heard, and upon which their
authority is entitled to far more respect than any man or number of men
can lay claim to, who speak merely with the ordinary professional views
of soldiership;--that there are such military transactions;--and that
_this_ is one of them.

The condemnation, which the people of these islands pronounced upon the
Convention of Cintra considered as to its main _military_ results, that
is, as a treaty by which it was established that the Russian fleet
should be surrendered on the terms specified; and by which, not only the
obligation of forcing the French army to an unconditional surrender was
abandoned, but its restoration in freedom and triumph to its own country
was secured;--the condemnation, pronounced by the people upon a treaty,
by virtue of which these things were to be done, I have
recorded--accounted for--and thereby justified.--I will now proceed to
another division of the subject, on which I feel a still more earnest
wish to speak; because, though in itself of the highest importance, it
has been comparatively neglected;--mean the political injustice and
moral depravity which are stamped upon the front of this agreement, and
pervade every regulation which it contains. I shall shew that our
Generals (and with them our Ministers, as far as they might have either
given directions to this effect, or have countenanced what has been
done)--when it was their paramount duty to maintain at all hazards the
noblest principles in unsuspected integrity; because, upon the summons
of these, and in defence of them, their Allies had risen, and by these
alone could stand--not only did not perform this duty, but descended as
far below the level of ordinary principles as they ought to have mounted
above it;--imitating not the majesty of the oak with which it lifts its
branches towards the heavens, but the vigour with which, in the language
of the poet, it strikes its roots downwards towards hell:--

Radice in Tartara tendit.

The Armistice is the basis of the Convention; and in the first article
we find it agreed, 'That there shall be a suspension of hostilities
between the forces of his Britannic Majesty, and those of his Imperial
and Royal Majesty, Napoleon I.' I will ask if it be the practice of
military officers, in instruments of this kind, to acknowledge, in the
person of the head of the government with which they are at war, titles
which their own government--for which they are acting--has not