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 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 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 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 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.