354 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



Nation." To Grotius' statement that it was worse to prohibit 

 promiscuous fishing than to forbid navigation, Wei wood justly 

 replied that if the free use of the sea is interfered with fo 

 any purpose, it ought to be chiefly for the sake of the fishings, 

 if the fishes become exhausted and scarce, as he says was the 

 condition at that time on the east coast of Scotland, from the 

 " neere and dailie approaching of the busse fishers " scattering 

 and breaking the shoals, so that no fish " worthy of anie paines 

 and travels " could now be found. 



Two years later Welwood returned to the theme, and pub- 

 lished a formal little book on the dominion of the seas. 1 It 

 was dedicated to Queen Anne, who had just been endeavouring 

 to set up a fishery society with power to tax foreign fishermen 

 (p. 161), and, as explained in the dedication, the book was 

 specially directed against the freedom unlawfully usurped by 

 foreigners of fishing in the British seas. It may be regarded 

 as an amplification of his chapter in the Abridgement, but is 

 much superior and more logically arranged ; and being written 

 in Latin, it attained, if not a reputation, at least considerable 

 recognition on the Continent. He urges strongly that the sea 

 as well as the land is capable of distinction and dominion, both 

 by human and by divine law, and explains the contrary 

 opinion of many publicists, poets, and orators (so copious! 

 quoted by Grotius) by saying they were ignorant of th 

 true law of nature, and had infected the minds of later gener 

 tions with "a preposterous notion concerning some universal 

 community of things." The adjacent sea is claimed for the 

 neighbouring state, because it is as necessary there as it is on 

 land that some one should have jurisdiction, and this juris- 

 diction ought to be exercised by the neighbouring prince, so 

 that both the land and the sea should be under the same 

 sovereignty. The part of the sea next the land is, moreover, 

 so joined to and, as it were, incorporated with it, that the ruler 

 of the land is not permitted to alienate either a part of it, or 

 the use of it, or to let it out (locare) any more than his king- 

 dom or the patrimony of his kingdom. He held that it was 

 incontestable that the vast and boundless waters beyond the 



1 J)e Dominio Marts Ivribvsque ad Dominivm praecipve spectantibvs Assertio 

 brevis et methodica. Cosmopoli, 16th January 1615. It was republished at The 

 Hague in 1653, and replied to by Graswinckel. See p. 412. 



