Excerpt from Tait's Edinburgh Magazine for 1849, Vol. 16 Consequently, the history of treaties is too frequently the history of the most flagrant delusions and insults which mankind have ever put upon each other. We all know that among the worst imperfections of language is its inadequacy to paint ideas so as to guard against involuntary misconceptions; but in diplomacy language usually lies less open to blame than the deceitfulness with which it is employed. Nevertheless, the greatest source of evil is the perverse ingenuity of men who, having entered into an agreement, immediately exercise their utmost ingenuity to invent interpretations by which they may twist the meaning of the instrument to their own advantage. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.