LETTER. II.

HENRY NEWTON TO JOHN CLERC.

MOST LEARNED SIR,

I SEND you a new and ample testimony concerning HUGO GROTIUS, more weighty than the former, if we consider the author’s dignity in the commonwealth, or his knowledge of things, or that it was writ while Grotius was alive. It is taken from letters to that great prelate, William Laud, then archbishop of Canterbury, with whom he often had correspondence by letters; they were written from Paris, October 24, Gregorian style, in the year MDCXXXIII, and were procured me lately out of England, by the kindness of that most illustrious person, John lord Sommers, formerly high chancellor of that flourishing kingdom, then president of the law, now of the council. In those letters that most illustrious viscount Scudamore, at the time ambassador for our nation in France, has the following words concerning Grotius:—

“The next time I see ambassador Grotius, I will not fail to perform your commands concerning him. Certainly, my lord, 1 am persuaded that he doth unfeignedly and highly love and reverence your person and proceedings. Body and soul he professeth himself to be for the church of England; and gives this judgment of it, that it is the likeliest to last of any church this day in being.”