Note E — INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Selden’s Mare Clausum was not the only defense of England, nor was the Mare Liberum the only lance which Grotius broke for the freedom of the seas. In 1613 William Welwod, professor of Civil Law at the University of Aberdeen, published a little book entitled An Abridgement of all the Sea-Lawes, in which he maintained the English side of the question, of which Title XXVII, pp. 61-72, deals with the community and property of the seas. Two years later Welwod published a second work, this time in Latin, entitled De Dominio Maris Juribusque ad Dominium praecipue Spectantibus Assertia Brevis ac Methodica.

Grotius prepared, but did not publish, a reply to Welwod’s first attack, entitled Defensio Capitis Quinti Maris Liberi Oppugnati a Gulielmo Welwodo Juris Civilis Professore, Capite XXVII ejus Libri Scripti Anglica Sermone cui Titulum Fecit Compendium Legum Maritimarum. It was discovered at the same time as the commentary De Jure Praedae and was published in 1872 in Muller’s Mare Clausum, Bijdrage tot de geschiedenis der rivaliteit van Engeland en Nederland in de zeventiende eeuw.