For the next half dozen years COURTEN’S life was almost that of a recluse, save that such activities as it admitted of were devoted almost exclusively to the study of antiquities and of the natural sciences. A great part of those years was passed at Fawsley with his aunt, Lady KNIGHTLEY, one of the few relatives whose affection stood the proof of adversity. There are several reasons for thinking that the rudimentary foundation of COURTEN’S Museum had been laid as early as in the time of his grandfather, Sir William, whose mercantile and colonial enterprises presented so many opportunities for bringing into England the more curious productions of remote countries, as well as their merchandise. Be that as it may, the collection of a museum which should eclipse everything of its kind theretofore known in England became, from his attainment of manhood, the leading aim and object of William COURTEN’S career. It was to him both an ambition and a solace. The other of the two men who thus came into brief contact in 1663 lived a life as different from COURTEN’S as can well be conceived. CAREW seems to have been a glutton in his appetite for contention. [Sidenote: _Pretentien tegens d’Oost-Indische Compagnie_, &c. (B. M.)] And the Dutchmen, as far as they were concerned, put no stint upon its indulgence. There was also ample time for it. Treaty followed by war, and war leading to renewed treaty, kept the affair of the _Bona Esperanza_ and the _Henry Bon-Adventure_ both in active historical memory, and in full legal vigour. Towards the close of 1662 it had been covenanted by the English government, as a necessary condition of a good understanding between the two Powers, that there should be a prompt satisfaction of damages. The Treaty of Commerce of that year was tossed to and fro on that one point of the COURTEN ships with more obstinate pertinacity than on any other. To the intrinsic merits of the claim, in the main, there was really no answer. To the legal technicalities by which its settlement, if left to Dutch courts of judicature, could be indefinitely protracted, there was no end. [Sidenote: THE CLAIMS IN HOLLAND.] When letters of dismissal had been already drawn at Whitehall for the Dutch envoys of 1662, because they insisted on a clause extinguishing all outstanding claims on both sides; they skilfully contrived to substitute leave to litigate[41] for a proviso to satisfy. And the event justified their forecast. [Sidenote: _Domestic Corresp._, Charles II, vol. cxiii, § 143.]