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:
“_Let others better mould the running mass Of metals_,” etc.[3]
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Hoc igitur qui tollunt, illam laudatissimam tollunt humani generis societatem, tollunt mutuas benefaciendi occasiones, naturam denique ipsam violant. Nam et ille quem Deus terris circumfudit Oceanus, undique et undique versus navigabilis, et ventorum stati aut extraordinarii flatus, non ab eadem semper, et a nulla non aliquando regione spirantes, nonne significant satis concessum a natura cunctis gentibus ad cunctas aditum? Hoc Seneca[4a] summum Naturae beneficium putat, quod et vento gentes locis dissipatas miscuit, et sua omnia in regiones ita descripsit, ut necessarium mortalibus esset inter ipsos commercium. Hoc igitur ius ad cunctas gentes aequaliter pertinet: quod clarissimi Iurisconsulti[5a] eo usque producunt, ut negent ullam rempublicam aut Principem prohibere in universum posse, quo minus alii ad subditos suos accedant, et cum illis negotientur. Hinc ius descendit hospitale sanctissimum: hinc querelae:
_Quod genus hoc hominum? quaeve hunc tam barbara morem Permittit patria? hospitio prohibemur harenae._[6a]
Et alibi
_litusque rogamus Innocuum et cunctis undamque auramque patentem._[7a]
Et scimus bella quaedam ex hac causa coepisse, ut Megarensibus
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Those therefore who deny this law, destroy this most praise-worthy 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[4] 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[5] 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._”[6]
And:
“_To beg what you without your want may spare-- The common water, and the common air._”[7]
We know that certain wars have arisen over this very matter; such for example as the war of the Megarians against the
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in Athenienses.[8a] Bononiensibus in. Venetos,[9a] Castellanis etiam in Americanos has iustas potuisse belli causas esse, et ceteris probabiliores Victoria putat,[10a] si peregrinari et degere apud illos prohiberentur, si arcerentur a participatione earum rerum quae iure gentium aut moribus communia sunt, si denique ad commercia non admitterentur.
Cui simile est quod in Mosis[11a] historia et inde apud Augustinum legimus,[12a] iusta bella Israelitas contra Amorrhaeos gessisse, quia innoxius transitus denegabatur; qui IVRE HVMANAE SOCIETATIS aequissimo patere debebat. Et hoc nomine Hercules Orchomeniorum, Graeci sub Agamemnone Mysorum Regi arma intulerunt,[13a] quasi libera essent naturaliter itinera, ut Baldus dixit.[14a] Accusanturque
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Athenians,[8] and that of the Bolognese against the Venetians.[9] Again, Victoria[10] 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,[11] which we find mentioned also in the writings of Augustine,[12] 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[13] on the ground that, as Baldus[14] has said, high roads were free
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a Germanis apud Tacitum[15a] Romani, quod colloquia congressusque gentium arcerent, fluminaque et terras et coelum quodam modo ipsum clauderent. Nec ullus titulus Christianis quondam in Saracenos magis placuit, quam quod per illos terrae Iudaeae aditu arcerentur.[16a]
Sequitur ex sententia Lusitanos etiamsi domini essent earum regionum ad quas Batavi proficiscuntur, iniuriam tamen facturos si aditum Batavis et mercatum praecluderent.
Quanto igitur iniquius est volentes aliquos a volentium populorum commercio secludi, illorum opera quorum in potestate nec populi isti sunt, nec illud ipsum, qua iter est, quando latrones etiam et piratas non alio magis nomine detestamur, quam quod illi hominum inter se commeatus obsident atque infestant?
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by nature. Again, as we read in Tacitus,[15] 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.[16]
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?
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CAPUT II
_Lusitanos nullum habere ius dominii in eos Indos ad quos Batavi navigant titulo inventionis_
Non esse autem Lusitanos earum partium dominos ad quas Batavi accedunt, puta Iavae, Taprobanae, partis maximae Moluccarum, certissimo argumento colligimus, quia dominus nemo est eius rei quam nec ipse umquam nec alter ipsius nomine possedit. Habent insulae istae quas dicimus et semper habuerunt suos reges, suam rempublican, suas leges, sua iura; Lusitanis mercatus, ut aliis gentibus conceditur; itaque et tributa cum pendunt, et ius mercandi a principibus exorant, dominos se non esse, sed ut externos advenire satis testantur; ne habitant quidem nisi precario. Et quamquam ad dominium titulus non sufficiat, quia et possessio requiritur, cum aliud sit rem habere, aliud ius ad rem consequendam, tamen ne titulum quidem dominii in eas partes Lusitanis ullum esse affirmo, quem non ipsis eripuerit Doctorum, et quidem Hispanorum sententia.
Primum si dicent inventionis praemio eas terras sibi cessisse, nec ius, nec verum dicent. Invenire enim non illud est oculis usurpare, sed apprehendere, ut Gordiani epistola
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