iness, they must have acted in this manner;--nay, if they had been
upon a level with an ordinary bargain-maker in a Fair or a market, they
could not have acted otherwise.--Strange that they should so far forget
the nature of their calling! They were soldiers, and their business was
to fight. Sir Arthur Wellesley had fought, and gallantly; it was not
becoming his high situation, or that of his successors, to treat, that
is, to beat down, to chaffer, or on their part to propose: it does not
become any general at the head of a victorious army so to do.[19]

[19] Those rare cases are of course excepted, in which the superiority
on the one side is not only fairly to be presumed but positive--and so
prominently obtrusive, that to _propose_ terms is to _inflict_ terms.

They were to _accept_,--and, if the terms offered were flagrantly
presumptuous, our commanders ought to have rejected them with dignified
scorn, and to have referred the proposer to the sword for a lesson of
decorum and humility. This is the general rule of all high-minded men
upon such occasions; and meaner minds copy them, doing in prudence what
they do from principle. But it has been urged, before the Board of
Inquiry, that the conduct of the French armies upon like occasions, and
their known character, rendered it probable that a determined resistance
would in the present instance be maintained. We need not fear to say
that this conclusion, from reasons which have been adverted to, was
erroneous. But, in the mind of him who had admitted it upon whatever
ground, whether false or true, surely the first thought which followed,
ought to have been, not that we should bend to the enemy, but that, if
they were resolute in defence, we should learn from that example to be
courageous in attack. The tender feelings, however, are pleaded against
this determination; and it is said, that one of the motives for the
cessation of hostilities was to prevent the further effusion of human
blood.--When, or how? The enemy was delivered over to us; it was not to
be hoped that, cut off from all assistance as they were, these, or an
equal number of men, could ever be reduced to such straits as would
ensure their destruction as an enemy, with so small a sacrifice of life
on their part, or on ours. What then was to be gained by this
tenderness? The shedding of a few drops of blood is not to be risked in
Portugal to-day, and streams of blood must shortly flow from the same
veins in th