Now of these four possible questions in the minds of all those who condemn the convention of Cintra, it is obvious that the King's warrant supposes only the three latter to exist (since, though it allows inquiry to be made into the individual convention, it no where questions the tolerability of a convention _in genere_); and it is no less obvious that the Board, acting under that warrant, has noticed only the last--i.e. by what series of military movements the army was brought into a state of difficulty which justified _a_ convention (the Board taking for granted throughout--1st, That such a state could exist; 2ndly, That it actually did exist; and 3rdly, That--if it existed, and accordingly justified _some imaginable_ convention--it must therefore of necessity justify _this_ convention). Having thus shewn that it is on the last question only that the nation could, in deference to the Board of Inquiry, surrender 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_.