[661] Brit. Mus. Add. MSS., 17,677, O, fol. 367. Joachimi to the States-General, 5/15 Aug. 1635. “Het boeck Seldeni getituleert, soo ich hoore, mare clausum, is onder den druck deur ordre van den Coningh.”
[662] Joannis Seldeni Mare Clausum seu de Dominio Maris, Libri Duo. Primo, Mare, ex Jure Naturæ seu Gentium, omnium hominum non esse Commune, sed Dominii privata seu Proprietatis capax, pariter ac Tellurem, esse demonstratur. Secundo, Serenissimum Magnæ Britanniæ Regem Maris circumflui, ut individuæ atque perpetuæ Imperii Britannici appendicis, Dominum esse, asseritur. Pontus quoque Serviet Illi. Londini, excudebat Will. Stanesbeius, pro Richardo Meighen, MDCXXXV. The Preface is dated at the Temple, 4th November 1635.
[663] Vindiciæ, “proceres apud regem præpollentes.”
[664] Proclamation, 15th April 1636.
[665] Rushworth, Historical Collections, ii. 320. Frankland, The Annals of King James and King Charles the First, 476. In the Exchequer Order Book, under date 5th May, the following entry occurs: “Whereas Sr William Beecher, Kt, one of the clerks of his Mats most honorable pryvy councill, did this daye deliver in Court to the Lord Treasurer, Chauncillor, and Barons of the Courte, a booke lately published by John Selden, Esqr., entituled Mare Clausum seu de dominio maris, to be kept in this Courte as a faithfull and stronge evidence for the undoubted right of the Crowne of England to the Dominion of the Bryttishe seas, which saide booke the said Clerke of the Councill did deliver according to an order in that behalfe made by the King’s most excellent Matie and the Lords of His Highness privy councell at Whitehall, the third of Aprill last past, a coppie of which said order is alsoe delivered with the said booke: It is, therefore, nowe ordered by the said Lord Treasurer, Chauncillor, and Barons that the said booke bee receaved by his Maties Remembrancer of this Courte, and by him kypt of record amonge the Records of the Courte as his Maties evidence. And as well the said order of the third of Aprill before mentioned as this present order to bee inrolled upon Record.” Charles I. Decrees and Orders, Series iii., No. 19, fol. 3b.
[666] Besides the Romans and the Carthaginians, he mentions as among these the Cretans, Lydians, Thracians, Phœnicians, Egyptians, Lacedemonians, and a great many more; but in most cases the evidence adduced shows merely that naval power was exercised.
[667] Lib. i. cap. xvii.
[668] Lib. i. cap. xx. “Quod ad genus primum attinet (commerce, travelling, navigation); humanitatis quidem officia exigunt, ut hospitio excipiantur peregrini etiam ut innoxius non negetur transitus.”
[669] Lib. i. cap. xxii. “Sed vero ex aliorum piscatione, navigatione, commerciis ipsum mare deterius Domino cæterisque ejus jure gaudentibus fieri non raro videmus. Scilicet minui, quod alias inde percipi posset, commodum. Quod manifestius cernitur in marium usu, quorum fructus sunt uniones, corallium, id genus cætera. Etiam minuitur in horas marium hujusmodi abundantia, non aliter ac sive metalli fodinarum ac lapicidinarum, sive hortorum, quando fructus eorum auferuntur.... Et similis sane ratio qualiscunque piscationis.”
[670] Lib. ii. cap. xiii.