failed
to discover any obvious truth, or foresee any probable contingencies.

But, my lords, I am willing to confess that they cannot judge of events
to come with such unerring and demonstrative knowledge as their
opponents can obtain of them after they have happened; and they are
inclined to pay all necessary deference to the great sagacity of those
wonderful prognosticators, who can so exactly _foresee_ the _past_. They
only hope, my lords, that you will consider how much harder their task
is than that of their enemies; they are obliged to determine very often
upon doubtful intelligence, and an obscure view of the designs and
inclinations of the neighbouring powers; and as their informers may be
either treacherous or mistaken, and the interests of other states are
subject to alterations, they may be sometimes deceived and disappointed.
But their opponents, my lords, are exempt, by their employment, from the
laborious task of searching into futurity, and collecting their
resolutions, from a long comparison of dark hints and minute
circumstances. Their business is not to lead or show the way, but to
follow at a distance, and ridicule the perplexity, and aggravate the
mistakes of their guides. They are only to wait for consequences, which,
if they are prosperous, they misrepresent as not intended, or pass over
in silence, and are glad to hide them from the notice of mankind. But if
any miscarriages arise, their penetration immediately awakes, they see,
at the first glance, the fatal source of all our miseries, they are
astonished at such a concatenation of blunders, and alarmed with the
most distracting apprehensions of the danger of their country.

Accusation of political measures is an easy province; easy, my lords, in
the same proportion as the administration of affairs is difficult; for
where there are difficulties there will be some mistakes; and where
there are mistakes, there will be occasions of triumph, to the factious
and the disappointed. But the justice of your lordships will certainly
distinguish between errours and crimes, and between errours of weakness
and inability, and such as are only discoverable by consequences.

I may add, my lords, that your wisdom will easily find the difference
between the degree of capacity requisite for recollecting the past, and
foreknowing the future; and expect that those whose ambition incites
them to endeavour after a share in the government of their country,
should giv