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. [283] Not, of course, the Eliot who had defended Gibraltar so well in 1780-3, but his son, the second Lord Heathfield. 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 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