358 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEA 



In the period that elapsed between the appearance of the 

 works of Grotius and Welwood and the publication of 

 Selden's Mare Clausum, a number of other books were 

 issued which dealt with the question of the freedom of the 

 seas and the extent to which they might be appropriated. 

 Gerard Malynes, in treatises on commerce which had a wide 

 circulation, re - echoed the opinions of Welwood, and of 

 Gentleman and Keymer. The " main great seas," he said, 

 were common to all nations for navigation and fishing, but 

 the bordering sea was under the dominion of the prince of 

 the adjoining country, and foreigners could only fish in it 

 by obtaining permission and paying for the privilege ; within 

 this sea navigation was free unless it interfered with the 

 fishings. Malynes said that this was the practice in Russia, 

 Denmark, Sweden, and Italy; and he ascribed the decay 

 of English fisheries and trade to the admission of foreigners 

 to fish in "his Majesty's streames" without paying for 

 the liberty. 1 Two other authors, each celebrated in his 

 respective sphere, touched upon the king's dominion in the 

 seas, and they may be regarded as representing two different 

 aspects of the subject, both of which became of great 

 importance namely, the limits of neutral waters, and the 

 rights of the crown by the Common Law of England to 

 the propriety of the sea and its bed. One was Alberico 

 Gentilis and the other Serjeant Callis. 



Gentili, or Gentilis, who was a forerunner of Grotius 

 in shaping the Law of Nations, 2 was an Italian of the school 

 of Perugia, domiciled in England, where he held the Regius 

 Professorship of Civil Law at Oxford. In 1605, after the 

 conclusion of peace with Spain, he was appointed advocate 

 for the Spanish embassy in London, and was frequently 

 employed in the Admiralty Court in cases where the legality 



vocat. . . . Piscationes vero quaj in proximo mari fiunt, proculdubio eorum sunt 

 qui proximum continentem possident. Itaque non sine summa injuria nostra 

 Belgae circa nostras insulas piscantur. Nam licet piscationes in mari non pro- 

 hibeantur, tamen et hse prsescribuntur, et traduntur permissce aut prohibits 

 secundum consuetudinem." 



1 The Maintenance of Free Trade, p. 42 et seq. Consuctudo vel Lex, Mercatoria. 

 The latter contains chapters on Navigation and Community of Seas, and The 

 Distinct Dominions of the Seas. Many editions were published. 



2 Wheaton, Hist., 51, 153 ; Phillimore, Commentaries, I. xxxix. 



