HARPER'S
Monthly Magazine
Freedom of the Seas
BY JOHN BASSETT MOORE, LL.D.
Professor of International Law and Diplomacy, Columbia University
IN maintaining the right of neutrals freely to navigate the ocean in pursuit of innocent commerce, the early statesmen of America, while sustaining a predominant national interest, gave their support to a cause from the eventual triumph of which the whole world was to derive an incalculable benefit. But it was not in time of war alone that commerce was exposed to attacks at sea. Although the exorbitant pretensions of the sixteenth century, by which the navigation even of the Atlantic and the Pacific was assumed to be susceptible of engrossment, had, before the end of the eighteenth, fallen into desuetude, much remained to be accomplished before the exhibition of an acknowledged national flag would assure to the peaceful mariner an unmolested passage. Ere this great end could be attained it was necessary that various exaggerated claims of dominion over adjacent seas should be denied and overcome, that the "right of search" should be resisted and abandoned, and that piracy should be extirpated.
In placing the danger from "water thieves" before the peril of "waters, winds, and rocks," Shylock described a condition of things that long survived his own times. At the close of the eighteenth century a merchantman built for long voyages still differed little in armament from a man-of-war. Whether it rounded the Horn or the Cape of Good Hope, it was exposed to the depredations of ferocious and well-armed marauders, and if it passed through the Straits of Gibraltar it was forced to encounter maritime blackmail in its most systematic and most authoritative form. On the African coast of the Mediterranean lay the Barbary powers—the empire of Morocco and the regencies of Tunis, Tripoli, and Algiers—which had for generations subsisted by depredations on commerce. In this way they had won the opprobrious title of "piratical states," but they wore it with a pampered and supercilious dignity. Even in the exchange of courtesies they exhibited a haughty parsimony, exacting from the foreign man-of-war the generous requital of a barrel of powder for every gun with which they returned its salute. They had every reason to know that their power was understood and dreaded. In their navies might be found the products of the ship-building skill of England, France, Spain, and Venice. In war civilized powers did not always disdain to make use of their aid. Their mode of life was diplomatically recognized, and to some extent connived at. It was regulated by a simple formula. While disdaining the part of common pirates, such as plundered vessels indiscriminately, they professed themselves at war with all who refused to pay them tribute; and they took good care to make
Copyright, 1904, by Harper and Brothers. All rights reserved
