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• Introductory Note
• Translator’s Preface
• Ad Principes Popvlosqve Liberos Orbis Christiani
• Capvt I: Iure Gentium Quibusvis Ad Quosvis Liberam Esse Navigationem
• Capvt II: Lusitanos Nullum Habere Ius Dominii In Eos Indos Ad Quos Batavi Navigant Titulo Inventionis
• Capvt III: Lusitanos In Indos Non Habere Ius Dominii Titulo Donationis Pontificiae
• Capvt IV: Lusitanos In Indos Non Habere Ius Dominii Titulo Belli
• Capvt V: Mare Ad Indos Aut Ius Eo Navigandi Non Esse Proprium Lusitanorum Titulo Occupationis
• Capvt VI: Mare Aut Ius Navigandi Proprium Non Esse Lusitanorum Titulo Donationis Pontificiae
• Capvt VII: Mare Aut Ius Navigandi Proprium Non Esse Lusitanorum Titulo Praescriptionis Aut Consuetudinis
• Capvt VIII: Iure Gentium Inter Quosvis Liberam Esse Mercaturam
• Capvt IX: Mercaturam Cum Indis Propriam Non Esse Lusitanorum Titulo Occupationis
• Capvt X: Mercaturam Cum Indis Propriam Non Esse Lusitanorum Titulo Donationis Pontificiae
• Capvt XI: Mercaturam Cum Indis Non Esse Lusitanorum Propriam Iure Praescriptionis Aut Consuetudinis
• Capvt XII: Nulla Aequitate Niti Lusitanos In Prohibendo Commercio
• Capvt XIII: Batavis Ius Commercii Indicani Qua Pace, Qua Indutiis, Qua Bello Retinendum
• Cvm Svb Hoc Tempvs Plvrimae Regis Hispaniarvm Litterae In Manvs Nostras Venissent, Qvibvs Ipsivs Et Lvsitanorvm Institvtvm Manifeste Detegitvr, Operae Pretivm Visvm Est Ex Iis, Qvae Pleraeqve Eodem Erant Argvmento, Binas In Latinvm Sermonem Translatas Exh
• To the Rulers and to the Free and Independent Nations of Christendom
• Chapter I: By the Law of Nations Navigation Is Free to All Persons Whatsoever
• Chapter II: The Portuguese Have No Right By Title of Discovery to Sovereignty Over the East Indies to Which the Dutch Make Voyages
• Chapter III: The Portuguese Have No Right of Sovereignty Over the East Indies By Virtue of Title Based On the Papal Donation
• Chapter IV: The Portuguese Have No Right of Sovereignty Over the East Indies By Title of War
• Chapter V: Neither the Indian Ocean Nor the Right of Navigation Thereon Belongs to the Portuguese By Title of Occupation
• Chapter VI: Neither the Sea Nor the Right of Navigation Thereon Belongs to the Portuguese By Virtue of Title Based On the Papal Donation
• Chapter VII: Neither the Sea Nor the Right of Navigation Thereon Belongs to the Portuguese By Title of Prescription Or Custom
• Chapter VIII: By the Law of Nations Trade Is Free to All Persons Whatsoever
• Chapter IX: Trade With the East Indies Does Not Belong to the Portuguese By Title of Occupation
• Chapter X: Trade With the East Indies Does Not Belong to the Portuguese By Virtue of Title Based On the Papal Donation
• Chapter XI: Trade With the East Indies Does Not Belong to the Portuguese By Title of Prescription Or Custom
• Chapter XII: The Portuguese Prohibition of Trade Has No Foundation In Equity
• Chapter XIII: The Dutch Must Maintain Their Right of Trade With the East Indies By Peace, By Treaty, Or By War
• Appendix Two Letters of Philip Iii, King of Spain
• Letter I
• Letter Ii

CHAPTER I

By the Law of Nations navigation is free to all persons whatsoever

My intention is to demonstrate briefly and clearly that the Dutch—that is to say, the subjects of the United Netherlands—have the right to sail to the East Indies, as they are now doing, and to engage in trade with the people there. I shall base my argument on the following most specific and unimpeachable axiom of the Law of Nations, called a primary rule or first principle, the spirit of which is self-evident and immutable, to wit: Every nation is free to travel to every other nation, and to trade with it.

God Himself says this speaking through the voice of nature; and inasmuch as it is not His will to have Nature supply every place with all the necessaries of life, He ordains that some nations excel in one art and others in another. Why is this His will, except it be that He wished human friendships to be engendered by mutual needs and resources, lest individuals deeming themselves entirely sufficient unto themselves should for that very reason be rendered unsociable? So by the decree of divine justice it was brought about that one people should supply the needs of another, in order, as Pliny the Roman writer says, 1 that in this way, whatever has been produced anywhere should seem to have been destined for all. Vergil also sings in this wise:

• “Not every plant on every soil will grow,” 2

and in another place:

Those therefore who deny this law, destroy this most praiseworthy bond of human fellowship, remove the opportunities for doing mutual service, in a word do violence to Nature herself. For do not the ocean, navigable in every direction with which God has encompassed all the earth, and the regular and the occasional winds which blow now from one quarter and now from another, offer sufficient proof that Nature has given to all peoples a right of access to all other peoples? Seneca 1 thinks this is Nature’s greatest service, that by the wind she united the widely scattered peoples, and yet did so distribute all her products over the earth that commercial intercourse was a necessity to mankind. Therefore this right belongs equally to all nations. Indeed the most famous jurists 2 extend its application so far as to deny that any state or any ruler can debar foreigners from having access to their subjects and trading with them. Hence is derived that law of hospitality which is of the highest sanctity; hence the complaint of the poet Vergil:

• “What men, what monsters, what inhuman race,
• What laws, what barbarous customs of the place,
• Shut up a desert shore to drowning men,
• And drive us to the cruel seas again.” 3

And:

• “To beg what you without your want may spare—
• The common water, and the common air.” 4

We know that certain wars have arisen over this very matter; such for example as the war of the Megarians against the Athenians, 1 and that of the Bolognese against the Venetians. 2 Again, Victoria 3 holds that the Spaniards could have shown just reasons for making war upon the Aztecs and the Indians in America, more plausible reasons certainly than were alleged, if they really were prevented from traveling or sojourning among those peoples, and were denied the right to share in those things which by the Law of Nations or by Custom are common to all, and finally if they were debarred from trade.

We read of a similar case in the history of Moses, 4 which we find mentioned also in the writings of Augustine, 5 where the Israelites justly smote with the edge of the sword the Amorites because they had denied the Israelites an innocent passage through their territory, a right which according to the Law of Human Society ought in all justice to have been allowed. In defense of this principle Hercules attacked the king of Orchomenus in Boeotia; and the Greeks under their leader Agamemnon waged war against the king of Mysia 6 on the ground that, as Baldus 7 has said, high roads were free by nature. Again, as we read in Tacitus, 1 the Germans accused the Romans of ‘preventing all intercourse between them and of closing up to them the rivers and roads, and almost the very air of heaven’. When in days gone by the Christians made crusades against the Saracens, no other pretext was so welcome or so plausible as that they were denied by the infidels free access to the Holy Land. 2

It follows therefore that the Portuguese, even if they had been sovereigns in those parts to which the Dutch make voyages, would nevertheless be doing them an injury if they should forbid them access to those places and from trading there.

Is it not then an incalculably greater injury for nations which desire reciprocal commercial relations to be debarred therefrom by the acts of those who are sovereigns neither of the nations interested, nor of the element over which their connecting high road runs? Is not that the very cause which for the most part prompts us to execrate robbers and pirates, namely, that they beset and infest our trade routes?

[1 ]Panegyric 29, 2.

[2 ]Georgics II, 109 [Dryden’s translation, II, 154].

[3 ]Aeneid VI, 847–853 [Dryden’s translation, VI, 1168–1169].

[1 ]Natural Questions III, IV.

[2 ]Institutes II, 1; Digest I, 8, 4; cf. Gentilis, De jure belli I, 19; cf. Code IV, 63, 4 [Grotius refers particularly to his famous predecessor Albericus Gentilis (1552–1608), an Italian who came to England and was appointed to the chair of Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford. He published his De Jure Belli in 1558].

[3 ]Aeneid I, 539–540 [Dryden’s translation, I, 760–763].

[4 ]Aeneid VII, 229–230 [Dryden’s translation, VII, 313–314].

[1 ]Diodorus Siculus XI; Plutarch, Pericles XXIX, 4. [The Athenian decree prohibiting the Megarians from trading with Athens or any part of the Athenian Empire was one of the leading causes of the Peloponnesian War.]

[2 ]Carlo Sigonio [(1523–1584), an Italian humanist, in his work] On the Kingdom of Italy.

[3 ]Victoria, De Indis II, n. 1–7; Covarruvias, in c. Peccatum, § 9, n. 4, ibi Quinta [Franciscus de Victoria (1480–1546), the famous Spanish Scholastic, a Dominican, and Professor of Theology at Salamanca from 1521 until his death. His thirteen Relectiones (De Indis is no. V) were published (‘vitiosa et corrupta’) in 1557 after his death; the 1686 Cologne edition is held to be the best.

Diego Covarruvias (1512–1577), styled the Bartolo of Spain. He should probably be credited with formulating the reform decrees of the Council of Trent. The 5 vol. Antwerp 1762 edition of his works is the best.]

[4 ]Numbers XXI, 21–26.

[5 ]Locutionum IV (on Numbers), 44; Estius, c. ult. 23, 4, 2 [Estius (?-1613) was a Dutch commentator on the Epistles of St. Paul and on the works of St. Augustine].

[6 ][Grotius refers to the Trachiniae of Sophocles, but probably from memory, for there is no such reference in that play.]

[7 ]Baldus de Ubaldis, Consilia III, 293 [Baldus (1327–1406) was a pupil of the great Bartolus].

[1 ]Histories IV, 64 [In connection with the revolt of Civilis].

[2 ]Andrea Alciati, Commentaria VII, 130; Covarruvias in c. Peccatum, p. 2 § 9; Bartolus on Code I, 11 [Alciati (1492–1550) was made Comes Palatinus by the Emperor Charles V, and offered a Cardinal’s hat by Pope Paul III, which he refused, but he did become a Protonotarius Apostolicus].