Page:Handbook of maritime rights.djvu/74

60 the treaty of 1678 violated, and absolutely refused her the privilege accorded to the neutral flag in the treaty of 1674.

So that those who trumpet Sir Wm. Temple's great name as an abettor of this principle forget both the political object he had in view in making the concession, and the further treaty by which he hedged it round.

Just in the same way some people are audacious enough to use Cromwell's name for the same purpose, because he conceded this principle to Portugal, a little state with scarcely any marine, and one, such as it was, barely sufficient for her own commerce, forgetting that the sole object of Cromwell was political, making the concession of certain undoubted acknowledged rights in order to detach a maritime nation like Portugal from the alliance of her two neighbours, and in order to make a break in a long line of coasts belonging to nations habitually hostile to England.

This is the way the principle got ushered