f
concession and respect) must be under any limitations as much more
indulgent than an ordinary capitulation, as that again must (in its
severest form) be more indulgent than the only favour which the French
marauders could presume upon obtaining--viz. permission to surrender at
discretion?

To this question the reader need not be told that these pages give a
naked unqualified denial; and that to establish the reasonableness of
that denial is one of their main purposes: but, for the benefit of the
men accused, let it be supposed granted; and then the second question
will be

2. Was it lawful for the English army, in the case of its being reduced
to the supposed dilemma of either re-embarking or making _some_
convention, to make _that specifical_ convention which it did make at
Cintra?

This is of necessity and _a fortiori_ denied; and it has been proved
that neither to this, nor any other army, could it be lawful to make
such a convention--not merely under the actual but under any conceivable
circumstances; let however this too, on behalf of the parties accused,
be granted; and then the third question will be

3. Was the English Army reduced to that dilemma?

4. Finally, this also being conceded (which not even the Generals have
dared to say), it remains to ask by whose and by what misconduct did an
army--confessedly the arbiter of its own movements and plans at the
opening of the campaign--forfeit that free agency--either to the extent
of the extremity supposed, or of any approximation to that extremity?

Now of these four possible questions in the minds of all those who
condemn the convention of Cintra, it is obvious that the King's warrant
supposes only the three latter to exist (since, though it allows inquiry
to be made into the individual convention, it no where questions the
tolerability of a convention _in genere_); and it is no less obvious
that the Board, acting under that warrant, has noticed only the
last--i.e. by what series of military movements the army was brought
into a state of difficulty which justified _a_ convention (the Board
taking for granted throughout--1st, That such a state could exist;
2ndly, That it actually did exist; and 3rdly, That--if it existed, and
accordingly justified _some imaginable_ convention--it must therefore of
necessity justify _this_ convention).

Having thus shewn that it is on the last question only that the nation
could, in deference to the Board of Inquiry, surr