66.
[108] Ep.

144.
XV.

Grotius had been above eighteen months shut up in Louvestein, when, on the eleventh of January, 1621[109], Muys-van-Holi, his declared enemy, who had been one of his judges, informed the States-General, that he had advice from good hands their prisoner was seeking to make his escape: some persons were sent to Louvestein to examine into this matter; but notwithstanding all the enquiry that could be made, they found no reason to believe that Grotius had laid any plot to get out.
His wife however was wholly employed in contriving how to set him at liberty.

He had been permitted[110] to borrow books of his friends, and when he had done with them, they were carried back in a chest with his foul linen, which was sent to Gorcum, a town near Louvestein, to be washed.

The first year his guards were very exact in examining the chest when it went from Louvestein; but being used to find in it only books and linen, they grew tired of searching, and did not take the trouble to open it.