range of mind, whose great work, De Iure Belli ac Pacis, was published eight years after the first draft of Mare Clausum had been ready, and ten years before the publication of the completed work in 1635, with a dedication to Charles I. Selden's tribute is an honourable one, coming, as it does, from the author of one of the most learned works written by Englishmen, and coming from him at a critical point in a battle of books, of principles, and of the claims of rival peoples.
No exposition of Mare Clausum is necessary here. The book is not rare. It has been translated into English.[1] Its substance has been presented in convenient compass by more than one writer.[2]
The work of the other English writer of distinction on this subject in the reign of Charles I was finished in 1633—two years before Selden's book appeared; but it was not published till eighteen years later—in 1651, eight years after the author's death. The original version was in Latin;[3] the book published
- ↑ By Marchamont Needham, 1652. On April 15, 1636, the King in Council required that 'no person whatsoever, do, or shall import, publish, set to sale' any copies of a 'foreign edition, either in Latin or English', that had been issued, 'except only such as have, or shall be licensed by the Laws and Customs of this Realm'. Rushworth, ii, pp. 320, 321. This action was called for inasmuch as 'some have caused the said book to be printed in some place beyond the seas'—in Holland, where three editions were published within a year of its first publication in England.
- ↑ See, especially, Fulton, pp. 369–74.
- ↑ The title is Dominium Maris Britannict assertum ex Archiuis Historiis
'Batavus, Fiscalis olim advocatus Hollandiae, Zelandiae, & Westfrisiae, aliisque honoribus patriis meretissimo auctus, vir acuminis & omnigenae doctrinae praestantia incomparabilis.' Again, in c. xxvi 'Virum ingentis eruditionis, & rerum humanarum divinarumque scientissimum, Hugonem Grotium; cuius nomen passim in ore hominum arripitur ut naturali & perpetuae Maris communione mire patrocinantis.' Mare Clausum has a number of quotations from Grotius's De Iure Belli ac Pacis as well as from Mare Liberum. Before 1635 the reputation of Grotius was high and far-reaching.
