Hoc igitur qui tollunt, illam laudatissimam tollunt humani generis societatem, tollunt mutuas benefaciendi occasiones, naturam denique ipsam violant. Nam et ille quem Deus terris circumfudit Oceanus, undique et undique versus navigabilis, et ventorum stati aut extraordinarii flatus, non ab eadem semper, et a nulla non aliquando regione spirantes, nonne significant satis concessum a natura cunctis gentibus ad cunctas aditum? Hoc Seneca[4a] summum Naturae beneficium putat, quod et vento gentes locis dissipatas miscuit, et sua omnia in regiones ita descripsit, ut necessarium mortalibus esset inter ipsos commercium. Hoc igitur ius ad cunctas gentes aequaliter pertinet: quod clarissimi Iurisconsulti[5a] eo usque producunt, ut negent ullam rempublicam aut Principem prohibere in universum posse, quo minus alii ad subditos suos accedant, et cum illis negotientur. Hinc ius descendit hospitale sanctissimum: hinc querelae:

Quod genus hoc hominum? quaeve hunc tam barbara morem
Permittit patria? hospitio prohibemur harenae.[6a]

Et alibi

litusque rogamus
Innocuum et cunctis undamque auramque patentem.[7a]

Et scimus bella quaedam ex hac causa coepisse, ut Megarensibus

Those therefore who deny this law, destroy this most praise-worthy bond of human fellowship, remove the opportunities for doing mutual service, in a word do violence to Nature herself. For do not the ocean, navigable in every direction with which God has encompassed all the earth, and the regular and the occasional winds which blow now from one quarter and now from another, offer sufficient proof that Nature has given to all peoples a right of access to all other peoples? Seneca[4] thinks this is Nature’s greatest service, that by the wind she united the widely scattered peoples, and yet did so distribute all her products over the earth that commercial intercourse was a necessity to mankind. Therefore this right belongs equally to all nations. Indeed the most famous jurists[5] extend its application so far as to deny that any state or any ruler can debar foreigners from having access to their subjects and trading with them. Hence is derived that law of hospitality which is of the highest sanctity; hence the complaint of the poet Vergil:

“What men, what monsters, what inhuman race,
What laws, what barbarous customs of the place,
Shut up a desert shore to drowning men,
And drive us to the cruel seas again.”[6]

And:

“To beg what you without your want may spare—
The common water, and the common air.”[7]

We know that certain wars have arisen over this very matter; such for example as the war of the Megarians against the