This retreat would not have been accomplished without much more fighting, had Sir Arthur Wellesley been permitted to follow up his victory, according to the dictates of his own understanding and the enthusiastic wishes of his army. But just as the battle was about to begin, Sir Harry Burrard, an old officer of superior rank, unfortunately entitled to assume the chief command, arrived on the field. Finding that Sir Arthur had made all his dispositions, General Burrard handsomely declined interfering until the fortune of the day should be decided; but he took the command as soon as the victory was won, and more cautiously than wisely, prevented the army from instantly advancing, as Sir Arthur Wellesley proposed, upon the coast road towards Mafra, and thus endeavouring to intercept the retreat of Junot upon Lisbon. Sir Harry, having made this unhappy use of his command, was, the very next day, superseded in his turn by Sir Hew Dalrymple, the Governor of Gibraltar; another veteran more disposed to imitate the prudence of Burrard than the daring of Wellesley. Shortly after the third general had taken the command, Junot sent Kellerman to demand a truce, and propose a convention for the evacuation of Portugal by the troops under his orders. Dalrymple received Kellerman with more eagerness of civility than became the chief of a victorious army, and forthwith granted the desired armistice. Junot offered to surrender his magazine, stores, and armed vessels, provided the British would disembark his soldiers, with their arms, at any French port between Rochefort and L'Orient, and permit them to take with them their private property; and Dalrymple did not hesitate to agree to these terms, although Sir John Moore arrived off the coast with a reinforcement of 10,000 men during the progress of the negotiation. The famous "_Convention of Cintra_" (most absurdly so named, as it was in fact concluded thirty miles from Cintra) was signed accordingly on the 30th of August; and the French army wholly evacuated Portugal in the manner provided for. The English people heard with indignation that the spoilers of Portugal had been suffered to escape on such terms; and the article concerning private property gave especial offence, as under that cover the French removed with them a large share of the plunder which they had amassed by merciless violence and rapacity during their occupation of the Portuguese territories. A parliamentary investigation was followed by a court-martial, which acquitted Dalrymple. In truth it seems now to be admitted, by competent judges, that after Burrard had interfered so as to prevent Wellesley from instantly following up the success of Vimiero, and so enabled Junot to re-occupy Lisbon and secure the pass of the Torres Vedras, it would have been imprudent to decline the terms proffered by a repelled, but still powerful enemy--who, if driven to extremities, could hardly fail to prolong the war, until