Hugo Grotius

The freedom of the seas -- meaning both the oceans of the world and coastal waters -- has been among the most contentious issues in international law for the past four hundred years. The most influential argument in favour of freedom of navigation, trade, and fishing was that put forth by the Dutch theorist Hugo Grotius in his 1609 'Mare Liberum'. "The Free Sea" was originally published in order to buttress Dutch claims of access to the lucrative markets of the East Indies. It had been composed as the twelfth chapter of a larger work, "De Jure Praedae" ('On the Law of Prize and Booty'), which Grotius had written to defend the Dutch East India Company's capture in 1603 of a rich Portuguese merchant ship in the Straits of Singapore. This new edition publishes the only translation of Grotius's masterpiece undertaken in his own lifetime -- a work left in manuscript by the English historian and promoter of overseas exploration Richard Hakluyt (1552-1616). This volume also contains William Welwod's critque of Grotius (reprinted for the first time since the seventeenth century) and Grotius's reply to Welwod. Taken together, these documents provide an indispensable introduction to modern ideas of sovereignty and property as they emerged from the early-modern tradition of natural law. -- Back cover.

"Commissioned in October 1604 by the United Dutch East India Company, Hugo Grotius's Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty was intended to justify the Dutch capture in 1603 of a wealthy Portuguese merchantman, the Santa Catarina, in the Strait of Singapore. In a clever and intricate defense of international free trade, Grotius (1583-1645) introduced the notion of a man as a sovereign and free individual with a right to self-defense and, by extension, the right of a company of private merchants to establish a trade empire."--Jacket. The history of Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty is complex. When Grotius's personal papers were auctioned in The Hague in 1864, scholars discovered that Mare Liberum was just one chapter in a manuscript of 163 folios, written in justification of the capture of the Portuguese merchantman Santa Catarina in the Strait of Singapore in February 1603. Robert Fruin persuaded the scholar H.G. Hamaker to transcribe and publish it in 1868. Knud Haakonssen, the General Editor of the Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics series, states,?Grotius's work on the right of prize and booty is unusual. It has been argued in some of the most prominent recent scholarship that the work, while never published by Grotius himself, was the intellectual resource for much of his most important work. One chapter of the manuscript was used for his famous work on the free sea, Mare Liberum, and many of the most important features of his greatest work, De Jure Belli ac Pacis (The Rights of War and Peace), are either derived from, or revised versions of, the earlier writing."

Note for anyone who can modify these records: There are currently two different books under the same title here. One is volume 2, the other is volume 3. Is it correct that they appear as one book? If yes, please delete this note, if no, please correct it

International book on law, discussing rights of countries 'at war', or 'in peace'. The discussion concerns 'belligerent rights', and the course of action(s) to be recognized by countries. This book is referenced by the English Crown as to rights to be respected during the United States and the Confederate States at civil war in 1861, as declared by President Lincoln. Appendix No. VI; DEBATES IN THE HOUSE OF THE LORDS AND HOUSE OF COMMONS CONCERNING THE WITHDRAWAL OF THE RECOGNITION OF BELLIGERENT RIGHTS TO THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY. [American Memory] A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 - 1875, United States Serial Set, Number 1397, PAGE 501.