The freedom of the seas : $b or, The right which belongs to the Dutch to take part in the East Indian trade — John Shaqi
The freedom of the seas : $b or, The right which belongs to the Dutch to take part in the East Indian tradeGrotius, Hugo
Philosophy
The freedom of the seas : $b or, The right which belongs to the Dutch to take part in the East Indian trade
Grotius, Hugo
Freedom of the seas; Law of the sea
Olim autem hanc navigationem Gaditanis percognitam fuisse, multa
argumento sunt. Caio Caesare Augusti filio in Arabico sinu res
gerente signa navium ex Hispaniensibus naufragiis agnita. Et quod
Caelius Antipater tradidit, vidisse se qui ex Hispania in Aethiopiam
commercii gratia navigasset. Etiam Arabibus, si verum est, quod
Cornelius Nepos testatus est, Eudoxum quendam sua aetate cum Lathyrum
Regem Alexandriae fugeret, Arabico sinu egressum Gades usque
pervectum. Poenos autem, qui re maritima plurimum valuerunt, eum
Oceanum non ignorasse longe clarissimum est, cum Hanno Carthaginis
potentia florente circumvectus a Gadibus ad finem Arabiae,
praeternavigato scilicet promontorio quod nunc Bonae Spei dicitur,
(vetus videtur nomen Hesperion ceras fuisse) omne id iter, situmque
litoris et insularum scripto complexus sit, testatusque ad ultimum
non mare sibi, sed commeatum defuisse.
Ab Arabico autem sinu ad Indiam, Indicique Oceani insulas, et auream
usque Chersonesum, quam esse Iapanem credunt plerique, etiam re
Romana florente navigari solitum, iter a Plinio descriptum,[104a]
legationes ab Indis ad
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is not a single person in the world who does not know that a ship
sailing through the sea leaves behind it no more legal right than it
does a track. And as for the assumption of the Portuguese that no one
has sailed that ocean before themselves, that is anything but true.
For a great part of that sea near Morocco, which is in dispute, had
already been navigated long before, and the sea as far east as the
Arabian gulf has been made famous by the victories of Alexander the
Great, as both Pliny and Mela tell us.[103]
There is also much to substantiate the belief that the inhabitants
of Cadiz were well acquainted long ago with this route, because when
Gaius Caesar,* the son of Augustus, held command in the Arabian
gulf, pieces were found of shipwrecks recognized as Spanish. Caelius
Antipater also has told us in his writings that he himself saw a
Spaniard who had sailed from Spain to Ethiopia on a commercial
voyage. Also the Arabians knew those seas, if the testimony of
Cornelius Nepos is to be believed, because he says that in his own
day a certain Eudoxus, fleeing from Lathyrus, king of Alexandria,
sailed from the Arabian gulf and finally reached Cadiz. However, by
far the most famous example is that of the Carthaginians. Those most
famous mariners were well acquainted with that sea, because Hanno,
when Carthage was at the height of her power, sailing from Cadiz
to the farthest confines of Arabia, and doubling the promontory
now known as the Cape of Good Hope (the ancient name seems to have
been Hesperion Ceras), described in a book the entire route he had
taken, the appearance of the coasts, and the location of the islands,
declaring that at the farthest point he reached the sea had not yet
given out but his provisions had.
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