e as Ambassador only in name;
and on him as Ambassador in fact, though he has not the name: nay he
actually allows himself to be treated at home as if he were Ambassador,
and to be written to as if he had the title. It is indeed very hard that
I, who am advanced in years, should have disputes with a hot-headed
youth." This quarrel gave him great uneasiness: he writes to
Oxenstiern[342], "I beg it as a favour of your Sublimity, that if I can
be of any use to you, you would be pleased to protect me, as you have
done hitherto. I have had nothing in view in all I have done but the
welfare of Sweden; and it has cost me much pains to raise, by my words
and actions, the credit of a nation hitherto little known in this
country. If I cannot serve with utility, I had much rather return to the
condition of a private man, than be a burden to the kingdom, or
dishonour myself."

Schmalz lived on very ill terms with Crusius, a Swedish Lord, whom
Grotius, as we have just seen, had presented to the King.
Notwithstanding the grounds of complaint which the Ambassador had
against Schmalz, he thought the public service required him to reconcile
them, and for this end he often made them dine with him. One day, at
the Swedish Banker's, both rose from table after dinner heated with
wine, and came together to Grotius's: there was only his lady at home.
They quarrelled, and Schmalz had the impudence to call Crusius several
times a rascal; with the addition of some threatening gestures. Crusius,
highly provoked, gave him a box on the ear, and an English colonel in
company was so enraged against Schmalz, that had it not been for
Grotius's lady he would have run him through. Notwithstanding this gross
insult, Schmalz and Crusius[343] were reconciled at Grotius's house; but
Schmalz still continued his extravagancies. He had the indiscretion one
time to let his tongue loose against the Duke of Weymar: Baron Erlac,
who was attached to that Prince, was highly incensed, and the
consequences might have been very fatal. Grotius again employed his good
offices to pacify Erlac. But this wrought no change in Schmalz's
behaviour towards the Swedish Ambassador. In a letter of the sixteenth
of October, 1638[344], Grotius observes: "It is near two months since
Schmalz was to see me, though I have been ill; his reasons I neither
know nor enquire. I am conscious he has no subject of complaint against
me; but I have much to complain of him. He will return to you ri