
France: he went there in 1598; and speaking of Easter 1614 he informs
us[14] he was then one-and-thirty. From all these different calculations