naturally demands more than he has a right to expect, or than the other
is disposed to give. If ambassadors met together with a determination
to speak explicitly at first, and with a determination not to recede, the
consequence would probably be, that they would not treat at all, so
that the mode of receding a little does not absolutely imply that more
is asked than is wished for, but that each party over-rates its own
pretensions, in order to obtain what is right.

One thing is certain, that the treaties that have been the best observed
have been those founded on equity, where the contracting parties were
neither of them under the influence of fear or necessity.

The exterior dangers of a country are not only more simple in their
nature than the interior ones, but, being less silent and gradual in their
progress have been more noticed by historians.

Even the ambitious rapacity of the Romans was first directed [end of
page #186] against Carthage, on account of its pride and injustice in
attacking other states; and, in the history of the nations of the world,
there is scarcely a single example of national prosperity being
unattended with some degree of pride, arrogance, and injustice; nor
can it easily be otherwise, for, notwithstanding all the boasted law of
nations, power seems amongst them to be one of the principal claims
on which right is founded, though, in the moral nature of things,
power and right have not the most distant connection.

It is then an object for those who govern nations, in the first place, to
counteract as much as possible the internal tendency to decline,
arising from the causes that have been enumerated; and, after having
done that, to regulate their conduct with regard to other nations, so as