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• Introduction
• Note On the Text
• Acknowledgments
• Commentary On the Law of Prize and Booty
• Chapter I[2]: Introductory Remarks—outline [ of the Case ] —divisions [ of the Discussion ] —method—order
• Chapter II: Prolegomena, Including Nine Rules and Thirteen Laws 1
• Chapter III: Question I
• Chapter IV: Question Ii
• Chapter V: Question III. What Seizures of Prize Or Booty Are Just?
• Chapter VI: Concerning the Efficient Cause of War
• Chapter VII: Concerning the Subject-matter of War For What Cause and In What Circumstances Is War Justly Waged?
• Chapter VIII: Concerning the Forms to Be Followed In Undertaking and Waging War
• Chapter IX: Concerning the Aims of War
• Chapter X: Question IX. By Whom May Prize Or Booty Be Acquired?
• Chapter Xi 1
• Chapter XII: Wherein It Is Shown That Even If the War Were a Private War, It Would Be Just, and the Prize Would Be Justly Acquired By the Dutch East India Company; and Wherein, Too, the Following Theses Are Presented:
• Chapter Xiii[128]: Wherein It Is Shown That the War Is Just, and That the Prize In Question Was Justly Acquired By the Company, In the Public Cause of the Fatherland
• Chapter Xiv
• Part I.: The Seizure of the Prize In Question Was Honourable
• Part II.: It Is Honourable to Retain Possession of the Prize In Question
• Chapter Xv
• Part I.: The Seizure of the Prize In Question Was Beneficial
• Part II.: Retention of Possession of the Said Prize Is Beneficial
• Epilogue
• Appendix A: Table of Rules and Laws Compiled From Chapter Ii of the Commentary
• Appendixes to the Liberty Fund Edition
• Appendix I: Documents Listed By Grotius At the End of the Manuscript
• Appendix II: Archival Documents Relating to De Jure Praedae Translated By Martine J. Van Ittersum
• Suggestions For Further Reading

The Liberty Fund edition of De Jure Praedae reproduces her translation, which first appeared as part of the Classics of International Law series. In addition to Williams’s translation, we reissue appendix A of the Carnegie edition, along with the superb author and subject indexes by Walter H. Zeydel. With two exceptions we have left unchanged the editorial conventions that govern Williams’s translation of De Jure Praedae. These editorial conventions are explained in full in the Translator’s Note to the Carnegie edition1 but may be summarized as follows.

The manuscript’s folio numbers appear at the end of the relevant text line, which is a change from the Carnegie edition, where they appear in the margin. The position of the folio numbers in the text approximates that of the folios in the manuscript. They should not be considered the equivalent of modern page breaks, however. Williams was frequently obliged to reverse the Latin word order of the manuscript in order to produce a flowing English translation. A comparison with the collotype reproduction of the manuscript reveals that, in a few instances, she either forgot to include the manuscript’s folio divisions or made a mistake in doing so.2 Although Williams did make some mistakes, the sometimes erratic numbering also reflects the fact that Grotius revised the theoretical chapters numerous times.

Footnotes identified by arabic numerals have a threefold function in Williams’s translation: (1) to indicate gaps in the manuscript that may cause doubt regarding the original text, (2) to clear up questions that may arise from Grotius’s own correction of the manuscript, and (3) to comment on Grotius’s use of sources. Since Grotius’s quotations often are loose paraphrases of the originals, Williams translated these quotations on the basis of the manuscript text, not the text quoted. Any unavoidable departure from this rule is marked with a numbered footnote. If Grotius’s deviation from his source was “too striking to pass without comment,” Williams inserted a numbered footnote there as well.3 Page numbers listed in the footnotes of the Carnegie edition have been replaced with page numbers from the Liberty Fund edition. Oddly enough, Williams referred to the page numbers, instead of the folio numbers, of the collotype reproduction of the manuscript, which she consulted for her translation. This has been left unchanged.

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING

Armitage, David. “The Fifty Years’ Rift: Intellectual History and International Relations.” Modern Intellectual History 1 (2004): 97–109.

———. The Ideological Origins of the British Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Brett, Annabel S. “Natural Right and Civil Community: The Civil Philosophy of Hugo Grotius.” Historical Journal 45 (2002): 31–51.

Gelderen, Martin van. “The Challenge of Colonialism: Grotius and Vitoria on Natural Law and International Relations.” Grotiana, n.s., 14–15 (1993–94): 3–37.

Grotius, Hugo. The Free Sea, with William Welwod’s Critique and Grotius’s Reply. Translated by Richard Hakluyt. Edited by David Armitage. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2004.

———. The Rights of War and Peace. Edited by Richard Tuck. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005.

Haakonssen, Knud. “Hugo Grotius and the History of Political Thought.” Political Theory 13 (1985): 239–65.

Hugo Grotius and International Relations. Edited by Hedley Bull, Benedict Kingsbury, and Adam Roberts. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990.

Keene, Edward. Beyond the Anarchical Society: Grotius, Colonialism and Order in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Pagden, Anthony. “Human Rights, Natural Rights, and Europe’s Imperial Legacy.” Political Theory 31 (2003): 171–99.

Seed, Patricia. Ceremonies of Possession in Europe’s Conquest of the New World, 1492–1640. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Tully, James. A Discourse on Property: John Locke and His Adversaries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.

This book is set in Adobe Garamond, a modern adaptation by Robert Slimbach of the typeface originally cut around 1540 by the French typographer and printer Claude Garamond. The Garamond face, with its small lowercase height and restrained contrast between thick and thin strokes, is a classic “old-style” face and has long been one of the most influential and widely used typefaces.

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[1. ]Hugo Grotius, Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty (De Jure Praedae Commentarius), eds. Gwladys L. Williams and W. H. Zeydel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950), vol. 1: A Translation of the Original Manuscript of 1604 by Gwladys L. Williams, with the collaboration of Walter H. Zeydel, xxvii–xxx.

[2. ]Grotius, Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty, 1:258, 389.

[3. ]Ibid., 1:xxix.