348 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



reason and a natural reason." The moral reason is the vast 

 extent and inexhaustibility of the sea, whether for navigation 

 or fishing; the natural reason is that it cannot be occupied 

 or possessed because of its fluidity, since liquids having no 

 bounds of their own cannot be possessed unless enclosed by 

 something else, as a river by its banks ; but the sea is not 

 contained in the earth, as it is equal to it or even greater. 1 

 Grotius, however, admits that his argument that rivers and 

 lakes may be appropriated because their banks could be 

 appropriated, may be logically applied also to certain parts 

 of the sea. From the example of rivers he says, " It appears 

 that the sea may be occupied by him who is in possession 

 of the lands on both sides, although it be open either above, 

 as a bay or gulf, or both above and below, as a strait, pro- 

 vided that it be not so great a part of the sea that when 

 compared with the lands on each side it cannot be supposed 

 to be some part of them " ; .and what is lawful to one king 

 or people may be also lawful to two or three, if they have 

 a mind to take possession of the sea thus enclosed within 

 their land. 2 He also admits by another train of reasoning 

 concerning property in the marine vivaria of the Romans 

 that if it is not repugnant to the law of nature for a 

 private person to appropriate a small enclosed part of the 

 sea, one or more nations possessing the shores might in 

 like manner appropriate a part of the sea, if it be small 

 compared with the land; and that might happen although 

 the sea was not enclosed on all sides. But this admission 

 that the law of nature does not preclude appropriation of 

 a relatively small part of the sea by the neighbouring 

 state, he qualifies in a general way by saying that there 

 afe many things tolerated by the law of nature which the 

 law of nations, by common consent, might prohibit ; and 

 where this law of nations was in force and is not repealed 



1 Lib. ii. cap. ii. s. iii. 1, 2. 



2 Lib. ii. cap. iii. a. viii. " Ad hoc exemplum videtur et mare occupari potuisse 

 ab eo qui terras ad latus utruinque possideat, etiamsi aut supra pateat ut sinus, 

 aut supra et infra ut fretum, dummodo non ita magna sit pars maris ut non cum 

 terris comparata portio earum videri possit. Et quod uni populo aut Regi licet, 

 idem licere videtur et duobus aut tribus, si pariter mare intersitum occupare 

 voluerint, nam sic flumina quse duos populos interluunt ab utroque occupata sunt, 

 ac deinde divisa." 



