In the Vatican's Index of Forbidden Books, there was a copy of Grotius's The Free Sea.
Sweden also had an East India Company, founded by Gustav II Adolf in 1626. However, it was not until 1731 that the Swedish East India Company was formally established and began trading. One of its largest shareholders was a Scottish Briton, the owner of the Ostend company that had closed in 1727, and he possessed extensive experience in East Indies trade.
After the Holy Roman Empire's victory in the second stage of the war, Gustav chose to form a joint fleet with the Netherlands. With financial backing from France, he landed in Pomerania in 1630, beginning the third stage of the Thirty Years' War.
Because of this connection, many of Grotius's views in The Free Sea spoke in favor of the Dutch. Besides, Grotius was then the legal adviser to the Dutch East India Company.
In 1613, he went to London to attend a conference and defend the Dutch East India Company's monopoly in the spice trade. By then, Britain and the Netherlands had replaced Spain and Portugal—or rather, Spain and Portugal had previously been the only ones capable of oceanic navigation.
Chapter Six of the pamphlet stated: The Portuguese claimed possession of the sea or the right of navigation on the grounds of a grant from Pope Alexander. Such a grant had no force outside the scope of commercial trade and no effect upon these matters. The sea and the right of navigation belonged to no one; therefore, they could neither be given by the Pope nor accepted by the Portuguese. The proclamation of this grant had no legal force. Or rather, it was merely a measure the Pope had taken in hopes of mediating the dispute between the swords of Spain and