Selected quad for the lemma: war_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
war_n	say_a	ship_n	vessel_n	2,929	5	10.6889	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A33599	His Majesties propriety, and dominion on the Brittish seas asserted together with a true account of the Neatherlanders insupportable insolencies, and injuries, they have committed; and the inestimable benefits they have gained in their fishing on the English seas. As also their prodigious and horrid cruelties in the East and West-Indies, and other places. To which is added an exact mapp, containing the isles of Great Britain, and Ireland, with the several coastings, and the adjacent parts of our neighbours: by an experienced hand.	Codrington, Robert, 1601-1665.; Clavell, Robert, d. 1711, attributed name.	1672 (1672)	Wing C4876B; ESTC R219456	66,598	191

give it the Title of the Adriatick Sea which evidently doth demonstrate not onely the Scite but also the Quantity of the Sea possessed and hereupon he explained himself that those who speak more precisely ought to cleer the passages of those who write more generally according to the common Precept which is that with cleer places the more obscure are to be illustrated He mentioned also the divers manner of speaking of the same Lawyers some deriving the Dominion of the Republick over the Seas from Custome some from Prescriptions others from an induced Subjection and others from a Privilege which did arise all from this Reason Because as they were most assuredly informed of the Possession and Jurisdiction of the said Sea which they both heard and saw to belong to the Common-Wealth time out of mind So they Writing on the same Subject not at the Instance or the Command of any One but of their own proper Motions and b● way of Institution only every one of them judged it most convenient to express the Title of that Jurisdiction some with one Term and some with another without coming to use the sole true proper Term as they would have done if they had been put to write for the Interest of any one in which Cases the Lawyers are alwayes conformable receiving from the Person interested the like Instructions After the Declination of the Constantinopolitan Empire the Adriatick Sea was found to be for many years abandoned in such manner as it remained unregard and without the Protection and Government of any Prince and under the Jurisdiction of none untill it came into the Power of the Venetians who to receive their lively-hood thereby were constrained to maintain it in freedom and thereupon taking it into their protection they obtained the Government and the Dominion over it In like manner How the Sea comes into the Dominion of Princes as by the Law of Nature and of Nations the Land the Sea and other things which are not under the Dominion of any other come Justly into the hands of those who first do get the possession of them by which Reason the first Empires were founded as well upon the Sea as on the Land and daily there are new ones in the same manner formed when any of them either through Age or Vice becoming weak wanteth Force and sinketh of it self The which Custody and Government of the Sea acquired the Common-Wealth of Venice hath daily advanced by the keeping of Powerful Fleets with the expence of much Treasure and the effusion of as much Blood both of their Citizens and Subjects continuing without Interruption in the sight of all the World their Dominion and Custody of the said Sea and overcoming and removing all Impediments as either by Pirates or by Potentates have at divers times been raised against them After the testimony of the Lawyers he added that of the Historians who do relate that the Common-Wealth of Venice for more then three hundred years past did receive Custom of such as sail'd that Sea and kept arm'd Vessels in a readiness to compell all such ships so sayling to go to Venice testifying moreover that even unto their present time the same custom was observed But he dwelled not much upon their Attestations saying that although they were good Testimonies of preceding Occurrences yet when we undertake to prove either the interests of Princes or of private Persons he ought to help himself by Authentick Writings and to use the Historians with great Discretion some of them being moved by Love others with Hatred and others with hopes of Preferment which constrains them oftentimes to use Flatteries or Hyperboles upon which cannot be laid any sure Foundation He therefore did produce an Act of the General Council held at Lions in the year one thousand two hundred seventy four where the Abbot of Nervesa being delegated by the Pope did Sentence that the Venetians should not be molested in the Defence and Protection of the Adriatick Sea against the Saracens and Pirats neither should they be Disturbed by any from exacting their Rights and Customs which they had of Victuals Merchandize or any other portable Commodities He added also that there remain the Registers of Licenses granted to pass their said Sea with armed Vessels or Ships of War and to the Persons and Goods belonging to their use at the request of divers Princes who had their Possessions on the shore of the Adriatick Sea But for the greater confirmation of all that had been said he remembred the yearly Ceremony used at Venice where the Duke in the presence of the Ambassadours of other Princes and more particularly of the Emperours of Germany doth constantly use to Espouse the Sea by casting a Ring of Gold into it with these words Desponsamus te Mare in signum veri perpetui Dominii We do Marry thee O Sea in sign of our true and perpetual Dominion over it Which Ceremony as many Writers do affirm had its beginning when Pope Alexander the third was in Venice notwithstand they do add withall that it was Instituted in sign of the Dominion which the Republick had formerly gotten by the Right of War At the Conclusion he produced the Letters of many Princes and Potentates who joyntly acknowledged the Truth of what he spoke two of them were from the Emperour Frederick to Giovanni Mocernigo Duke of Venice where having acquainted him of a certain quantity of Corn that was to pass through the Adriatick Sea he desireth that he may be permitted to have a free passage which will be to him a great pleasure and he shall acknowledge it with many thanks Another Letter was from Beatrice Queen of Hungary to the Duke above mentioned where having informed him that she had divers things to pass through the Adriatick Sea which could not be without his permission she desired that for Courtesies and Friendships-sake it might be granted her which she should take for a great Favour and correspond with him on the like occasion Another Letter was from Matthias King of Hungary to the Duke of Venice where relating how the Common-Wealth of Venice was accustomed every year to give License for the Transportation of a certain quantity of Corn he prayed that the same Grace might be shewed unto him and that he would acknowledge it for a Favour and correspond accordingly Thus as in a Glass you may see the Dominion of His Majesty in His Brittish Seas clearly represented asserted and fully proved by that propriety of Title and Soverainty of Power which the Duke of Venice exerciseth on the Adriatick Sea which by the manner of prescription the consent of Histories and even by the confession of their Adversaries themselves is almost the same with His Majesties of Great Brittain But His Majesty hath one Title more above all theirs which is the Title of Successive Inheritance confirmed as well by the Law of Nature as of Nations and is so much the more considerable in regard of

remain ever the same although the waters themselves do shift and change continually In the Germane Empire according to the Civil Law Rivers are all of them of Publick Use yet for all that they are reckoned in the Emperours private Patrimony Seneca Ep. 39. and amongst the Royalties belonging to his Exchequer So that the Emperour or others by his Grant have a yearly Revenue out of the Fisheries in them Neither is there any thing more common then an Asserting of the Private Dominion of Rivers in the Lawes of France Spain Poland and Venice and in a word of all Nations whose Customes are known seeing therefore that a Dominion and Propriety of Rivers hath been every where acknowledged why should it not in the like manner be acknowledged that there may be Owners of any Sea whatsoever Since the always running and flowing Nature of water can no more hinder a Dominion in the one then in the other for the Rivers themselves are but little Seas as the Sea it self to its fluide Constitution is but a River the one differing only in bignes from the other and so it hath been taken by the Antients In the very History of the Creation all the Gatherings together of the waters are called Seas Many Lakes have been called Seas Tiberias by St. Luke Luke 5.1 is called a Lake but by the other Evangelists a Sea Asphaltites is by Pliny Solinus and others termed a Lake but by Moses in the Fourteenth of Genesis the Salt Sea and by most of the late Writers the Dead Sea They indeed who make use of such frivolous subtilties as these to oppose the Dominion of the Sea deserve to be turned over to the Phylosophers Heraclitus and Epicharmus who taught that every thing is so altered changed and renewed that nothing in this World continues the same as it was in the instant immediately going before Our Bodies saith Seneca are hurried like Rivers whatsoever thou seest runneth with Time Not one of all those things that are visible continueth I even whilest I speak of these changes am changed my self But let such men as dream that the fluide Inconstant Nature of the Sea disproves the private Dominion of it entertain the same opinion if they please with these Men and then they must of necessity grant also that themselves are not Owners or Possessors of Houses Lands or Money or any other thing whatsoever As to that Argument that the water is open to All and therefore by Law it must lye open at all times to all men it is a very trifling Argument Before the first Distribution of things there was no Land which did not lye open unto All before it came under particular Possession In many places payment is made for the use of water as amongst the Hollanders they have in Delph-Land a Custome called Jus Grutae which hath ever been under the care of those Officers called in Dutch Pluymgraven whereby the Beer-Brewers are obliged to pay them the hundreth part for the use of the water Some men may here object that saying of Antonius Forcus in cap. Juris cap. 9. I am Sovereign of the World but the Law is Sovereign of the Sea The True and Genuine sense of those words is this I am Lord of the World because I Govern the World by my own Law but the Rhodian Law is the Law of the Sea because by this Law Justice is administred on the Sea therefore let this case of Eudaemon concerning Navigation be determined by the Rhodian Law so far as none of our Lawes doth oppose the same There is no man unlesse he will renounce his own Reason who will affirme that any Denial is made of the Dominion of the Sea in that Answer or that the least Tittle can be found in it against the Dominion thereof Having thus in general given you an account that almost amongst all Nations there hath been allowed a Private Dominion of the Sea we shall now come more particularly to our selves and acquaint you that the Antient Brittains did Enjoy and Possesse the Sea as Lords thereof before they were subjected to the Roman Power It is upon good ground concluded that the most Antient History whereunto any credit ought to be given about the Affaires of Brittain is not elder then the Time of Cajus Julius Caesar Seld. Marc Clausum 158. the Ages before him being too obscured with Fables but at his coming we finde many clear passages of the Brittains Dominion of the Sea flowing about them especially the South and East part thereof as a perpetual Appendant of the Sovereignty of the Island For at that time they not onely used the Sea as their own for Navigation and Fishing but also permitted none besides Merchants to sayle into the Island without their leave nor any Man at all to view or sound their Sea-Coasts or their Harbours And though at Caesars first Arrival they were Terrified with the sight of his long ships beaked with Brass or Iron and they fled to the shore and from it to the In-lands being not sufficiently provided for such a Sea-fight as was then at hand and which they never had been acquainted with yet most certain it is that they had Vessels of their own in which they used to Coast about the Neighbouring Seas And though mention is made by Writers that commonly they were framed with Twiggs as the fashion then was in the more Antient Nations and covered with Oxe-Hides yet with good ground we may conceive that they were wont to Build and set forth ships of War of a far more commodious and solid substance for the Guarding of the Seas and the Isles We read in Caesar's Commentaries De Bello Gallico lib. 9. that they were strong at Sea and it is not to be doubted but that besides their Twiggs and Leathern Vessels they had a considerable Navy which was able at pleasure to Encounter the ships of their Neighbours that were best Armed But the Southernly Parts of Great Brittain being Invaded by the Emperour Claudius and the Isle of Wight surrendred to them the Brittish Sea following the Fate of the Island was annexed with it to the Roman Empire From the Dominion of the Brittish Sea as being continually United to the Island or an Inseparable Concomitant thereof many remarquable passages have proceeded amongst those who have left unto Posterity the Atchievements of the Romans when they were Masters of this Island But when the Roman Empire was declining and they had scarce Forces enough to Guard the City it self The Brittains about the Year of our Lord Zosimus Hist lib. 6. Four Hundred and Fourscore did cast off the Roman Government and setled a Common-Wealth after their own liking In the mean time the Saxons Inhabiting the Shoar over against them had a great and greedy mind unto it who being a People extreamly given to Piracy the Romans were accustomed to appoint an Officer to drive them away called The Count of the Saxon Shore throughout Brittain