THE COURT OF INQUIRY

There was another and a less pleasant surprise in store for Wellesley when he landed at Plymouth. He learnt that if he himself disliked the armistice of August 22, and the Convention of Cintra, the British public had gone far beyond him, and was in a state of frantic rage concerning them. To his anger and amazement he also learnt that he himself was considered no less responsible for the two agreements than were Dalrymple and Burrard. The fact that the former had told him to set his signature opposite to that of Kellermann on the document signed at Vimiero, had misled the world into regarding him as the negotiator and framer of the armistice. ‘Every whisperer who disliked the name of Wellesley[280]’—and Sir Arthur’s brother, the Governor-General, had made it very unpopular in certain quarters—was busy propagating the story that of the three generals who had lately commanded in Portugal, each one was as slack and supine as the others.

The wave of indignation which swept across England on the receipt of the news of the Convention of Cintra is, at this distance of time, a little hard to understand. Successes had not been so plentiful on the Continent during the last fifteen years, that an agreement which gave back its liberty to a whole kingdom need have been criticized with vindictive minuteness. But the news of Baylen had set the public mind on the look-out for further triumphs, and when the dispatches which gave an account of Roli?a and of Vimiero had come to hand, there had been a confident expectation that the next news received would be that Junot’s army had been scattered or captured, and that Lisbon had been set free. Then came a gap of thirteen days, caused by Dalrymple’s strange fit of silence. The only intelligence that reached London in this interval was the Bishop of Oporto’s letter of protest against the armistice, in which, without giving any definite details about that agreement,[p. 292] he denounced it as insulting to Portugal and unworthy of England. The public was prepared, therefore, to hear that something timid and base had been done, when Dalrymple’s dispatch of September 3, enclosing the Convention of Cintra, came to hand. It was easy to set forth the terms of that treaty in an odious light. Junot, it was said, had been beaten in the field, he was completely isolated from all the other French armies, and his surrender must have followed in a few days, if the British generals had only chosen to press their advantage. Instead of this, they preferred to let him return to France with the whole of his troops, and with most of his plunder. He was not even compelled to release a corresponding number of British prisoners in return for the freedom secured to his army. In fact, his position was much better after than before his defeat at Vimiero, for the Convention granted him a quiet and safe return home with his force intact, while, even if he had won some success in battle, the best that he would have been able to secure himself would have been a retreat on Northern Spain, through the midst of great dangers. Excitable politicians and journalists used the most exaggerated language, and compared the Convention with that of Kloster Seven, and the conduct of the generals who had not pressed the campaign to its logical end with Admiral Byng’s shirking before Minorca. Caricatures were issued showing Dalrymple, Burrard, and Wellesley sporting the white feather, or hanging from three gibbets as traitors[281]. Nor was Admiral Cotton spared: he was denounced in bitter terms for taking the Russian ships as ‘deposits,’ when he should have towed them into Spithead as prizes: moreover the repatriation of the Russian crews was asserted to be a deadly blow at our unfortunate ally the King of Sweden.

The rage against the Convention was not confined to any one class or faction in the state. If some Whigs tried to turn it into the shape of an attack on the government, there were plenty of Tories who joined in the cry, begging their leaders in the ministry to dismiss and punish the three unpopular generals. A number of public meetings were held with the object of forcing the hands of the Duke of Portland and his colleagues, but the most prominent part in the agitation was taken by the Corporation of London.[p. 293] Recalling the old days of Wilkes and Beckford, they resolved that the Lord Mayor, with a deputation of Sheriffs, Aldermen, and Common-Councillors, should present a petition to the King begging him to order ‘an inquiry into this dishonourable and unprecedented transaction, for the discovery and punishment of those by whose misconduct and incapacity the cause of the kingdom and its allies has been so shamelessly sacrificed.’

Accordingly such a petition was laid before the King on October 12. Its terms are worth a moment’s attention, as they show very clearly the points on which popular indignation had been concentrated. ‘The treaty,’ it states, ‘is humiliating and degrading, because after a signal victory, by which the enemy appears to have been cut off from all means of succour or escape, we had the sad mortification of seeing the laurels so nobly acquired torn from the brows of our brave soldiers, and terms granted to the enemy disgraceful to the British name.... By this ignominious Convention British ships are to convey to France the French army and its plunder, where they will be at liberty immediately to recommence their active operations against us and our allies. And the full recognition of the title and dignity of Emperor of France[282], while all mention of the Government of Portugal is omitted, must be considered as highly disrespectful to the authorities of that country.’ There was another clause denouncing the sending back of the Russian sailors, but not so much stress was laid on this point. Finally the King is asked ‘in justice to the outraged feelings of a brave, injured, and indignant people, whose blood and treasure have been thus expended,’ to cause the guilty persons to be punished.

King George III replied to these flowers of oratory by a short speech which displays admirably that power of getting an occasional lucid glimpse of the obvious in which he was by no means deficient. He was fully sensible, he said, of the loyalty and good intentions of the City of London, but he wished the deputation to remember that to pronounce judgement without previous trial and investigation was hardly consonant with the principles of British justice. He was always ready to institute an inquiry when the honour of the British arms was in question: and the interposition of the[p. 294] City of London was not necessary to induce him to set one on foot in this case, when the hopes and expectations of the nation had been so much disappointed.

It was not, however, till seventeen days later that his majesty’s formal orders for the summoning of a Court of Inquiry ‘to investigate into the late Armistice and Convention concluded in Portugal, and all the circumstances connected therewith,’ were communicated to the Commander-in-Chief. Dalrymple and Burrard, both of whom had now returned to England, were directed to hold themselves in readiness to present themselves before the court, and Wellesley, for the same reason, was directed to abandon his project of going back to the Peninsula in order to serve under Sir John Moore.

The members of the celebrated Court of Inquiry, which commenced its sittings on November 14, 1808, were seven in number, all general officers of great respectability and advanced years, men more likely, for the most part, to sympathize with caution than with daring. The president was Sir David Dundas, the author of a celebrated drill-book which had long been the terror of young officers: the other members were Lord Moira, Lord Heathfield[283], the Earl of Pembroke, and Generals Craig, Sir G. Nugent, and Nicholls. Not one of them has left behind a name to be remembered, save indeed Lord Moira, who, as Lord Rawdon in the old American War, had won the victory of Hobkirk’s Hill, and who was destined to be the next Viceroy of India and to make the name of Hastings famous for a second time in the East.

The court began its sittings on November 14, and did not terminate them till December 22. In the great hall of Chelsea Hospital, where its proceedings were held, there was much warm debate. As the details of the Campaign of Portugal were gradually worked out, not only by the cross-examination of Dalrymple, Burrard, and Wellesley, but by that of many of the other officers of rank who had been in Portugal—Spencer, Acland, Ferguson, Lord Burghersh, and others—the points on which the verdict of the court must turn gradually became clear. They were six in number:—Had Burrard been justified in preventing Wellesley from pursuing the French at the end of the battle of Vimiero? Had Dalrymple erred in refusing to take Wellesley’s advice to march[p. 295] on Mafra the next morning? Should Kellermann’s offer of an armistice have been accepted on the twenty-second, and, if so, were the terms granted him too favourable? Lastly, was the Convention of Cintra itself justifiable under the existing circumstances, and were all its articles reasonable and proper? Much evidence was produced for and against each view on every one of these topics. On the first two Wellesley practically impeached Burrard and Dalrymple for unwarrantable slackness and timidity. He was so much in love with his own bold plans that his superior’s caution appeared to him contemptible. He stood up to them and cross-questioned them with an acidity and a complete want of deference that seemed very reprehensible to military men steeped in the old traditions of unquestioning deference to one’s senior officers. Sir Walter Scott, who followed the inquiry with great interest, called him ‘a haughty devil,’ but expressed his admiration for him at the same moment[284]. It is curious to find that Wellesley showed less anger with Burrard, whose caution on the afternoon of the twenty-first really wrecked his plan of campaign, than with Dalrymple. The latter had snubbed him on his first arrival, had persistently refused him his confidence, and would not state clearly to the court that the armistice, though it bore Wellesley’s name, had not been drawn up or approved in detail by him. Of the numerous minor witnesses who were examined, all who had served at Roli?a and Vimiero spoke on Wellesley’s side: Spencer and Ferguson were especially strong in their statements. The fact was that they were intensely proud of their two fights, and looked upon Burrard as the man who had prevented them from entering Lisbon in triumph after capturing Junot and his whole host. So strong was this feeling that the brigadiers and field-officers of the eight brigades that fought at Vimiero had presented Wellesley with a handsome testimonial—a service of plate worth ............