Maritime Law - [CLEIRAC (Étienne)]. The Uses and Customs of the Sea. Divided into three parts. I. Of navigation. II. Of naval commerce, and maritime contracts. III. On the jurisdiction of the navy. With a Treatise on the terms of the navy, regulations, rulings and judgments rendered on the fact of the sea trade. Rouen, Eustache Viret, 1671, 4°, (8)-581-1 bl., 87-(2)-2 bl., full contemporary brown calf, decorated spine (upper cover rubbed, several leaves slightly browned, paper loss in the lower white margin of leaf 57/58 with several letters affected). A fine copy. Chadenat, n° 6950; Polak, n° 1764. Not in Sabin. The reference book for the knowledge of maritime law before the 17th century. It was Étienne Cleirac (1583-1657), a jurisconsult from Bordeaux, who first had the idea of collecting all the texts and official documents concerning maritime law, which shows the importance of this treatise first published in 1647 in Bordeaux. The work is divided into three main parts, whose plan is announced in the title. There are regulations on navigation, on rivers, a "Guidon utile et nécessaire pour ceux qui font Marchandise", in other words a text on maritime insurance, ordinances for the insurance of Antwerp and Amsterdam, etc. The part devoted to whaling on the coasts of Guyenne (pp. 120-132) provides information of the greatest interest for the history of the discovery of America; indeed, we read that the Basques discovered America (Newfoundland and the Canadian coasts) one hundred years before Christopher Columbus, and that the Pilot "who brought the first news to Christopher Columbus, & gave him the knowledge & the address of this new world", was one of our Basque Newfoundlanders. The Explication des termes de marine has a special title page bearing the mention of the third edition, with the address of Rouen, 1670 (pp. 505-570). Without the out-of-text plate for the Table of Tides, attached to only a few copies. Uncommon.