Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 April 2010
There is no generally accepted explanation as to why Mare Liberum, or The Free Sea, was written. The most common view is that the Text was a propaganda instrument designed to improve the position of the United Provinces during the truce negotiations with Spain from 1606–08. Central to Grotius' strategy was his reliance upon Iberian Scholastics as a means of providing a series of irrefutable propositions to the Spaniards.