INTRODUCTION 5 



of Bulls of the Pope and the Treaty of Tordesillas, divided the 

 great oceans between them. Spain claimed the exclusive right 

 of navigation in the western portion of the Atlantic, in the 

 Gulf of Mexico, and in the Pacific. Portugal assumed a similar 

 right in the Atlantic south of Morocco and in the Indian Ocean. 

 It was those preposterous pretensions to the dominion of the 

 immense waters of the globe that caused the great juridical 

 controversies regarding mare clausum and mare liberum, from 

 which modern international law took its rise. The task of 

 Grotius in demolishing them by argument was, however, materi- 

 ally facilitated by the exploits of Drake, Hawkins, and Caven- 

 dish on the part of the English, and of Jakob van Heemskerkj 

 on the part of the Dutch ; and, as we shall show, the credit of 

 having first asserted the freedom of the seas in the sens^ 

 now universally recognised, belongs rather to our own Queer 

 Elizabeth than to the Dutch publicist. 



In thus appropriating the seas adjacent to their territories, 

 or which formed the means of communication with them, the 

 various nations were doubtless impelled by consideration of 

 their own immediate interests. Sometimes it helped to secure 

 the safety of their coasts or commerce ; in other cases it enabled 

 them to levy tribute on foreign shipping traversing the appro- 

 priated waters, and thus to increase their revenues ; or it allowed 

 them to preserve the fisheries for the exclusive use of their 

 own subjects. In most instances, however, the principal object 

 appears to have been to maintain a monopoly of trade and 

 commerce as far as possible in their own hands, in accordance 

 with the commercial spirit of the times. 



But when the matter is more carefully examined in its his- 

 torical aspects, a less selfish explanation may be found of the 

 tendency to appropriate seas in the middle ages. In the state 

 of wild anarchy which prevailed after the break-up of the 

 Roman empire, pirates swarmed along every coast where booty 

 might be had. Scandinavian rovers infested the Baltic, the 

 North Sea, and the Channel ; Saracens and Greeks preyed upon 

 the commerce of the Mediterranean; everywhere the naviga- 

 tion of trading vessels was exposed to constant peril from the 

 attacks of freebooters. The sea was then common only in the 

 sense of being universally open to depredation. 1 The lawless- 



1 Twiss, The Law of Nations in Time of War, 142. Maine, International Law, 76. 



