344 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



over twenty years of age, and it enhances our sense of the 

 precocity and fertility of his genius to learn that Mare Liberum 

 was only one chapter (the twelfth) of this treatise. The treatise 

 itself was not published by Grotius; but in 1608, during the 

 negotiations with Spain which ended in the truce of Antwerp, 



on -^yg-, 1609, the Spaniards demanded that the Dutch 

 should relinquish the trade with the West Indies and also 

 with the East Indies (Portugal being then united to Spain), 

 and, probably at the request of the directors of the East India 

 Company, Grotius then detached the part of his work which 

 dealt with the freedom of commerce and navigation and 

 published it in March 1609, under the title of Mare Liberum. 

 In dealing with his theme Grotius attacked in succession 

 all the arguments put forward by the Portuguese to justify 

 their claim. Their titles from prior discovery of the Cape 

 route, under Papal Bulls, by the right of war or conquest, 

 or from occupancy and prescription, were all, he maintained, 

 invalid; by the Law of Nations navigation and commerce 

 were free to all mankind. The action of the Portuguese 

 in attempting to restrain the trade with India furnished a 

 just cause of war; and the Dutch were resolved to assert 

 their rights by force. But Mare Liberum was much more 

 than a pleading in a particular case. An earnest and 

 powerful appeal was made to the civilised world for complete 

 freedom of the high seas for the innocent use and mutual 

 benefit of all. Grotius spoke in the name of humanity as 

 against the selfish interests of a few ; and while he made 

 full use of arguments founded on Roman law, on the law of 

 nature and of nations, it was principally the lofty moral 



prsedseque iura, et historiam eorum quse Lusitani in nostros saeue atque crude- 

 liter perpetrassent, multaque alia ad hoc argumentum pertiuentia eram persecutus 

 ample- satis commentario, quern edere hactenus supersedi." Hugonis Orotii De- 

 fensio Capitis quinti Maria liberi oppugnati a Gulielmo Welwodo Juris Civilis pro- 

 fessore capite XXVII. eius libri scripti Anglico sen/tone cui titulum fecit Com- 

 pendium legum Maritimaram. This manuscript of Grotius was discovered in 

 1864, along with the work De Jure Prcedcv, to which he refers, in a collection of 

 MSS. brought to auction, which belonged to the family of Cornets de Groot of 

 Bergen-op-Zoom, who had descended in a direct line from the great publicist 

 (Fruin, op. cit.) It was printed by Muller in 1872 (Mare Clausum, p. 331). The 

 greater work, edited by Hamaker. was published in 1868, Hugo Grotius de Jure 

 Pradce Commentarius. 



