force of Welwod's attack as to prepare a defence,[1] in which he deals more particularly with the question of fishery rights, which was also Welwod's particular concern, and denies, in a more absolute sense than in his earlier work or in his later, a title to sovereignty or property in any part whatsoever of the sea. The Defensio was not published, probably because it was thought to be unwise to add to the resentment felt by James I at any questioning of his rights.[2] A sympathetic appraiser of Grotius has recently described it as 'a rather disappointing and unconvincing answer'[3] to Welwod.
In 1615, two years after the publication of the Abridgement, Welwod published a Latin work on the Sovereignty of the Sea.[4] This work, De Dominio Maris, consisting of about seven thousand words, is described by him as being brief[5] and methodical. It is certainly well planned, and not too narrowly, for its immediate object—that of opposing the freedom wrongfully usurped by foreigners of fishing in the British
- ↑ Defensio Capitis Quintt Maris Liberi Oppugnati a Gulielmo Welwodo Iuris Civilis Professore, Capite XXVII eius Libri Scriptt Anglica Sermone cui Titulum Fecit Compendium Legum Maritimarum. The manuscript was discovered at the same time as the De Iure Praedae, and published in 1872. See Magoffin, The Freedom of the Seas (1916), p. ix (Introductory Note by James Brown Scott); Vreeland, Hugo Grotius (1917), pp. 56–7; and Fulton (1911), pp. 356–7.
- ↑ Fulton, pp. 152–3 and 346–7, and references in foot-notes.
- ↑ Vreeland, p. 57.
- ↑ De Dominio Maris, Iuribusque ad Dominium praectpue spectantibus Assertio brevis et methodica. Cosmopoli, 16. Calend. Ianuar. 1615. 8vo, pp. vi + 28.
- ↑ 'Lectori Aequiori. Mirabere fortè tantulum de re tanta compendium: sed hunc agendi modum, ut mihi ingenitum, sic tibi veritatiq́; consultiorem putavi: Tibi quidem brevitate, sed perspicua: veritati vero simplicitate genuina, qua quum amicitur, tum & armatur & ornatur. Eam itaque ad eum modum tibi exhibeo, boni consule ac benè vale.'
