340 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



The commerce with the East Indies was of special value and 

 importance. The discovery of the Cape route by Vasco di 

 Gama, in 1497, led to the great stream of traffic between Europe 

 and the East being diverted in the next century from its old 

 channel in the Mediterranean and Levant to the Atlantic. The 

 lucrative trade with the Indies was transferred from the Vene- 

 tians and the Italian Republics to the Portuguese, who then 

 became for a time the chief trading people of the world, 1 and 

 strove to keep it entirely in their own hands. It was particu- 

 larly with reference to this monopoly that the disputes about 

 the freedom of the sea began. The Mare Liberum of 

 Grotius was specially directed against the prohibition by the 

 Portuguese for any other nation to navigate round the Cape of 

 Good Hope or to trade with the Indies. It has been well said 

 by Calvo that the historical antecedents of the controversy 

 about 'ma/re clausum are to be found in the voyages of 

 Columbus and Vasco di Gama. 2 



Very soon, however, the claims of other Powers to maritime 

 sovereignty of Denmark, Venice, England were similarly 

 assailed, and the controversy became general. It may be noted 

 that those who took part in it on the one side or the other, 

 including some of the most learned men of their age, were in 

 large measure inspired by patriotic motives. National interests 

 as much as lofty ethics or legal principles were at its root. 

 Even Grotius, notwithstanding his impassioned appeal to the 

 conscience of the world for the liberty of the sea and the free- 

 dom of commerce, was not exempt from this weakness. It was 

 his happy fortune that the cause he publicly advocated was 

 equally in conformity with the growing spirit of liberty and the 

 immediate interests of the United Provinces. Only four years 

 later, when the Dutch had obtained a footing in the East Indies 

 in spite of the Portuguese, they in turn wished to exclude the 

 English from any share in the trade with that opulent region : 

 they did not want any freedom of commerce that might tell 

 against themselves. And then we find Grotius arguing, in 

 London, against his own declarations in Mare Liberum, and 

 in favour of commercial monopoly for his native land a 



1 Cunningham, The Growth of English Industry and Commerce during the Early 

 and Middle Ages, p. 418. 



2 Le Droit International, i. 20. 



