Neptune to the Common-wealth of England (1652): the republican Britannia and the continuity of interests

In the seventeenth century, John Kerrigan reminds us, “models of empire did not always turn on monarchy”. In this essay, I trace a vision of “Neptune’s empire” shared by royalists and republicans, binding English national interest to British overseas expansion. I take as my text a poem entitled “Neptune to the Common-wealth of England”, prefixed to Marchamont Nedham’s 1652 English translation of Mare Clausum (1635), John Selden’s response to Mare Liberum (1609) by Hugo Grotius. This minor work is read alongside some equally obscure and more familiar texts in order to point up the ways in which it speaks to persistent cultural and political interests. I trace the afterlife of this verse, its critical reception and its unique status as a fragment that exemplifies the crossover between colonial republic and imperial monarchy at a crucial moment in British history, a moment that, with Brexit, remains resonant

Reactions of HCI(g), DCI(g), and HBr(g) with the Adduct Pyrazine-Phosphorus(V) Chloride

In previous communications we have reported the synthesis, molecular structure, and solution properties of the acid-base adduct formed from pyrazine (pz), C4H4N2, and phosphorus (V) chloride, PCl5. In the solid state the molecule, pz*PCl5, belongs to point group C2v with octahedral geometry around phosphorus. The plane of the pyrazine ring bisects the Cl-P-Cl 90° angle, and the P-N bond is unusually long, 2.021 A. In solution of nitromethane, the adduct is in equilibrium with PCl5 and pz. This rapid exchange is responsible for a singlet in the 1H NMR spectrum, even at -100 degrees C. Because a second nitrogen base site on the adduct is available for further reaction, we have investigated the possibility of coordinating a second mole of acid to the adduct