or mixed up with a form of words meaning something
different. The expression ‘Command of the
sea,’ however, in its proper and strategic sense,
is so firmly fixed in the language that it would be
a hopeless task to try to expel it; and as, no doubt,
writers will continue to use it, it must be explained
and illustrated. Not only does it differ in meaning
from ‘Dominion or Sovereignty of the sea,’
it is not even truly derived therefrom, as can be
briefly shown. ’It has become an uncontested
principle of modern international law that the sea,
as a general rule, cannot be subjected to appropriation.’[51]
This, however, is quite modern. We ourselves did
not admit the principle till 1805; the Russians did
not admit it till 1824; and the Americans, and then
only tacitly, not till 1894. Most European nations
at some time or other have claimed and have exercised
rights over some part of the sea, though far outside
the now well-recognised ‘three miles’ limit.’
Venice claimed the Adriatic, and exacted a heavy toll
from vessels navigating its northern waters.
Genoa and France each claimed portions of the western
Mediterranean. Denmark and Sweden claimed to share
the Baltic between them. Spain claimed dominion
over the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico, and Portugal
over the Indian Ocean and all the Atlantic south of
Morocco.[52] The claim which has made the greatest
noise in the world is that once maintained by the
kings of England to the seas surrounding the British
Isles. Like other institutions, the English sovereignty
of the sea was, and was admitted to be, beneficent
for a long period. Then came the time when it
ought to have been abandoned as obsolete; but it was
not, and so it led to war. The general conviction
of the maritime nations was that the Lord of the Sea
would provide for the police of the waters over which
he exercised dominion. In rude ages when men,
like the ancients, readily ‘turned themselves
to piracy,’ this was of immense importance to
trade; and, far from the right of dominion being disputed
by foreigners, it was insisted upon by them and declared
to carry with it certain duties. In 1299, not
only English merchants, but also ’the maritime
people of Genoa, Catalonia, Spain, Germany, Zealand,
Holland, Frisia, Denmark, Norway, and several other
places of the empire’ declared that the kings
of England had from time immemorial been in ’peaceable
possession of the sovereign lordship of the sea of
England,’ and had done what was ’needful
for the maintenance of peace, right, and equity between
people of all sorts, whether subjects of another kingdom
or not, who pass through those seas.’[53] The
English sovereignty was not exercised as giving authority
to exact toll. All that was demanded in return
for keeping the sea safe for peaceful traffic was
a salute, enforced no doubt as a formal admission
of the right which permitted the (on the whole, at
any rate) effective police of the waters to be maintained.
The Dutch in the seventeenth century objected to the