A precious moment, it is most probable, had been lost after the battle of Vimiera; yet still the inferiority of the enemy had been proved; they themselves had admitted it--not merely by withdrawing from the field, but by proposing terms:--monstrous terms! and how ought they to have been received?
Repelled undoubtedly with scorn, as an insult.

If our Generals had been men capable of taking the measure of their real strength, either as existing in their own army, or in those principles of liberty and justice which they were commissioned to defend, they must of necessity have acted in this manner;--if they had been men of common sagacity for business, 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.