350 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF . THE SEA 



in his mind. 1 It remained for Bynkershoek, at the beginning 

 of the next century, to give the doctrine precise expression. 



It is obvious from the foregoing that the opinions expressed 

 by Grotius as to the appropriation of the sea were not always 

 consistent, and were sometimes self -destructive. If the fluidity 

 and physical nature of the sea made it impossible to occupy 

 or appropriate it, the objection applied as much to one part 

 of it as to another, since it is everywhere fluid ; and the 

 admissions in his later book stultify many of the statements 

 in the earlier one. It seems to be indisputable that Grotius 

 was to some extent influenced by his environment, and 

 expanded or contracted his argument to meet the conditions 

 at the time that he was, in short, like all the others, more 

 or less of an advocate. When he published his greater work 

 he was in the service of the Queen of Sweden, who claimed 

 a somewhat extensive maritime sovereignty in the Baltic, 

 and it is not unlikely that this influenced him in making 

 the admissions referred to. 



The immediate object for which Mare Liberum was published 

 the recognition of the right of the Dutch to sail to the 

 East Indies and to trade there was achieved by the treaty 

 of Antwerp in the month following its appearance, 2 and 

 no reply from the Portuguese or Spaniards to the argu- 

 ments of Grotius was published till sixteen years later. 

 Grotius tells us that a work in refutation of Mare Liberum 

 had been prepared by a scholar of Salamanca, but it was 

 suppressed by Philip III. ; 3 but in 1625, when Philip IV. 

 was on the throne, an elaborate defence of the rights of 

 Portugal in the Indies and a reply to Grotius was pub- 

 lished by Franciscus Seraphinus de Freiras, a Spaniard, who 

 dedicated his book to the king. 4 The Venetians also, whose 

 power had by this time declined, began to defend with the 

 pen their rights in the Adriatic. These rights had been 



1 Calvo, Le Droit Intemat., i. 348 ; Ortolan, Regies Internationales et Diplomatic 

 de la Mer, i. c. v. See p. 156 referring to a State Paper of 1610, which seems to 

 be misdated "August 1609." 



2 Dumont, Corps Diplomatique, vol. V. ii. p. 99. The treaty was signed on 3 ^^ 

 1609. 



3 Defensio, 332 (circa 1614) ; Letter to his brother, 1st April 1617. Epistolce,- 

 759. 



4 De Justo Imperio Lusitanorum Asiatico advertus Orotii Mare Liberwni. 



