ender or qualify any
opinion which, it had previously given--let us ask what answer is
gained, from the proceedings of that Board, to the charge involved even
in this last question (premising however--first--that this charge was
never explicitly made by the public, or at least was enunciated only in
the form of a conjecture--and 2ndly that the answer to it is collected
chiefly from the depositions of the parties accused)? Now the whole sum
of their answer amounts to no more than this--that, in the opinion of
some part of the English staff, an opportunity was lost on the 21st of
exchanging the comparatively slow process of reducing the French army by
siege for the brilliant and summary one of a _coup-de-main_.

This opportunity, be it observed, was offered only by Gen. Junot's
presumption in quitting his defensive positions, and coming out to meet
the English army in the field; so that it was an advantage so much over
and above what might fairly have been calculated upon: at any rate, if
_this_ might have been looked for, still the accident of battle, by
which a large part of the French army was left in a situation to be cut
off, (to the loss of which advantage Sir A. Wellesley ascribes the
necessity of a convention) could surely never have been anticipated; and
therefore the British army was, even after that loss, in as prosperous a
state as it had from the first any right to expect. Hence it is to be
inferred, that Sir A.W. must have entered on this campaign with a
predetermination to grant a convention in any case, excepting in one
single case which he knew to be in the gift of only very extraordinary
good fortune. With respect to him, therefore, the charges--pronounced by
the national voice--are not only confirmed, but greatly aggravated.
Further, with respect to the General who superseded him, all those--who
think that such an opportunity of terminating the campaign was really
offered, and, through his refusal to take advantage of it, lost--are
compelled to suspect in him a want of military skill, or a wilful
sacrifice of his duty to the influence of personal rivalry, accordingly
as they shall interpret his motives.

The whole which we gain therefore from the Board of Inquiry is--that
what we barely suspected is ripened into certainty--and that on all,
which we assuredly knew and declared without needing that any tribunal
should lend us its sanction, no effort has been made at denial, or
disguise, or palliation.