I wasn't trying to use the quotation from Napier to condemn Dupont.

I meant it as a partial answer to the original question - why did NB react so harshly to Dupont's action? It was said earlier in the thread that NB's behavior was uniquely vindictive.

Napier, approximately a contemporary but with much more time to gather and review the facts before deciding than NB had, judges Dupont's behavior in the harshest possible light. There must, I surmise, have been many at the time who felt the same way.

Therefore, NB's reaction to the capitulation was neither unique nor exceptional.

..........

(Incidentally, it does seem to me at this point in time that Dupont was forced to surrender because he had been assigned an impossible mission, and supplied with substandard troops, by his commander in chief.)