Van-Ittersum-Martine-Julia-Forthcoming-Hugo-Grotius-1583-1645-The-Making-of-a-Founding-Father-of-International-Law

The Hague, 1928-2001, now available electronically at http://grotius.huygens.knaw.nl/years; Arthur Eyffinger, The Grotius collection at the Peace Palace: A Concise Catalogue Assen: Van

HUGO GROTIUS (1583–1645):

The Making of A Founding Father of International Law*

Martine Julia van Ittersum

The Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius (1583–1645) became known as the ‘father of internationallaw’ in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries It is hard to avoid this origins myth in a town like The Hague, with its various international courts and centres for the study of international law.1 The Peace Palace in The Hague and its library were conceived right from the start as a temple of international law and a shrine for its alleged founding father

P C Molhuysen (1870–1944) and Jacob ter Meulen (1884–1962), the two most important Directors of the Peace Palace Library (PPL) in the first fifty years of its existence, createdthe Library’s famous Grotiana collection, the biggest collection of Grotius’ printed works

in the world.2 Molhuysen also initiated the monumental, 17-volume edition of Grotius’ correspondence, while Ter Meulen compiled a bibliography of all of Grotius’ printed works, still considered authoritative.3 The tradition remains unbroken until today: in

1 * This essay chapter was first given as a public lecture at Harvard University in November 2011, when I served as Erasmus Lecturer on the History and Civilization of The Netherlands and Flanders The

Leverhulme Trust, the Netherland-America Foundation, the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, the Caledonian Research Fund and the Royal Society of Edinburgh have financially supported my research and writing I have also benefited from various visiting fellowships at Huygens ING in The Hague, in 2009-10, and the summers of 2011 and 2013 I should like to thank both Ms Ingrid Kost, Head of Special Collections at the Peace Palace Library, and Mr Jeroen Vervliet, PPL Director, for supporting my research

on Grotius for many years now They are not afraid of critical appraisals of the patron saint of the Peace Palace.

Arthur Eyffinger, The Hague: International Centre of Justice and Peace (The Hague: Jongbloed Law Booksellers, 2003) and Dreaming the Ideal, Living the Attainable: T M C Asser [1838-1913], Founder of

The Hague Tradition (The Hague: T M C Asser Press, 2011).

2Briefwisseling van Hugo Grotius ed P.C Molhuysen, B.L Meulenbroek, Paula Witkam, C Ridderikhof

and H.J.M Nellen, 17 vols (The Hague, 1928-2001), now available electronically at

http://grotius.huygens.knaw.nl/years; Arthur Eyffinger, The Grotius collection at the Peace Palace: A

Concise Catalogue (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1983); The World of Hugo Grotius (1583-1645): Proceedings of the International Colloquium Organized by the Grotius Committee of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Rotterdam, 6-9 April 1983 (Amsterdam & Maarssen: APA – Holland University Press,

1984).

3 Jacob ter Meulen, Concise Bibliography of Hugo Grotius (Leiden: A.W Sijthoff Publishers, 1925);

Grotius-tentoonstelling te 's-Gravenhage, 13-28 juni 1925 ed E.A van Beresteyn (Leiden: Sijthoff

Publishers, 1925); Jacob ter Meulen and P.J.J Diermanse, Bibliographie des écrits imprimés de Hugo

Grotius (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1950) and Bibliographie des écrits sur Hugo Grotius imprimés au

2011, the PPL acquired a first edition of Grotius’ magnum opus, De Jure Belli ac Pacis

(1625), for the sizeable sum of €100,000.4 Nor is there any sign of the International Court

of Justice losing interest in Grotius His work was cited most recently in a dispute

between Singapore and Malaysia over the island of Pedra Branca (verdict of 23 May 2008).5 ICJ judges routinely receive presentation copies of new editions of Grotius’ work.The late Robert Feenstra, the greatest Dutch legal historian of the second half of the

twentieth century, offered the ICJ President copies of his1993 edition of De Jure Belli ac Pacis and 2009 edition of Mare Liberum, for example.6 Moreover, Grotius is lionized in countless publications of international lawyers, philosophers, IR specialists and legal historians, who invariably present him as a great humanitarian, a prince of peace and secularizer of international law.7

I take issue with what I call the ‘Grotius Delusion’ My aim is to explain how the origins myth came into being and whose interests have been served by it It was a combination

of Dutch nationalism and the rise of modern international law that turned Grotius into a

‘founding father’, with a little help, it should be said, from the American delegates at the

1899 Hague Peace Conference It is based on a highly selective reading of De Jure Belli

ac Pacis and completely ignores the larger historical context of Grotius’ work,

XVIIe siècle (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1961).

4 Henk Nellen, Grotius's memory honoured: on the acquisition of the first edition of ‘De iure belli ac pacis’

by the Peace Palace Library (The Hague: Peace Palace Library, 2012).

5 Sovereignty over Pedra Branca/Pulau Batu Puteh, Middle Rocks and South Ledge, Malaysia v Singapore, Judgment, ICJ Rep 2008, p 12, 23 May 2008.

6 Arthur Eyffinger, The International Court of Justice, 1946–1996 (The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 1995); Hugo Grotius, De iure belli ac pacis libri tres in quibus ius naturae & gentium: item iuris publici

praecipua explicantur, ed B J A de Kanter-van Hettinga Tromp (Leiden: E.J Brill Publishers, 1939;

second, expanded edition with notes by Robert Feenstra and C.A Persenaire, Aalen, Scientia Verlag,

1993); Hugo Grotius, Mare Liberum, 1609-2009: Original Latin Text and Modern English Translation, ed

Robert Feenstra, with a general introduction by Jeroen Vervliet (Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2009)

A report on the ‘Mare Liberum 1609-2009’ conference at the PPL on 11 Dec 2009, including

pictures of Prof Feenstra presenting his Mare Liberum edition to the ICJ President, can be found on the

website of ‘The Hague Academic Coalition’: t/

http://www.haguecoalition.org/mare-liberum-the-freedom-of-7 John Dunn and Ian Harris (eds.), Grotius, vols 1–2 (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 1997) is

an anthology of classic 20 th century publications on Grotius as ‘secularizer’, ‘humanitarian’, ‘father of

international law’, etc See also Hedly Bull et al (eds.) Hugo Grotius and International Relations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990) and Philip Allott, ‘Language, method and the nature of international law,’ British

Yearbook of International Law (1971), 79-135, republished in M Koskenniemi, ed., The International Library of Essays in Law and Legal Theory – International Law (1992).

particularly his hands-on involvement in Western imperialism and colonialism I start with a short overview of Grotius’ life, briefly discuss his public image in The Netherlands

in the early modern period, and then examine how it changed as a consequence of the rise

of international law in the nineteenth century I end with a discussion of recent historical research on Grotius, which aims to properly contextualize his life and work, rather than tofocus on just one aspect of it and use that to justify modern-day arrangements for conflict resolutions between states

Grotius’ Life and Times

Hugo de Groot, known to the English-speaking world by the Latinised name of Grotius,

was born into a prominent regent (i.e patrician) family in Delft on Easter Day 1583 Just

two years earlier, the Dutch States General had abjured Philip II of Spain and Portugal as

the ruler of the Low Countries and de facto created a new state, the Dutch Republic

Grotius started his professional life as a private solicitor, at the tender age of sixteen In

1604, the directors of the Dutch East India Company or VOC asked him to write a

defence of the Company’s privateering campaign in Asian waters, aggressively attacking

the Portuguese Estado da India Grotius was happy to oblige, and completed his De Indiis in 1607-08 This treatise of 163 folios remained in manuscript, only to appear in print in the nineteenth century, as De Jure Praedae/On the Law of Prize and Booty At the Directors’ request, Grotius did publish chapter twelve of De Indiis separately in 1609

as Mare Liberum/The Free Sea “or …the Right Which the Hollanders Ought to Have to

the Indian Trade.” He continued to support the VOC in word and deed for the rest of his life, negotiating on the Company’s behalf with the English East India Company in 1613 and 1615, for example.8

Thanks to the patronage of Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, de facto political leader of the

Dutch Republic and a friend of Grotius’ father, he was quickly appointed to a number of

8 Martine Julia van Ittersum, Profit and Principle: Hugo Grotius, Natural Rights Theories and the Rise of

Dutch Power in the East Indies, 1595-1615 (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2006); Hugo Grotius, Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty, trans Gwladys L Williams and ed Martine Julia van Ittersum

(Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2006); The Free Sea trans Richard Hakluyt and ed David Armitage

(Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2004).

high-level political positions at the provincial and federal level He became Fiscal (i.e public prosecutor) of Holland in December 1607 and Pensionary (i.e chief legal adviser) of the town of Rotterdam in June 1613 In the latter capacity, Grotius joined the Rotterdam delegation in the States of Holland In May 1617, he became a member of the Holland delegation in the Dutch States General, the federal government ofthe Dutch Republic By all accounts, it was a meteoric political career Grotius would undoubtedly have succeeded Oldenbarnevelt as political leader of the Dutch Republic, had it not been for religious troubles that brought the rebel state to the brink of collapse during the Twelve Years Truce (1609–21) Orthodox Calvinists squared off against the so-called ‘Remonstrants’, followers of the Leiden theologian Arminius Although

Advocate-Arminius’ followers were a minority in the Dutch Reformed Church, they enjoyed the support of the States of Holland, in particular of Oldenbarnevelt and Grotius The

theological bickering developed into a major political crisis that endangered the existence

of the Dutch Republic Prince Maurice of Orange, commander-in-chief of the country’s naval and military forces and Stadtholder (i.e governor) of six of its seven provinces, could not stand idly by In August 1618, he sought to break the political deadlock by means of a regime change, which landed Grotius in prison for almost three years In view

of his close association with Oldenbarnevelt—executed in May 1619—he was lucky to escape with his life.9

Yet Grotius’ political career was far from over In March 1621, he escaped from

Loevestein Castle in a book trunk He headed south to Paris, where he lived as an exile for many years and received a pension from the French Crown As a quid pro quo, he

dedicated De Jure Belli ac Pacis (1625) to Louis XIII of France Cardinal De Richelieu

was eager to tap Grotius’ in-depth knowledge of Dutch overseas expansion and

commercial governance, and sought to involve him in the establishment of a French East India Company Yet Grotius was unwilling to burn his bridges behind him For a long time he believed that he would be reinstated as Pensionary of Rotterdam once Prince

9 H.J.M Nellen, Hugo de Groot:Een leven in strijd om de vrede, 1583-1645 (Uitgeverij Balans, 2007) 225; De Hollandse jaren van Hugo de Groot (1583-1621) ed H.J.M Nellen and J Trapman (Hilversum: Verloren Publishers, 1996); Jan den Tex, Oldenbarnevelt trans R.B Powell 2 vols (Cambridge: CUP,

25-1973).

Maurice’s younger brother and heir, Prince Frederic Henry, had established himself in power Grotius returned to Holland in October 1631 in order to force a breakthrough in the negotiations about his possible rehabilitation His ostentatious visits to Rotterdam andAmsterdam badly backfired, however In April 1632, the States of Holland exiled him once more and put a price of 2,000 guilders on his head The definitive breach with his homeland came after two unhappy years in Hamburg Grotius accepted the offer of the Swedish chancellor Axel Oxenstierna to become the resident Swedish ambassador in Paris In the context of the Thirty Years War, this was an important and sensitive

position: after the death of king Gustavus Adolphus, the Swedish armies in Germany were essentially kept afloat with French subsidies It was Grotius’ job to maintain good relations with the French ally, particularly Cardinal de Richelieu He discharged this task for nearly ten years, albeit with uneven success, due to French opposition to his

appointment He was finally recalled by the Swedish government in January 1645 and arrived in Stockholm five months later He refused to become one of Queen Christina’s privy councillors, however, and took the first ship back to France After a storm-ridden voyage across the Baltic, his ship was wrecked off the Pomeranian coast in August 1645 Although Grotius safely reached the shore, he died at an inn in Rostock, aged 62 He was buried in the family crypt in the New Church in Delft.10

Grotius’ Nachleben in the Low Countries

Grotius’ star waxed and waned in the Dutch Republic and its successor state, the

Kingdom of The Netherlands, for over four centuries The Remonstrants, who remain a religious minority in The Netherlands, have claimed Grotius as a ‘martyr for toleration’ Grotius’ descendants sympathized with their cause At the turn of the eighteenth century, two Remonstrant divines gained unprecedented access to Grotius’ papers and wrote a 300-page biography of their hero, still considered authoritative today They focused on Grotius’ attempts to resolve the religious crises of his age, at the expense of other aspects

of his life and work, such as his advocacy of VOC interests In the later eighteenth

10 Nellen, Hugo de Groot 226-262, 271-277, 317-331, 364-405, 470-475, 532-550, 580-592; Martine Julia

van Ittersum, 'The Long Goodbye: Hugo Grotius and the Justification of Dutch Expansion Overseas

(1604-1645)', History of European Ideas 36 (2010) pp 386-411.

century, Grotius became the darling of the Dutch Patriots, the political opponents of William V of Orange The Dutch Patriots sought to reform the government of the Dutch Republic along democratic lines and reduce the power of the Stadtholder or abolish the office entirely For them, Grotius was a noble defender of republican government and freedom, who had fallen victim to the power hungry Princes of Orange The only

complicating factor was that Grotius’ descendants in Rotterdam had meanwhile become clients of the Stadtholder! As a result of Prussian intervention, the Patriot Revolution wascrushed in 1787 However, exiled Patriots would return to positions of power in The Netherlands in 1795, in the wake of the French Revolutionary Armies They brought theiridealized image of Grotius with them As a ‘martyr for freedom’, he became part of the ideological pedigree of the Batavian Republic, a sister republic of the French Republic Grotius’ newfound popularity did not survive Napoleon’s fall in 1813 The establishment

of the new Kingdom of The Netherlands discouraged any talk of the republican heroes of yore The political elite of The Netherlands, both former Orangists and Patriots, wished

to portray itself as being united in the service of King William I, the eldest son of the last Stadtholder The disestablishment of the Dutch Reformed Church in 1851 also ended the Remonstrant crusade for equal rights Consequently, there was less need to appeal to Grotius’ alleged legacy of toleration At the same time, Grotius’ descendants lost control

of his material legacy: 30-odd volumes of manuscripts—family heirlooms for over two centuries—were auctioned in The Hague in November 1864 The main buyers were the Swedish Government, the Remonstrant Church in Rotterdam, the Municipal Archives of Rotterdam, the Dutch National Archives, Leiden University Library and Johan Pieter Cornets de Groot van Kraayenburg (1808–78), a scion of the cadet branch of the family The Dutch government made no attempt to buy or preserve this unique collection of manuscripts This lack of interest in Grotius and his material legacy would change dramatically as a result of the rise of international law in the late nineteenth century, which turned Grotius into a Dutch national hero as well as a father of international law.11

11 Hugo Grotius, Meletius, sive, De iis quae inter Christianos conveniunt epistola, ed with transl.,

commentary and introd by Guillaume H.M Posthumus Meyjes pp 6-7; Henk Nellen, ‘Confidentiality and

Indiscretion: The Intricacies of Publishing Grotius’ Correspondence Posthumously’, Produktion und

Kontext: Beiträge der Internationalen Fachtagung der Arbeitsgemeinschaft für germanistische Edition im Constantijn Huygens Instituut, Den Haag, 4 bis 7 März 1998 ed H.T.M van Vliet (Tübingen: Max

Niemeyer Verlag, 1998) pp 135-144, Caspar Brandt and Adriaan van Cattenburgh, Historie van het Leven

des Heeren Huig de Groot 2 vols (Dordrecht, 1727).

A reburial of sorts took place in the vestry of the New Church in Delft on 18 October

1889 The gentlemen present, all wearing full dress, were the Keeper of the Royal Crypt,the burgomaster and aldermen of Delft, and J A W L Cornets de Groot van Kraayenburg (1862–1923), grandson and heir of J P Cornets de Groot van Kraayenburg.12 In a short ceremony, Grotius’ remains were transferred into a new leaden casket, which, in turn, was put into a ‘beautifully carved’ oak coffin, sealed with a ribbon of yellow, black and red—the armorial colours of the Cornets de Groot lineage Grotius’ coffin had also been opened a century earlier, at the time of the burial of his great-great grandson, the

Rotterdam burgomaster Hugo Cornets de Groot At that point, a small copper plaque had

been affixed to Grotius’ coffin, bearing the inscription: ‘het gebeente van H.d.G.’ (‘the

remains of H[ugo] d[e] G[root]’) The ceremony in May 1777 had been a private family affair By contrast, the reburial in October 1889 was a minor media event, reported in several local and national newspapers It followed hard upon the heels of the unveiling of

the Grotius statue in the Delft market square three years earlier, and a commemoration in

the New Church in April 1883 of the tercentenary of Grotius’ birth The man and the myth were fast becoming public property Dutch nationalism, American enthusiasm and the rise of modern international law were the three most important factors in the making

of Grotius’ modern image.13

The 1899 Hague Peace Conference

The 1899 peace conference in The Hague sealed Grotius’ twentieth-century reputation as

‘father of international law’ In August 1898, the Russian Tsar invited other European governments to join him in what he called ‘the maintenance of general peace and a

12 Martine Julia van Ittersum, ‘Confronting Grotius’ Legacy in an Age of Revolution: The Cornets de Groot

Family in Rotterdam, 1748-1798’, English Historical Review CXXVII no 529 (Dec 2012) 1367-1403;

Catalogue de Manuscrits Autographes de Hugo Grotius, second edition, ed W.J.M van Eysinga and L.J

Noordhoff (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1952); L.J Noordhoff, Beschrijving van het zich in Nederland

bevindende en nog onbeschreven gedeelte der papieren afkomstig van Huig de Groot, welke in 1864 te Gravenhage zijn geveild (Groningen: Noordhoff, 1953) pp 7-14 On J.P Cornets de Groot van

's-Kraaijenburg, see http://www.parlementairdocumentatiecentrum.nl/id/vg09llj55bt3

13 Royal Library, The Hague, Cornets de Groot Archive, CdG 17 f 60-61, 122-125, 130-131.

possible reduction of the excessive armaments which weigh upon all nations’.14 The Russian government’s deteriorating financial position and the growth of German military and naval power were important considerations for the young ruler Initially, his

diplomatic initiative met with strong reservations in Western Europe The one exception was the Dutch government, which responded enthusiastically to the tsar’s proposals In January 1899, the Russian Foreign Secretary asked his Dutch counterpart to host the proposed peace conference in The Hague Four months later, the delegates of 25

countries, including China, Japan, Thailand, Persia, Turkey, Mexico and the US met at

the conference venue, the royal palace Huis Ten Bosch (House in the Woods)

Expectations were low The head of the American delegation, Andrew Dickson White—American ambassador in Berlin and founding president of Cornell University—noted:

‘probably, since the world began, never has so large a body come together in a spirit of more hopeless scepticism as to any good result’ Yet a strong sense of historical mission and a spirit of teamwork and collegiality resulted in an unexpected breakthrough in late July: the establishment of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), which still exists today White was convinced that the Grotius commemoration in Delft on 4 July 1899, organized by the American delegation, had materially contributed to this success.15

That is probably too simplistic an explanation for the establishment of the PCA

According to Arthur Eyffinger, the conference delegates were aided in their deliberations

by a busy social schedule, which allowed to exchange ideas and opinions ‘off the

record’.16 Dutch government authorities and foreign embassies in The Hague organized aseemingly endless round of lunches, teas, receptions, dinners, concerts, balls and

excursions—on average one social event every other day White came up with the brilliant idea to organize a Grotius commemoration, a real propaganda coup for the youngAmerican republic It became an iconic event—not least because of American self-publicity—which firmly tied Grotius’s legacy to modern international law and confirmed

14 As cited by Barbara Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914

(Macmillan, 1966) p 239.

15 Eyffinger, The 1899 Hague Peace Conference pp 15-40, 70-202; Calvin De Armond Davis, The United

States and the First Hague Peace Conference (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1962) p 90

16 Eyffinger, The 1899 Hague Peace Conference pp 318-333.

Dutch-American friendship, embedding the history of both countries in the seductive narrative of the progress of Western civilization.17

What made the celebration of Dutch history and culture so attractive to White? In her

book Holland Mania(1998), Annette Stott examines the fetishism for all things Dutch among the urban elites of the United States during the Gilded Age Americans who claimed pre-Revolutionary Dutch descent organized themselves in exclusive ethnic associations, such as the Holland Society of New York, founded in 1885.18 Wealthy industrialists became serious collectors of the artwork of the Dutch Golden Age The fishing villages of Volendam and Marken, just north of Amsterdam, became open-air museums, largely thanks to American tourism Houses, furniture and clothing were adapted to what foreign visitors, fresh from a visit to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, imagined the Dutch Golden Age to have been like Yet Americans were not just attracted

to the aesthetics of seventeenth-century Dutch paintings There was an ideological

component as well John Lothrop Motley (1814–77), a Boston Brahmin and Harvard graduate, became the first American historian to do archival research on Dutch history.19

It resulted in two very influential publications: The Rise of the Dutch Republic (1855) and History of the United Netherlands (1867) Thanks to Motley, Americans could celebrate

the Dutch as a kindred people The Dutch had thrown off the yoke of royal government in

1581, established a highly successful Protestant republic—but one tolerant of other religions—and, not coincidentally, created a global trading empire In October 1903, the Dutch-born Edward Bok (1863–1930) confidently announced to the millions of readers of

Ladies’ Home Journal that Holland, not England, was ‘the mother of America’ The

notion that all truly American characteristics and ideals originated in Holland was an important incentive for White to organize the Grotius commemoration in Delft on

17 Eyffinger, The 1899 Hague Peace Conference pp 313-316, 415-419.

18 Annette Stott, Holland Mania: The Unknown Dutch Period in American Art & Culture (Woodstock, NY: The Overlook Press, 1998) passim (Edward Bok quoted on p 9).

19 Mark A Peterson, ‘A Brahmin Goes Dutch: John Lothrop Motley and the Lessons of Dutch History in

Nineteenth-Century Boston’ in: Going Dutch: The Dutch Presence in America, 1609-2009 ed Joyce D

Goodfriend, Benjamin Schmidt and Annette Stott (Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2008) pp 109-134.

Independence Day 1899.20

A Dutch-American Party

We can follow the preparations for the Grotius commemoration in White’s

Autobiography (1905) Following a tourist trip to Delft in late May 1899, he confided to

his journal: ‘of all books ever written—not claiming divine inspiration—the great work

of Grotius on ‘War and Peace’ has been of most benefit to mankind’ He wrote privately

to John Hay (1838–1905), the American Secretary of State, asking permission for the American delegation to ‘lay a wreath of silver and gold upon the tomb of Grotius at Delft’ When he received a positive reply from Washington DC on 19 June, he

immediately telegraphed his specifications for the wreath to the American embassy in Berlin The next day, he approached the head of the Dutch delegation at the peace

conference, A P C van Karnebeek (1836–1925), who responded enthusiastically to the American plans He suggested that the Dutch Foreign Secretary (and Honorary President

of the peace conference) be involved as well W H de Beaufort (1845–1918) was

‘devoted to the memory of Grotius’ He had delivered a long panegyric on the occasion

of the unveiling of the Grotius statue in Delft in September 1886, for example The American delegation duly visited De Beaufort to hammer out the logistics of the 1899 Grotius commemoration: a solemn ceremony in the New Church at 11 AM, followed by aluncheon for invited guests in the Delft City Hall On 2 July, the military attaché of the American embassy in Berlin arrived in The Hague with the ‘Grotius wreath’, made by Court jeweler Eugene Marcus It displayed the arms of the Netherlands and the United States, along with the following inscription:

20 Nancy T Minty, ‘Great Expectations: The Golden Age Redeems The Gilded Era’ in Going Dutch: The

Dutch Presence in America, 1609-2009 ed Goodfriend, Schmidt and Stott pp 215-235; Dennis P Weller, ‘

Old Masters in the New World: The Hudson-Fulton Exhibition of 1909 and its Legacy’ in: Going Dutch:

The Dutch Presence in America, 1609-2009 ed Goodfriend, Schmidt and Stott pp 237-268; Laura

Voorkles, ‘Return in Glory: The Holland Society Visits ‘The Fatherland’’ in: Dutch New York: The Roots

of Hudson Valley Culture ed Roger Panetta (Fordham University Press, 2009) pp 257-297; Roger Panetta,

‘The Hudson-Fulton Celebration of 1909’ in: Dutch New York: The Roots of Hudson Valley Culture ed

Panetta pp 301-338

To the Memory of Hugo Grotius;

In Reverence and Gratitude,From the United States of America;

On the Occasion of the International Peace Conference

of The Hague

July 4th, 1899

White noted in his journal that the wreath was ‘a superb piece of work’, attracting ‘most

favorable attention’ Everything was ready for the grand finale two days later.21

The Grotius commemoration was widely reported by Dutch newspapers It featured in three New York Times articles as well At 10.15 AM, the organist of the New Church started playing a series of national songs, including ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’ According

to New York Times reporter Mrs Hanken-Parker, carriage after carriage rolled up to the door of the church, dislodging ‘gayly dressed ladies and profusely decorated men’ The entire Dutch government arrived to participate in the ceremony, as did most of the peace conference delegates, and nearly all ambassadors resident in The Hague In addition, the pews filled with faculty members from Dutch universities, Leiden in particular, and a large crowd of American tourists At 11 AM, an occasional choir of approximately 150 singers performed Mendelssohn’s ‘How lovely are the messengers that bring us good tidings of peace’ At the request of the American delegation, Van Karnebeek opened the proceedings Following a second musical interlude, White rose to deliver his laudation.22

21 Andrew Dickson White, Autobiography (London: Macmillan, 1905) Vol II pp 274, 291, 316, 317-318,

320, 322-26; Eyffinger, The 1899 Hague Peace Conference pp 165-169, 196-202, 324-331; J Woltring,

'Karnebeek, jhr Abraham Pieter Cornelis van (1836-1925)' and H van der Hoeven, 'Beaufort, Willem

Hendrik de (1845-1918)' in Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland

URL:http://www.historici.nl/Onderzoek/Projecten/BWN/lemmata/bwn1/karnebeekapc [10-02-2012] and URL:http://www.historici.nl/Onderzoek/Projecten/BWN/lemmata/bwn1/beaufort [10-02-2012] For Dutch newspaper reports on the unveiling of the Grotius statue in Delft on 25 Sept 1886, see Royal Library, The Hague, Cornets de Groot Archive CdG 17 fol 64-66, 69-70, 77.

22 Royal Library, The Hague, Cornets de Groot Archive, CdG 17 folios 50, 51-52, 97, 99, 100, 109-110;