Introduction

Summary

The Introduction lays out the contextual background to the themes and elements that are brought together to shape the monograph’s arguments. It positions the monograph within the existing literature on the Seven Years’ War and the history of neutrality in order to establish how it builds upon these bodies of work to incorporate law as a necessary element of strategic analysis. The core hypotheses and arguments of the book are also established. First, that neutrality was a dynamic role for maritime nations such as Spain and the Dutch Republic which had as much of an influencing effect on British strategic thinking as did affairs with belligerent nations. Second, that the Court of Prize Appeal played a critical role within the three-pronged maritime strategy of maintaining foreign confidence in British maritime law and its court system; balancing the interests of British privateers and neutral carriers of commerce in the prize court system; and destroying French seaborne trade through commerce predation. Third, that British maritime strategic concerns shaped and created new legal rules, norms, and precedents within the prize court system that would then serve to clarify and cement British, Spanish, and Dutch understandings of neutral rights and international maritime law.