Page:Diplomacy and the Study of International Relations (1919).djvu/154

 is in English—'The Soveraignty of the British Seas. Proved by Records, History, and the Municipall Lawes of this Kingdome. Written in the yeare 1633. By that Learned Knight, Sr John Boroughs, Keeper of the Records in the Tower of London.' 'The work, we are told in the words addressed 'To the Reader', was written 'at the request of a great Person'—Charles I, to whom the original work in Latin was dedicated,

Boroughs's Latin work was written when the question of the dominion of the British Sea raised a critical problem of a constitutional character touching the royal prerogative. in England, as well as a claim of an international character touching the rights of the Crown abroad. For the latter purpose, at least, its place was deservedly taken by the much