The freedom of the seas

In the leading case of The Louis (2 Dodson 210), decided in 1817, some two hundred years after Selden’s book was written, Sir William Scott, later Lord Stowell and one of Selden...

My intention is to demonstrate briefly and clearly that the Dutch--that is to say, the subjects of the United Netherlands--have the right to sail to the East Indies, as they are...

The Portuguese are not sovereigns of those parts of the East Indies to which the Dutch sail, that is to say, Java, Ceylon,* and many of the Moluccas. This I prove by the incontr...

Next, if the partition made by the Pope Alexander VI* is to be used by the Portuguese as authority for jurisdiction in the East Indies, then before all things else two points mu...

Since it is clear, (as Victoria also says),[37] from the refutation of any claim to title from the Pope’s Donation, that the Spaniards when they sailed to those distant lands di...

If therefore the Portuguese have acquired no legal right over the nations of the East Indies, and their territory and sovereignty, let us consider whether they have been able to...

The Donation of Pope Alexander, inasmuch as the title based on discovery is seen to be deficient, may next be invoked by the Portuguese to justify their exclusive appropriation...

The last defense of injustice is usually a claim or plea based on prescription or on custom. To this defense therefore the Portuguese have resorted. But the best established rea...

If however the Portuguese claim that they have an exclusive right to trade with the East Indies, their claim will be refuted by practically all the same arguments which already...

Neither discovery nor occupation [which have been fully treated in Chapters II and V], is to be invoked on the point here under consideration, because the right of carrying on t...

No one has granted it except perhaps the Pope, and he did not have the power.[163] For no one can give away what he does not himself possess. But the Pope, unless he were the te...

Last of all, prescription, or if you prefer the term, custom.[164] We have shown that according to Vasquez, neither prescription nor custom had any force as between free nations...

From what has been said thus far it is easy to see the blind cupidity of those who in order not to admit any one else to a share in their gains, strive to still their conscience...

Wherefore since both law and equity demand that trade with the East Indies be as free to us as to any one else, it follows that we are to maintain at all hazards that freedom wh...

Together with this letter will come to you a copy printed in type of an edict which I have taken much pains to draw up, by which, for reasons which you will see expressed, and f...

qui illic haerent, nec minus indigenas qui eis receptum praebent, ita castigatos fore, ut nec hi, nec illi tale quicquam in posterum audeant; expediet tamen, ad res tuendas, ut...