The Seven Years’ War at sea, perhaps more than any other earlier great power war, was a trade war. The British navy and privateers targeted French colonial goods from the West Indies to harm French overseas trade. The French answered by employing neutral flags to carry on colonial trade. The neutral Dutch, Danes, Spaniards, and Swedes took over much French colonial trade in order to mitigate the damage done by British actions. The conditions of neutral trade were outlined in the early modern version of the international law of the sea: maritime powers acknowledged the freedom of the sea and neutral rights to trade and sail in agreement with bilateral commercial treaties. The British circumvented the rights of neutral trade with the Rule of the War 1756 and the Doctrine of Continuous Voyage. Nevertheless, neutral trade continued, mainly because the employment of neutral flags moderated wartime damage on global trade.