. . .As a matter of fact, as[26] has been shown by the late Professor Robert Fruin[13], the Mare Liberum was originally a chapter of a larger unpublished work of Grotius, written to prove that the Portuguese had no exclusive rights in the Indian Ocean but that the Eastern seas and all others were open to the traders of every nation. The most burning question in the negotiations for the twelve years' truce, then just drawing to a close, had been that of the liberty to trade in the Indies, demanded with insistence by the Dutch, refused up to the very last peremptorily by the Spanish King, and conceded by him finally not directly but by a kind of subterfuge. The Mare Liberum of Grotius saw the light at a time when it was hoped that his learned arguments might tend to allay the acuteness of the dispute by showing the reasonableness and legality of the position taken up by the Dutch. It is clear now that these arguments, though their application was general, had their special r. . . Read More