FREEDMEN

(liberti, libertini) was the name applied by the Romans to Hhose persons who had been released from a state of servitude. The freedman wore a cap or hat as a sign of freedom (hence the origin of the cap of liberty), a umed the name of his master, and received from him a white rarment and aring. With his freedom he obtained the rights and privileges of a Roman citizen of the plebeian rank, but could not be raised to any office of honour.; FREEDOM OF THE SEAS. This phrase has two meanings. It may signify the right of any nation to use the seas for commercial purposes in time of peace, and may thus be connected with early protests against the olaims of certain countries to exclude foreign ships from portions of the ocean. In the Middle Ages, Venice a erted a sovereignty over the whole of the Adriatic Sea and levied tributes from foreign ve els, and, after the discovery of the New World, Spain claimed exclusive rights in the Western Atlantic, in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Pacific, and Portugal had similar pretensions in the Indian Ocean. These controversies have long been settled by the universal recognition of the freedom of the seas in this sense, and the claims of natives to control tracts of sea near their own coasts have been abandoned in favour of the adoption of an international admi ion of a three (or sometimes four) mile limit of territorial sovereignty over the seas adjacent to any country. The use of the open sea by any nation in time of peace is now taken for granted, and the phrase ‘freedom of the seas’ in modern conversational usage is always understood to refer to time of war. Under conditions of war, a belligerent Power not only attempts to close the seas against its enemies, but also, for certain purposes, against neutrals. All enemy shipping is recognized by international custom to be liable to destruction or seizure, and no distinction is drawn between purely commercial shipping and ships of war, or between cargoes useful for military purposes and other cla es of goods; the only limits to belligerent action in this respect are those imposed by considerations of humanity. In regard to neutrals, a belligerent Power claims the right to stop neutral ve els to search them, to confiscate goods likely to a ist the military purposes of the enemy (contraband of war), and even to confiscate ve els which can be proved to be employed jin the enemy’s behalf, provided that the lives of crews and pa engers are preserved. The position of Great Britain as a maritime Power has rendered it nece ary, from time to time, to insist upon the legality of these principles, and the a ertion of them has sometimes brought about the conversion of neutrals into enemies. In the War of American Independence (1776-83), arival theory was propounded, to the effect that ‘free ships make free goods,’ and that anything might be carried under a neutral flag. After the French entered into the war, they recognized this principle on condition that the neutral Powers should compel Great Britain to follow the French example, and it was in this connection that the phrase ‘the freedom of the seas’ first became a technical term. In 1780 Ru ia, Denmark, Sweden, Pru ia, and Austria formed an ‘Armed Neutrality’ against Great Britain in order to establish a rule 577 FREEDOM OF THE SEAS that ‘“‘a Power at war has no right to interrupt the commerce of the subjects of a neutral Power.” Holland, which also joined the Neutrality League, soon entered into the war against Great Britain. The League promised to prohibit their own nationals from carrying contraband of war, but such a promise was obviously worthle , and to the end of the struggle Great Britain maintained her attitude. The question again became important in the course of the great French war, and in 1800 Ru ia, Sweden, Denmark, and Pru ia formed the second Armed Neutrality, which aimed at compelling Great Britain to recognize ‘the freedom of the seas’; but the murder of the Czar Paul and the battle of Copenhagen put an end to the League. In the later stages of the war, Napoleon justified the prohibition of trade with Great Britain by his Berlin and Milan decrees as a policy of retaliation against British interference with the freedom of the seas, and the enforcement of the blockade by the British Orders in Council led to the war of 1812—4 with the United States. The attitude neither of France nor of the Powers of the Armed Neutrality had been consistent throughout the period 1780-1815. All of them had shown that they advocated their principle of the ‘freedom of the seas’ only when it suited them, and that they were ready to abandon it when it became inconvenient. In the course of the nineteenth century, the general principles of the right of search by belligerent Powers and of the seizure of contraband goods came to be accepted as a rule of international law. In the European War of 1914-8, the Germans revived the cry of the ‘freedom of the seas,’ but with little attempt to disguise the fact that their real aim was to establish a German maritime predominance. In their conduct of the naval war, they deliberately violated international law in two respects. The destruction of enemy merchant ve els was admitted to be legitimate only if the safety of the crews and pa engers was secured, and in former wars enemy merchant ve els were released if no provision could be made for those on board. The Germans, from an early stage in the war, sunk enemy merchant ships without warning, and without the po ibility of preserving the lives of their victims. At a later stage in the war they broke the further rule that neutrals are immune from hostile attack, and that, although neutral ve els are liable to examination and in certain circumstances to seizure, the lives of neutral seamen and pa engers are to be held inviolate. The defeat of the Central Powers has disposed of the inhuman contentions of the former German Government, and the general question of the rights of belligerents at sea is one of the matters on which the League of Nations will have power to legislate. One of the ‘fourteen points’ which President Wilson described as e ential for a permanent peace was ‘‘absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants.’”’ This clause, which has ne counterpart in the Peace Treaty, was interpreted as an attack upon British theory and practice, but provision is made for the British contention in the exception made for the closure of the seas by international agreement.