THE JURIDICAL CONTROVERSIES 



341 



3k, which, we are told, he performed " with uncommon 

 ibility." 



This charge cannot be made against the two authors whose 

 voices were raised in opposition to the prevailing opinions as 

 the appropriation of the sea before the work of Grotius 

 ippeared, and of whose writings he made considerable use. 

 )ne of these was a Spanish monk, Francis Alphonso de Castro, 

 rho wrote about the middle of the sixteenth century, protest- 

 ig against the Genoese and Venetians prohibiting other 

 jples from freely navigating the Ligurian and Adriatic Seas, 

 being contrary to the imperial law, the primitive right of 

 mnkind, and the law of nature ; and also against the Spanish 

 id Portuguese claims for exclusive rights to the navigation to 

 le East and West Indies. 1 The other author, also a Spaniard, 

 ras Ferdinand Vasquez or Vasquius, who expressed the same 

 >pinions as de Castro, and for the same reasons. He held that 

 the sea could not be appropriated, but had remained common 

 mankind since the beginning of the world ; that the claim 

 }f the Portuguese to forbid to others the navigation to the East 

 idies, and that of the Spaniards to a similar prohibition to 

 lil through "the spacious and immense sea" to the West 

 Indies, were no less vain and foolish (non minus insance) than 

 pretensions of the Venetians and Genoese. The law of pre- 

 jription, he said, was purely civil, and could have no force in 

 mtroversies between princes and peoples who acknowledged 

 10 superior, because the peculiar civil laws of any country were 

 no more value with respect to foreign nations than as if 

 they did not exist ; to decide such controversies recourse must 

 had to the law of nations, primitive or secondary, which it 

 ras evident could never admit of such a usurpation of a title 

 the sea. With regard to the right of fishery, Vasquius drew 

 distinction between fishing in the sea and in rivers or lakes, 

 [e held that the sea had been from the first, and still remained, 

 :>y the primitive right of mankind, free both for navigation 

 id fishing, and that its use could not be exhausted by fishing, 

 rhile lakes and rivers may be so exhausted. 2 



1 De Potettate Legit Pcenalis, lib. ii. c. 14. Quoted by Nys, Let Origines du 

 rit International, p. 382, and by Grotius, Mare Liberum, c. vii. 



2 D. Fernandus Vasquius, Controversice lUustres, Venice, 1564, lib. ii. c. Ixxxix. 

 30 (p. 356, ed. Frankfurt, 1668). 



