Career
From 1872 he was on the editorial board of the literary journal De Gids. He wrote a daily article in the Handelsblad, "From Day to Day," which the Times called in its obituary a "feature of Dutch journalism"
During the Boer War, he supported the Boer cause in his writings. He published a series of articles on the war, collected as and republished in English translation as The Struggle of the Dutch Republics: A Great Crime.
An appeal to the conscience of the British nation.
lieutenant was subsequently published in German as well. In 1881, Boissevain paid a visit to the United States and published his impressions in a series of articles in the Handelsblad, afterward republished in book form as From the North to the South.
Boissevain married Emily Héloïse MacDonnell (a granddaughter of Richard MacDonnell, Provost of Trinity College, Dublin) in England on June 27, 1867. They had eleven children: Charles Ernest Henri (1868-1940), Maria (1869-1959), Alfred Gideon (1870-1922), Robert Walrave (1872-1938), Hester (1873-1969), Olga Emily (1875-1949), Hilda Gerarda (1877-1975), Eugen January (1880-1949), Petronella Johanna (1881-1956), January Maurits (1883-1964), and Catharina Josephina (1885-1922).
Robert emigrated to Canada, as did Olga, who married Dutch sea captain and explorer Abraham Jacob van Stockum.
In addition, Charles Ernest Henri"s son Charles Hercules Boissevain (1893-1946), a doctor, moved to Colorado, where he became a tuberculosis researcher and co-authored the first comprehensive survey of native Colorado cacti.