Читать книгу The Free Sea - Hugo Grotius - Страница 9

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am very grateful to Knud Haakonssen for his invitation to contribute this volume to the series “Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics” and for his advice and encouragement at every stage of the editorial process. This edition would not have been possible without the generosity of the Masters of the Bench of the Inner Temple, by whose kind permission Richard Hakluyt’s translation of Mare Liberum is reproduced. The staff of the Inner Temple Library, in particular Adrian Blunt, facilitated access to the manuscript and provided crucial help with its decipherment.

I am much indebted to Martine van Ittersum for making the initial transcription of the Inner Temple manuscript and for putting her extensive knowledge of Grotius’s colonial activities at my disposal. I am likewise grateful to Åsa Söderman for scrupulously transcribing Welwod’s reply to Grotius, to Kelly De Luca for her invaluable help in tracing elusive references, and to David Roochnik for kindly checking the Greek quotations. During two memorable seminars at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., Peter Borschberg and Benedict Kingsbury greatly enlightened me about Grotius’s intellectual development and his theoretical significance.

As always, Joyce Chaplin has supported an occasionally flagging editor.