It will even be allowed, my lords, that the ministry have been sometimes mistaken in their conjectures, and, perhaps, deceived by their intelligence, but I will presume to say, it never will be discovered that they willingly betrayed, or heedlessly neglected their trust, that they ever oppressed their country with unnecessary burdens, or exposed it to be insulted by foreign powers.  Nor will it, perhaps, be found that they ever appeared grossly ignorant of the publick interest, or 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 give better proofs of their qualifications for that high trust, than mere specimens of their memory, their rhetorick, or their malice.