Note 618 — Chapter IX · THE JURIDICAL CONTROVERSIES.

“Ante annos aliquot, cum viderem ingentis esse momenti ad patriæ securitatem Indiæ quæ Orientalis dicitur commercium, id vero commercium satis appareret obsistentibus per vim atque insidias Lusitanis sine armis retineri non posse, operam dedi ut ad tuenda fortiter quæ tam feliciter cœpissent nostrorum animos inflammarem, proposita ob oculos causæ ipsius iustitia et æquitate, unde nasci το ἑυελπι recte a ueteribus traditum existimabam. Igitur et universa belli prædæque iura, et historiam eorum quæ Lusitani in nostros sæue atque crudeliter perpetrassent, multaque alia ad hoc argumentum pertinentia eram persecutus amplo satis commentario, quem edere hactenus supersedi.” Hugonis Grotii Defensio Capitis quinti Maris liberi oppugnati a Gulielmo Welwodo Iuris Civilis professore capite XXVII. eius libri scripti Anglico sermone cui titulum fecit Compendium legum Maritimaram. This manuscript of Grotius was discovered in 1864, along with the work De Jure Prædæ, to which he refers, in a collection of MSS. brought to auction, which belonged to the family of Cornets de Groot of Bergen-op-Zoom, who had descended in a direct line from the great publicist (Fruin, op. cit.) It was printed by Muller in 1872 (Mare Clausum, p. 331). The greater work, edited by Hamaker, was published in 1868, Hugo Grotius de Jure Prædæ Commentarius.