will not suit me. I am not a man that would be chargeable or a dishonour
to those who nominated me to my employment. Besides, they are mistaken
if they think my enemies have so much credit in my native Country; and
those who know what passes there think as I do. I humbly beg you would
be pleased to indemnify me for the expences I have been obliged to be
at, and let me at liberty: wherever I go, it will be a sufficient
recommendation not to have displeased your Sublimity."

Whilst he was thus tormenting himself without much reason, he received
two letters from the High Chancellor which made him easy. He thanked him
for them, assuring him that he desired information of what passed, not
from any eager desire for news, but to enable him better to fulfil the
functions of his embassy. Oxenstiern fully satisfied him; and Grotius
was extremely pleased, in the end of 1635 and the beginning of 1636,
with the attention paid him by that great minister. Dec. 20, 1635[294],
he writes, "I cannot sufficiently thank your Sublimity for the care you
have taken of my private affairs and my dignity; it is my duty so to act
as not to appear unworthy such great and continual favours. God forbid
that I should want to penetrate into those things which prudence
requires to be buried in mystery; but as to public matters, I would not
be the last to know them, and to learn them from strangers." "It gives
me great satisfaction (he writes to Oxenstiern's Secretary[295]) that
the High Chancellor is pleased to remark that I discharge my embassy
with honour."

Besides the embarrassment which always attends difficult negotiations,
the trouble of contenting several masters, and the difficulty of
treating with Ministers to whom one is disagreeable, Grotius, who
thought it essential to an Ambassador to live with dignity, received
almost continual uneasiness from the ill payment of his appointments.
Sep. 14, 1635, he wrote to the High Chancellor[296], that the Treasurer
of Sweden refused to pay his quarter's salary; that the expences of his
journies were still unpaid, and that he had exhausted all his private
resources. He repeats in a letter of the 8th of November, 1635[297],
that he had received but one quarter, which was owing even before his
arrival at Paris; that there were two others due since: that he spared
no expence in order to live with more dignity; that his journies and the
furnishing of his house were very expensive; that he could borrow no