to him; in fine, that he was no ways reprehensible, since in all he did,
he exactly followed the orders of the States of Holland, or those of the
city of Rotterdam[100], as the States and the City allowed; and that if
he was to be tried, it ought to be by Judges of Rotterdam, according to
the privileges of that city. Hoogerbetz was also condemned to perpetual
banishment. The body of Ledemberg, Secretary of the States of Utrecht,
who, as hath been said, put an end to his life in gaol, was affixed in
the coffin to a gibbet. Moerbergen, Counsellor of Utrecht, had only his
country-house, for his prison, because, suffering himself to be moved by
the tears of his wife and children, he made a kind of submission
bordering on those which they wanted to draw from Hoogerbetz and
Grotius.

The Judges who condemned them were so ignorant of the laws, that they
decreed penalties which are only enacted against persons convicted of
high treason, yet omitted mentioning in the sentence that Grotius was
guilty of that crime. They were told of this irregularity, and saw they
were in the wrong: to remedy it, they declared, a whole year after the
trial, without rehearing the cause, that their intention was to condemn
Grotius and his accomplices as guilty of high-treason; which step was
the more irregular[101], as delegated judges cannot, by law, add to
their sentence after it is passed. This addition deprived Grotius's wife
of the liberty of redeeming, at a moderate price, her husband's estate;
a privilege which the law allows in all cases but those of treason. His
estate was therefore confiscated: but by this he was no great loser. At
that time he was very far from being rich: his father being alive, what
properly belonged to him was only the savings of his salary and his
wife's fortune.

FOOTNOTES: