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William Welwood was a professor of both mathematics and civil law at the University of St. Andrews. He moved to England and published his Abridgement in 1613, dedicating it to King James in hopes of Royal patronage.
While the bulk of the work was intended to serve as a practical aid for those engaged in maritime business, it contained a brief section opposing Grotius’s Mare Liberum. That section was reprinted in 1616 as De Dominio Maris by a commission from King James’s wife, Anne of Denmark (who had a personal interest in the dispute because of her monopoly of off-shore fishing licenses).