There has been published in Italian a book called Consolato del Mare, in which have been collected the edicts of the emperors of Greece and Germany, and of the kings of France, Spain, Syria, and Cyprus; also those of the Balearic Isles, the Venetians and the Genoese. In title [cclxxvi] of that book, questions of the kind under consideration are discussed, and the following principles stated:

In Holland, in the year 1438, when the Dutch were at war with Lübeck and other cities on the Baltic and the Elbe, in a full meeting of the senate it was decided that merchandise clearly belonging to others, even if it were found in vessels of enemies, did not form part of the booty; and since then this has been recognised as the law there. This was also the view of the king of Denmark, when, in 1597, he sent an embassy to the Dutch and their allies to claim for his subjects freedom of navigation and of carrying merchandise to Spain, with which the Dutch were waging a very bitter war.