1916 COPYRIGHT 1916 BY THE CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE WASHINGTON, D. C. THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS RAHWAY, N. J. INTRODUCTORY NOTE Since the month of August, 1914, the expression “Freedom of the Seas” has been on the lips alike of belligerent and neutral, and it seems as advisable as it is timely to issue--for the first time in English--the famous Latin tractate of Grotius proclaiming, explaining, and in no small measure making the “freedom of the seas.”[A] The title of the little book, first published, anonymously, in November, 1608, explains the reason for its composition: “The Freedom of the Seas, or the Right which belongs to the Dutch to take part in the East Indian trade.” It was an open secret that it was written by the young Dutch scholar and lawyer, Hugo Grotius. It was a secret and remained a secret until 1868 that the _Mare Liberum_ was none other than Chapter XII of the treatise _De Jure Praedae_, written by Grotius in the winter of 1604-5, which first came to light in 1864 and was given to the world four years later.[B] The publication of the treatise on the law of prize is important as showing that the author of the _Mare Liberum_ was already an accomplished international lawyer, and it proves beyond peradventure that the masterpiece of 1625 on the “Law of War and Peace” was not a hurried production, but the culmination of study and reflection extending over twenty years and more. More important still is the fact that neither the law of prize nor the _Mare Liberum_ was a philosophic exercise, for it appears that Grotius had been retained by the Dutch East India Company to justify the capture by one of its ships of a Portuguese galleon in the straits of Malacca in the year 1602; that the treatise on the law of prize, of which the _Mare Liberum_ is a chapter, was in the nature of a brief; and that the first systematic treatise on the law of nations--The Law of War and Peace--was not merely a philosophical disquisition, but that it was the direct outgrowth of an actual case and of professional employment.[C]