In principle I do not see why the sea should be dispensed from serving our need and comfort, any more than the land. However . . . men were left free to make private property of the sea as well as of the land, or to leave it in its primitive state, common to all, so that it should not belong to one more than to another.

— PUFENDORF, Law of Nature and Nations (1672), Book IV., Chap. 5, Sec. 5.