What Dangers Occur in Making Oneself Head in Counselling a Thing, and How Much the Danger Increases when it is an Extraordinary Thing

It would be too lengthy and important a matter to discuss here what a dangerous thing it is to make oneself Head of a new thing which relates to many people, and how difficult it is to direct and achieve it, and having achieved it to maintain it: reserving it to a more convenient place, therefore, I will speak only of those dangers that Citizens are exposed to in counselling a Prince to make himself head of a grave and important decision in such a manner that the entire counsel given him is imputed to him. For as men judge a matter by its result, all the evil that may result is imputed to the author of the counsel, but if the result is good he is commended, but the reward does not counterbalance by far the punishment. The present Sultan Selim, called the Grand Turk, having prepared himself (according to what was reported by some who came from his country) to make an enterprise against Syria and Egypt, was advised by one of his Pashas whom he had stationed at the borders of Persia, to go against the Sofi [Shah]: motivated by this counsel, he went on that enterprise with a very large army, and having arrived in that very large country where there are great deserts and rivers are rare, and finding those same difficulties that had already caused the ruin of many Roman armies, was so overwhelmed by them that (even though he had been superior in the war) he lost a great part of his forces by famine and pestilence. So that angered against the author of the counsel, he killed him. You will read of many Citizens having been advisors [in favor] of an enterprise, and because that resulted badly, they were sent into exile. Some Roman Citizens advised that in creating Chiefs, that Plebs should be made Consuls in Rome. It happened that the first who went in the field with an army was defeated, whence harm would have come to those counsellors if that party, in whose honor that particular decision had been made, had not been so powerful. It is a most certain thing, therefore, that those who counsel a Republic and those who counsel a Prince, are placed between these two hazards; that if they do not counsel the things which appear to them useful either to the Prince or to the City [Republic] without regard [to the consequences to themselves], they fail in their office: if they do counsel it, they do so at the peril of their lives and their State............