Page:Diplomacy and the Study of International Relations (1919).djvu/142

 is an allusion, at once modest and critical, in his better-known book, An Abridgement of all Sea-Lawes, which was first published in 1613, and again, with slight variations in spelling, in 1636: 'I thought good, after the insight and deepe consideration of all the lawes and ordinances aforesaid' (touching 'every sort of sea-faring persons in every order'), 'to mend a weake piece of labour, which I intended many yeares since, intituled the Sea law of Scotland; and to frame the same in a very harmonicall collection of all sea-lawes.'

The Abridgement, as a work, befitting its title, both comprehensive and concise, treats of many matters that have no direct bearing on the Sovereignty of the Sea. It treats, for example, of the Clerk of the Admiral Court, who 'should have divers Registers, as for congees, saveconducts, pasports, sea-briefes; as without which no shippe should passe to the sea in time of warre, nor yet to farre voyages in time of peace … To conclude, no other Clerk or Writer, may meddle or pen things concerning the sea-faring, without licence of the Admirall.' The book treats of the manner of proceeding in sea-faring causes. It treats of the Master of the ship, to whom 'the whole power