and charge of the ship is committed: which power is prescribed, partly by the owner or outreader, and partly by the common law of the sea'.[1] It treats of 'the Outreaders, or Outriggers, Furnishers, Hyrers, and of the Owners of Ships, and of actions for and against them',[2] and of 'sundry Partners of Ships, and their discords'.[3] It treats of shipwreck,[4] and of 'things found upon the Sea, or within the floud-marke'.[5] In its concluding chapter[6] it treats of shipwrights—' the forgers and framers of the instrumentall causes of all Sea-faring'.[7] who not only must furnish the materials good and sufficient, but also, 'if the furniture pertain not to them, they must refuse to take from their furnishers bad and unmeet geare and stuffe for the worke. As for example, Aller, Beech trees, and such like brickle and naughty timber for salt-water, or for the seas;'[8] and 'last of all, as Shippewrights were of old, so are they also of late, forbidden, under paine of treason, to communicate their skill and Art to enemies and barbarous people. Likewise, they are forbidden (as are also other societies of handy-crafts-men and trades-men) to conspire among themselves to enhance their wages, or hire, or receive excessive wages'.[9] They are the author's closing words.
Of the thirty chapters of this book of Welwod only one bears directly on the Sovereignty of the Sea. But the chapter[10] is by much the most substantial and the most distinguished of the book. It gives clear evidence that the author was deeply absorbed in 1613 or earlier in considering a question which, two years later, was to call forth from his pen a work exclusively devoted to the subject. The title of the chapter is 'Of the Community and Propriety of the Seas'. The opening words
