THE GREAT SIEGE.
Although Gibraltar is the greatest fortress in the world, if it were
only that, it would not have half the interest which it now has. The
supreme interest of the Rock is in the record of centuries that is
graven on its rugged front. For nearly eight hundred years it was the
prize of war between the Spaniard and the Moor, and its legends are all
of battle and of blood. Ten times it was besieged and passed back and
forth from conqueror to conqueror, the Cross replacing the Crescent, and
the Crescent the Cross. Ten times was the battle lost and won. When, at
last, in 1598 the Spaniards drove the Moors out of Spain, they remained
masters of Gibraltar, and held it with undisputed sway for a little more
than a hundred years. They might have held it still but for a surprise,
hardly worthy to be called a siege; for the place was taken by a _coup
de main_, that is one of the strangest incidents of history. It was the
War of the Spanish Succession, waged by half Europe to determine which
of two incompetents should occupy the throne of Spain. The English sent
a squadron into the Mediterranean, under Sir George Rooke, who, after
cruising about and accomplishing little, bethought himself, in order not
to return in complete failure, to try his hand on Gibraltar. The place
was well fortified, with a hundred guns, but inside the walls only a
hundred and fifty men (a man and a half to a gun!), so that it could
offer but a brief resistance to a bombardment, and thus the Spaniards
lost in three days what they spent more than three years to recover, and
spent in vain.
Though the place was taken by an English fleet, it was not taken
for England, but in the name of an Archduke of Austria, whom England
supported as a pretender to the Spanish throne; and had he succeeded in
gaining it the place would doubtless have been turned over to him (as on
a visit to Gibraltar he was received by the garrison as lawful sovereign
of Spain, and proclaimed King by the title of Charles III.), but as he
was finally defeated, England thought it not a bad thing to keep the
place for herself.
[Illustration: CATALAN BAY, ON THE EAST SIDE OF GIBRALTAR.
Cliff Scaled by the Spaniards in an Attempt to Take the Rock by
Surprise.]
Hardly had it slipped from their hands before the Spaniards realized the
tremendous blow which had been given to their power and their pride, and
made desperate endeavors to recover it. The very same year they attacked
it with a large army and fleet. At the beginning an attempt was made
which would seem to have been conceived in the heroism of despair.
The eastern side of Gibraltar terminates in a tremendous cliff, rising
fourteen hundred feet above the sea, which thunders against the rocks
below. This side has never been fortified, for the reason that it is
so defended by nature that it needs no other defence. One would as
soon think of storming El Capitan in the valley of the Yosemite as the
eastern side of the Rock of Gibraltar. Yet he who has followed a Swiss
guide in the Alps knows that with his cool head and agile step he will
climb heights which seemed inaccessible. And so a Spanish shepherd, or
goatherd, had found a path from Catalan Bay, up which he offered to lead
a party to the top, and five hundred men were daring enough to follow
him. They knew that the attempt was desperate, but braced up their
courage by religious enthusiasm, devoting themselves to the sacrifice
by taking the sacrament, and binding themselves to capture Gibraltar
or perish in the attempt. In the darkness and silence of the night
they crept slowly upward till a part had reached the top, and concealed
themselves in St. Michael's Cave until the break of day; when with the
earliest dawn they attacked the Signal Station, killing the guard, and
then by ropes and ladders brought up the rest of the party. Following
up the momentary success, they stormed the wall of Charles V., so called
because constructed by him. But by this time the garrison had been
awakened to the fact that there was an enemy within the walls. The roll
of drums from below summoned the troops to arms, and soon the grenadiers
came rushing up the hill. Exposed to the fire from above, many fell,
but nothing could check their advance, and reaching the top they charged
with such fury that half of the party that had scaled the heights soon
fell, some of whom were driven over the cliff into the sea. An officer
who was present during the whole of the siege tells how they made short
work of it. "Five hundred Spaniards attacked the Middle Hill but were
soon repulsed, and two hundred men with their commanding officer taken.
The rest were killed by our shot, or in making their escape broke their
necks over the rocks and precipices, which in that place are many and
prodigiously high."
So ended the first and last attempt to take Gibraltar in the rear. But
still the Spanish army lay encamped before the town, and the siege was
kept up for six months with a loss of ten thousand men. No other attack
was made during that war, though the war itself raged elsewhere for
seven years more, till it was closed by the treaty of Utrecht, in which
Gibraltar was finally ceded to Great Britain.
But the Spaniards did not give it up yet. In 1727 they renewed the
struggle, and besieged the place for five months with nearly twenty
thousand men, but with the same result as before, after which it had
rest and quiet for half a century, till the time of the Great Siege,
which I am now to describe.
It seems beginning a long way off to find any connection between the
siege of Gibraltar and the battle of Saratoga; but one followed from the
other. The surrender of General Burgoyne (who had marched from Canada
with a large army to crush the Rebellion in the Colonies) was the first
great event that gave hope, in the eyes of Europe, to the cause of
American independence, and led France to join it openly, as she had
before favored it secretly. Spain followed France, having a common
hatred of England, with the special grievance of the loss of Gibraltar,
which she hoped, with the help of her powerful ally, to recover.
In such a contest the chances were more evenly balanced than might be
at first supposed. True, England had the advantage of possession, and
if possession is nine points of the law, it is more than nine points
in war, especially when the possessor is intrenched in the strongest
fortress in the world. But as an offset to this, she had to hold it in
an enemy's country. Gibraltar was a part of the territory of Spain, in
which the English had not a foot of ground but the Rock on which they
stood; while it was much nearer to France than to England. Thus the
allied powers had facilities for attacking it both by land and sea, and
brought against it such tremendous forces that it could not have held
out for nearly four years, had it not been for the British power of
resistance, animated by one of the bravest of soldiers.
To begin with, England did not commit the folly by which Spain had lost
Gibraltar--in leaving it with an insufficient garrison. It had over
five thousand troops in the fortress--a force by which it was thoroughly
manned.
But its power for defence was doubled by having a commander, who was
fitted by nature and by training for the responsibilities that were
to be laid upon him. George Augustus Eliott was the son of Sir Gilbert
Eliott, of Roxburghshire, where he was born in 1718. Scotch families in
those days, like those of our New England fathers, were apt to be large,
and the future defender of Gibraltar was one of eleven children, of whom
but two were daughters, and of the nine sons George was the youngest.
After such education as he could receive at home, he was sent to the
continent, and entered the University of Leyden, where, with his other
studies, he acquired a knowledge of German, which was to be of practical
use to him afterward, as he was to serve for a year in a German army.
But France was the country that then took the lead in the art of war;
and from Holland he was sent to a famous military school in Picardy,
founded by Vauban, the constructor of the French fortresses, where he
learned the principles which he was to apply to the defence of a greater
fortress than any in France. He gave particular attention also to the
practice of gunnery. As Napoleon learned the art of war in the artillery
school of Brienne, so did Eliott in the school of La Fère. An incidental
advantage of this French education was that he acquired the language so
that he could speak it fluently, a knowledge which was of service to him
afterward when he had so much to do with the French, even though it were
as enemies.
From France Eliott travelled into other countries on a tour of military
observation, and then enlisted for a year in the Prussian army, which
was considered the model in the way of discipline. Thus equipped for the
life of a soldier, he returned to Scotland, where (as his father wished
that he should be further inured to the practice of arms), he entered a
Welsh regiment then in Edinburgh as a volunteer, and served with it for
a year, from which he went into the engineer corps at Woolwich, and then
into a troop of "horse grenadiers," that, under his vigorous training,
became famous as a corps of heavy cavalry. When it was ordered to the
Continent, he went with it, and served in Germany and the Netherlands,
where he took part in several engagements and was wounded at the battle
of Dettingen.
In this varied service Eliott had gained the reputation of being a
brave and capable officer, but had as yet no opportunity to show
the extraordinary ability which he was afterward to display. He had,
however, acquired such a mastery of the art of war, that he was fitted
for any position. In those days, however, promotion was slow, and he
had served in the army (which he entered at the age of seventeen,) forty
years, and was fifty-seven years old, and had yet reached only the grade
of a Lieutenant-General, when, in 1775, he was placed in command of the
fortress of Gibraltar. This was four years before the siege began, by
which time he was a little turned of sixty, so that he was familiarly
called "Old Eliott." But his good Scotch frame did him service now, for
he was hale and strong, with a heart of oak and a frame of iron; asking
no indulgence on account of his years, but ready to endure every fatigue
and share every danger. Such was the man who was to conduct the defence
of Gibraltar, and to be, from the beginning to the end, its very heart
and soul.[4]
[Illustration: PLAN OF GIBRALTAR.]
It was in the year 1779, and on the very longest day of the year,
the 21st of June, that Spain, by order of the King, severed all
communication with Gibraltar. But this was not war; it was simply
non-intercourse, and not a hostile gun was fired for months. It is
an awkward thing to strike the first blow where relations have been
friendly. It had long been the custom of the Spaniards to keep a
regiment of cavalry at San Roque, and one of infantry at Algeciras,
across the bay, between which and the garrison there was a frequent
exchange of military courtesies. Two days before this abrupt termination
of intercourse, the Governor had been to pay his respects to General
Mendoza, and found him very much embarrassed by the visit, so that he
suspected something was wrong, and was not surprised when the order came
down from Madrid to cut off all friendly communication. The Spaniards
had resolved to make a fresh attempt to recapture Gibraltar, thinking at
first that it might be done by a blockade, without a bombardment. There
are two ways to take a fortress--by shot and shell, or _by starvation_.
The latter may be slower and not so striking to the imagination as
carrying a walled city by storm, but it is even more certain of success
if only the operation can be completely done. But to this end the place
must be sealed up so tightly that there shall be no going out nor coming
in. This seems a very simple process, but in execution is not so easy,
especially if the fortress be of large extent, and has approaches by
land and sea. The Spaniards began with a vigor that seemed to promise
success, by constructing a parallel across the isthmus which connects
the Rock with the mainland. This was itself a formidable undertaking,
but they seemed not to care for cost or labor. Putting ten thousand men
at work, they had in a few weeks drawn a line across the Neutral Ground,
which rendered access to the garrison impossible _by land_. Any supplies
must come _by sea_.
To prevent this, the Spaniards had a large fleet in the Bay and cruising
in the Straits. But with all their vigilance, they found it hard to keep
a blockade of a Rock, with a circuit of seven miles, when there were
hundreds of eyes looking out from the land, answered by hundreds of
watchers from the sea. In dark nights boats with muffled oars glided
between the blockading ships, and stole up to some sheltered nook,
bringing news from the outside world. And there were always daring
cruisers ready to attempt to run the blockade, taking any risk for the
sake of the large reward in case of success. Sometimes the weather would
favor them. A fierce "Levanter" blowing from the east, would drive off
the fleet, and fill the Straits with fog and mist, under cover of which
they could run in undiscovered. At another time a bold privateer would
come in, in face of the fleet, and if sighted and pursued, would set all
sail, and rush to destruction or to victory. Once under the guns of the
fortress she was safe. Thus for a time the garrison received irregular
supplies.[5]
But in spite of all it was often in sore and pressing need. The soldiers
required to be well fed to be fit for duty, and yet not infrequently
they were half starved. Six thousand capacious mouths made havoc of
provisions, and a brig-load was quickly consumed. As if this was not
enough, the hucksters of the town, who had got hold of the necessaries
of life, secreted them to create an appearance of greater scarcity,
that they might extort still larger prices from the famine-stricken
inhabitants. Drinkwater, in his "History of the Siege," gives a list of
prices actually paid.
"The hind-quarter of an Algerian sheep, with the head and tail, was
sold for seven pounds and ten shillings; a large sow for upwards
of twenty-nine pounds; a goat, with a young kid, the latter about
twelve months old, for near twelve pounds. An English milch cow was
sold for fifty guineas, reserving to the seller a pint of milk each
day whilst she gave milk; and another cow was purchased by a Jew for
sixty guineas, but the beast was in such a feeble condition that she
dropped down dead before she had been removed many hundred yards."
But it was not only meat that was wanted: bread was so scarce that even
biscuit-crumbs sold for a shilling a pound! The economy of flour was
carried to the most minute details. It was an old custom that the
soldiers who were to mount guard should powder their hair, like the
servants in the royal household; but even this had to be denied them.
The Governor would not waste a thimbleful of the precious article, which
he had rather see going into the stomachs of his brave soldiers than
plastered on their hair.
A brief entry in a soldier's diary, tells how the pinch came closer and
closer: "Another bakery shut up to-day. No more flour. Even salt meat
scarce, and no vegetables."
Shortly after this an examination of supplies revealed the fact that
no fresh meat remained, with the exception of an old cow, which was
reserved for the sick. A goose was sold for two pounds, and a turkey for
four.
In such a condition--so near to the starvation point--there was but one
thing to do. It was a hard necessity, but there was no help for it,
and an order was issued for the immediate reduction of the soldiers'
rations, already barely sufficient to sustain life.
The effect of this continued privation upon the _morale_ of the garrison
was very depressing. Hunger, like disease, weakens the vital forces, and
when both come together they weigh upon the spirit until the manliest
give way to discouragement. That this feeling did not become general was
owing chiefly to the personal influence of the Governor, whose presence
was medicine to the sick, and a new force to the well, making the brave
braver and the strong stronger. When famine stared them in the face he
made light of it, and taught others to make light of it by sharing their
privations. At the beginning of the siege he had formed a resolution to
share all the hardships of his men, even to limiting himself to the fare
of a common soldier. His food was of the plainest and coarsest. As a
Scotch boy he had perhaps been brought up on oatmeal porridge, and it
was good enough for him still. If a blockade-runner came in with a cargo
of fresh provisions, he did not reserve the best for himself, but all
was sold in the open market. If it be said that he had the means to buy
which others had not, yet his tastes were so simple that he preferred
to share the soldier's mess rather than to partake of the richest food.
Besides, he had a principle about it. To such extent did he carry this,
that, on one occasion, when the enemy's commander, as a courtesy not
unusual in war, sent him a present of fruit, vegetables, and game, the
Governor, while returning a polite acknowledgment, begged that the act
might not be repeated, for that he had a fixed resolution "never to
receive or procure, by any means whatever, any provisions or other
commodity for his own private use;" adding, "I make it a point of honor
to partake both of plenty and scarcity in common with the lowest of my
brave fellow-soldiers." Once indeed when the stress was the sharpest, he
showed his men how close they could come to starvation and not die, by
living eight days on four ounces of rice a day! The old hero had been
preparing for just such a crisis as this by his previous life, for he
had trained himself from boyhood to bear every sort of hardship and
privation. The argument for total abstinence needs no stronger fact to
support it than that the defence of Gibraltar was conducted by a man who
needed no artificial stimulus to keep up his courage or brace his nerves
against the shock of battle. "Old Eliott," the brave Scotchman and
magnificent soldier, was able to stand to his guns with nothing stronger
to fire his blood than cold water. Chalmers' Biographical Dictionary
says:
"He was perhaps the most abstemious man of the age. His food was
vegetables, and his drink water. He neither indulged himself in
animal food nor wine. He never slept more than four hours at a time,
so that he was up later and earlier than most other men. He had
so inured himself to habits of hardness, that the things which are
difficult and painful to other men were to him his daily practice,
and rendered pleasant by use. It could not be easy to starve such
a man into a surrender, nor to surprise him. His wants were easily
supplied, and his watchfulness was beyond precedent. The example of
the commander-in-chief in a besieged garrison, has a most persuasive
efficacy in forming the manners of the soldiery. Like him, his brave
followers came to regulate their lives by the most strict rules of
discipline before there arose a necessity for so doing; and severe
exercise, with short diet, became habitual to them by their own
choice."
Thus the old Governor, by starving himself, taught his men how to bear
starvation. After that a soldier, however pinched, would hardly dare to
complain.
He might not indeed care for himself, but he could not help caring for
those dependent on him. The cruel hardship of it was that the suffering
fell not on the soldiers alone, but on women and children. The Governor
had tried, as far as possible, to send away all non-combatants. But it
was not always easy to separate families. There were soldiers' wives,
who clung to their husbands all the more because of their danger. If a
Scotch grenadier were to have his legs carried off by a cannon-ball, or
frightfully torn by a shell, who could nurse him so well as his faithful
wife, who had followed him in the camp and in the field? And so,
for better, for worse, many a wife, with the courage of womanhood,
determined to share her husband's fate. It was a brave resolution, but
it only involved them in the common distress. There were so many more
mouths to feed, when the supply even for the soldiers was all too
little. The captain who has recorded so faithfully the heroisms and the
privations of the siege, says:
"Many officers and soldiers had families to support out of the
pittance received from the victualling office. A soldier and his
wife and three children would inevitably have been starved to death
had not the generous contribution of his corps relieved his family.
One woman actually died through want, and many were so enfeebled
that it was not without great attention they recovered. Thistles,
dandelions, and wild leeks were for some time the daily nourishment
of numbers."
Another account tells the same pitiful tale, with additional horrors:
"The ordinary means of sustenance were now almost exhausted, and
_roots and weeds_, with thistles and wild onions, were greedily
sought after and devoured by the famished inhabitants.
"Bread was becoming so scarce that the daily rations were served out
under protection of a guard, and the weak, the aged, and the infirm,
who could not struggle against the hungry, impetuous crowd that
thronged the doors of the bakeries, often returned to their homes
robbed of their share."[6]
"Ancell's Journal," kept during the siege, thus records the impressions
of the day:
"It is a terribly painful sight to see the fighting among the people
for a morsel of bread at an exorbitant price; men wrestling,
women entreating, and children crying, a jargon of all languages,
piteously pouring forth their complaints. You would think
sensibility would shed a tear, and yet when we are in equal distress
ourselves our feelings for others rather subside."
While this slow and wasting process of starvation was going on, the
garrison were in a fearful state of suspense. Sometimes it seemed as if
England had forgotten them, but again came tidings that the nation was
watching their defence with the utmost anxiety, and would speedily send
relief. The time of waiting seemed long as the months passed--summer and
autumn and part of winter, and no help appeared. The blockade began
in June, 1779, and it was January, 1780, before the fleet of Admiral
Rodney, after gaining a battle over the Spanish fleet off the coast of
Portugal, bore away to the south. To those who were watching from the
top of the Rock, probably no event of their lives ever moved them so
much as when they first caught sight of the English ships entering the
Straits of Gibraltar. Men, women, and children, wept aloud for joy, for
the coming fleet brought them life from the dead. And when it anchored
in the bay, and the ships began to unload, they brought forth not only
guns and ammunition, but more priceless treasures--beef, pork, butter,
flour, peas, oatmeal, raisins, and biscuits, as well as coals, iron
hoops, and candles! Revelling in such abundance, could they ever want
again? It was indeed a timely relief, and if the fleet could have
remained, it might have put an end to the siege. But England was then
carrying on wars in two hemispheres; and while the French fleet was
crossing the Atlantic to aid the American colonies in gaining their
independence, she could not afford that her largest fleet should lie
idle in the Bay of Gibraltar. As soon, therefore, as the stores could
be landed, Admiral Rodney returned to England. The Governor seized the
opportunity to send home great numbers of invalids and women. It was
necessary that the garrison should "strip for the fight," as there were
darker days to come.
Gibraltar had been saved from the jaws of famine by the arrival of
the English fleet. But as soon as it left, the Spanish ships remained
masters of the bay, and the blockade was closer than ever. The garrison
had had a narrow escape. That it might not be caught so again, the
Governor, with his Scotch thrift, put his men upon a new kind of
service, quite apart from military duty. The Rock is not wholly barren.
There are many nooks and corners that are bright with flowers, and
anything that the earth can yield will ripen under that warm southern
sky. Accordingly the soldiers, in the intervals of firing the big guns,
were put to do a little gardening; and turned patches of ground here and
there to cultivation; and where the hillside was too steep, the earth
was raised into terraces and banked up with walls, on which they raised
small quantities of lettuce or cabbages; so that afterward, although
they still suffered for many of the comforts, if not the necessaries, of
life, they never came quite so near absolute starvation.
This "home produce" was the more important as the garrison was now to be
cut off from its principal resource outside. For a time it had been able
to obtain supplies from the Barbary Coast. At first the Moors were all
on the side of England, for the Spaniards were their hereditary enemies,
who had fought them for hundreds of years, and finally driven them out
of Spain, for which the Moors took a pious revenge by thronging the
mosques of Tangier to pray that Allah would give the victory to the arms
of England! But after a time they saw things in a new light. It could
not be Christian charity that softened their hearts toward their old
enemies, for they hated the very name of Christian, but some secret
influence (was it Spanish gold?) so worked on the mind of the Sultan
of Morocco that he became convinced that Allah was on the side of the
besiegers--a discovery which he announced in a manner that was not quite
in the usual style of diplomatic intercourse. Thus, without any warning,
"A party of black troops that were quartered in the vicinity
of Tangier, came to the house of the British Consul, and being
introduced, informed him that they had orders from their master to
abuse and insult him in the grossest manner, which they immediately
put in execution by spitting in his face, seizing him by the collar,
and threatening to stab him with their daggers!"
Fortunately he escaped with nothing worse than this gross outrage; but
the serious part of the business was that it cut off all communication
of Gibraltar with the Barbary Coast; for the Sultan prohibited the
export of provisions, and as the supplies brought by the convoy were
exhausted in a few months, the garrison was again, not indeed at the
starvation point, but in sore need of what was for its health and vigor.
The meagre diet threatened to produce a pestilence. At one time there
were seven hundred men in the hospitals; at another the small-pox broke
out; and at another the garrison was so reduced by the scurvy, caused
by the use of salt meats, that strong men became weak as children, and
hobbled about on crutches. This threatened a great disaster, which was
averted only by lemons! In the moment of extremity a Dutch "dogger"
coming from Malaga was captured, and found to be laden with oranges and
lemons, "a freight which, at such a crisis, was of more value to the
garrison than tons of powder or magazines of ammunition." The lemons
were instantly distributed in the hospitals. The men seized them and
devoured them ravenously, and the restoration was so speedy as to seem
almost miraculous.
And yet this relief was only temporary. Soon we have this picture of the
condition of the garrison:
"As the spring of 1781 advanced, the situation assumed the most
distressing aspect. The few provisions which remained were bad
in quality, and having been kept too long were decomposed and
uneatable. The most common necessaries of life were exorbitantly
dear; bad ship biscuit, full of worms, was sold at a shilling a
pound; flour, in not much better condition, at the same price; old
dried peas, a shilling and fourpence; salt, half dirt, the sweepings
of ships' bottoms and storehouses, at eight pence; old salt butter,
at two shillings and sixpence; and English farthing candles cost
sixpence apiece. Fresh provisions commanded a still higher price:
turkeys sold at three pounds twelve shillings, sucking pigs at two
guineas, and a guinea was refused for a calf's pluck.
"The English government, aware of this condition of things, had for
months turned their attention to the relief of the fortress; but the
many exigencies of the war, and the extensive arena over which
it was spread, caused so many demands upon the navy that it had
hitherto been impossible to provide a fleet for the succor of
Gibraltar. But the relief of the garrison was indispensable, and the
honor of England required that it should be executed. Accordingly
the government made extraordinary efforts to equip a squadron to
convoy a flotilla of merchantmen to the Rock."[7]
But with all their efforts, it was more than a year before the second
fleet arrived. When it came, it was loaded with all conceivable
supplies, which took ten days to unload. The joy of the beleaguered
garrison knew no bounds. And yet this new relief only precipitated a
calamity which had been long impending. The scene of the arrival is thus
described by an eye-witness:
"At daybreak, April 12th, the much-expected fleet, under the command
of Admiral Darby, was in sight from our Signal-house, but was not
discernible from below, being obscured by a thick mist. As the sun,
however, became more powerful, the fog gradually rose, like the
curtain of a vast theatre, discovering to the anxious garrison
one of the most beautiful and pleasing scenes it is possible to
conceive. The convoy, consisting of near a hundred vessels, led by
several men-of-war, their sails just enough filled for steerage;
whilst the majority of the line-of-battle ships lay-to under the
Barbary shore, having orders not to enter the bay lest the enemy
should molest them with their fire-ships. The ecstasies of the
inhabitants at this grand and exhilarating sight are not to be
described. Their expressions of joy far exceeded their former
exultations [at the arrival of the fleet under Admiral Rodney].
Alas! they little dreamed of the tremendous blow that impended,
which was to annihilate their property, and reduce many of them to
indigence and beggary."[8]
What this blow was, at once appeared. The arrival of the second fleet
from England convinced the Spaniards that it would be impossible to
reduce Gibraltar by blockade, and determined them to try the other
alternative of bombardment. Enormous batteries, mounting 170 guns and
80 mortars, had been planted along the shore; and now (before even the
English ships could be unladen of their stores) was opened all round the
bay a _feu d'enfer_, which was kept up for six weeks! Only two hours
out of the twenty-four was there any cessation, and that for a singular
reason. National customs must rule in war as in peace. The Spaniards
began their fire at daybreak, and continued it without intermission till
noon. Then suddenly it ceased, and the camp of the besiegers relapsed
into silence: for that the officers, if not the men, _were asleep_!
What Spanish gentleman could be deprived of his _siesta_? At two o'clock
precisely they woke up and went to fighting again. At nightfall the
cannon ceased, but only that the mortars (which did not need to be aimed
with precision, and therefore could be fired in darkness as well as
in daylight) opened their larger throats, and kept up the roar till
daybreak. Thus, with only the time of the _siesta_, there was not
an hour of day or night that the Rock did not echo with tremendous
reverberations. The town was soon set on fire, and completely destroyed.
There was no safety anywhere, not even in the casemates. If a bomb-proof
withstood a falling shell, it would sometimes explode at the open door,
wounding those within. Men were killed sleeping in their beds. The scene
at night was more terrible than by day, as the shells were more clearly
seen in their deadly track. Sometimes a dozen would be wheeling in the
air at the same moment, keeping every eye strained to see where the
bolts would fall, and the bravest held their breath when (as was several
times the case) they fell near the powder magazines!
Again, the soldiers were not the only ones to suffer: their wives and
children were their partners in misery. When the town was on fire, the
people fled from it, and at a distance watched the flames that rose
from their burning dwellings, in which all their little property was
consumed--the roofs that sheltered them, and even the food that fed
them. For six weeks they had not a moment's rest, day nor night.
Although they had fled to the southern end of the Rock, destruction
pursued them there. The Spanish ships had a custom of sailing round
Europa Point, and firing indiscriminately on shore. This was generally
at night, so that the poor creatures who had lain down to snatch a
moment of forgetfulness, were roused at midnight and fled almost naked
to seek for shelter behind rocks and in holes in the ground, in which
they cowered like hunted beasts, till the storm of fire had passed over
them.
The troops were not quite so badly off, for though they were shelled
out of their old quarters, and had not a roof to cover them, yet English
soldiers and sailors are ingenious, and getting hold of some old ship
canvas they rigged up a few forlorn tents, which they pitched on the
hillside. But again they were discomfited. Gibraltar is subject at
certain seasons to terrific storms of thunder and lightning, and now the
rains poured down the side of the Rock in such floods as to sweep away
the tents, and leave the men exposed to the fury of the elements. It
seemed as if the stars in their courses fought against them. But they
were to find that the stars in their courses fight for those who fight
for themselves.
Sometimes the storms, so terrible in one way, brought relief in another.
There had been a scarcity of fuel as well as of food. A soldier could
hardly pick up sticks to make his pot boil, and cook his scanty meal;
so that when a furious gale wrecked a ship in the bay, and cast its
fragments on the shore, which furnished fuel for their camp-fires for
some weeks, they counted it a providential interposition for their
deliverance; and as the firelight cast its ruddy glow in their faces,
they thanked God and took courage.
But with all their courage, kept up by such occasional good fortune, it
was a life-and-death struggle, as they fought not only with the enemy,
but with hunger and cold, and every form of privation.
During all this dreadful time the old Governor was magnificent. Going
among the families that were houseless and homeless, for whom he felt
the utmost sympathy (for with all his rugged strength he had a very
tender heart), he allayed their fears; terrified and miserable as they
were, it was impossible to resist the sunshine of that kindly Scotch
face.[9]
Then he turned to his soldiers, who may well have been appalled by
the tremendous fire, which wrought such wreck and ruin. If they were
troubled and anxious, he was calm. He shunned no danger, as he had
shunned no privation. Indeed danger did not affect him as it did other
men, but only roused the lion in his breast. The more the danger grew,
the higher rose his unconquerable spirit. He was constantly under fire,
and his perfect coolness tended to produce the same composure in others
equally exposed. Terrible as the bombardment was, not for one moment did
he admit the possibility of surrender.
But now came a new danger, not from without, but from within. The fire
which swept the town uncovered cellars and other hiding-places in which
the hucksters had concealed provisions and other stores to double their
price, and extort the last penny from the half-fed population. When
their storehouses were destroyed little sympathy was felt for them.
Indeed, there was a general feeling of savage exultation; and as here
and there supplies of food were found, they were seized without scruple
and appropriated to the common use. Men who have been living on short
allowance are apt to be led into excesses by sudden plenty, and the
soldiers could hardly be blamed if for once they gave themselves a
generous supply. From the extreme of want they went to the extreme of
waste. In some cases incredible profusion prevailed. Drinkwater says:
"Among other instances of caprice and extravagance, I recollect seeing a
party of soldiers roast a pig by a fire made of cinnamon!"
If this had been all, there would not have been so much to regret. But
in the stores were casks of wine and barrels of spirits, which were now
knocked on the head, and the contents distributed with no restraint,
till soon a large part of the garrison was in such a state of
intoxication as to be utterly unfit for duty. "As the enemy's shells
forced open the secret recesses of the merchants, the soldiers instantly
availed themselves of the opportunity to seize upon the liquors, which
they conveyed to haunts of their own. Here in parties they barricaded
their quarters against all opposers, and insensible of their danger,
regaled themselves with the spoils." For a time this sudden madness
ran riot in the streets, threatening the overthrow of all order and
discipline.
It can hardly be matter of surprise that the reaction from this long
tension of feeling, with the sudden temptation to drunkenness, should
show itself in wild extravagances. An incident related in "Ancell's
Journal," shows the soldier in the mood of making sport of his dangers:
"April 15, 1781.--Yesterday I met a soldier singing in the street
with uncommon glee, notwithstanding the enemy were firing with
prodigious warmth,
'A soldier's life is a merry life,
From care and trouble free.'
He ran to me with eagerness, and presenting his bottle, cried:
'D----n me if I don't like fighting, with plenty of good liquor
for carrying away. 'Why, Jack,' says I, 'what have you been about?'
'Faith,' says he, 'I scarce know myself. I have been constantly, on
foot and watch, half-starved and without money, facing a parcel
of pitiful Spaniards. I have been fighting, wheeling, marching,
counter-marching, sometimes with a firelock, sometimes with a
handspike, and now with my bottle.'
"A shell that instant burst, a piece of which knocked the bottle out
of his hand. 'Jack,' says I, 'are you not thankful to God for your
preservation?' 'How do you mean?' says he; 'fine talking of God with
a soldier whose trade and occupation is cutting throats. Divinity
and slaughter sound very well together; they jingle like a cracked
bell in the hands of a noisy crier. My religion is a firelock, open
touch-hole, good flint, well-rammed charge, and seventy rounds: this
is military creed. Come, comrade, drink!'"
Such license as this would soon demoralize the best troops in the world.
Had the Spaniards known the degree to which it existed at that moment,
and been able to effect an entrance into the fortress, Gibraltar might
have been lost.
The insubordination was suppressed only by the most strenuous efforts
of the Governor and the vigorous enforcement of discipline. An order
was issued that any soldier caught marauding should be "executed
_immediately_," and this summary judgment was put in force in several
cases, where men were not only executed without a moment's delay, but on
the very spot where the crime was committed. This timely severity, with
the personal influence of the Governor, at length brought the soldiers
to their senses, and order was restored. Perhaps they were brought back
to duty in part by the continued roar of that terrific bombardment, for
in a true soldier nothing rouses the martial spirit like the sound of
the enemy's guns. Danger and duty go together: and many of those who
had been carried away by this temporary frenzy, when they "came to
themselves," were among the bravest who fought in the conflicts that
were yet to come.
It was now a struggle of endurance--firing and counter-firing month
after month, with exciting incidents now and then to relieve the
monotony of the siege. Of these episodes the most notable was the sortie
executed on the night of November 26, 1781. The siege had lasted more
than two years, and the Spaniards, boastful and confident as they are
apt to be, by this time appreciated the enormous difficulty of attacking
the Rock of Gibraltar. To do them justice, instead of being daunted by
the greatness of the task, their military ardor rose with the vastness
of the undertaking, and they had been engaged for months in rearing a
stupendous parallel across the Neutral Ground, to be mounted with the
heaviest battering artillery. The Governor had kept his eye upon the
progress of the work, and as he saw its lines spreading out wider and
wider, and rising higher and higher, he could not but feel anxiety for
the moment when these batteries should open, and rain shot and shell
upon the devoted garrison. The way in which he met the new danger showed
that he had the promptness in action of a great commander.
From the beginning of the siege he had observed the utmost economy
in the use of his resources. He was sparing of his ammunition, and
sometimes reproached his officers with great severity for wasting it in
unimportant attacks. He saved his powder as he saved his men. Indeed he
was sparing of everything except himself. Yet "he never relaxed from his
discipline by the appearance of security, nor hazarded the lives of
his garrison by wild experiments. Collected within himself, he in no
instance destroyed, by premature attacks, the labors which would cost
the enemy time, patience, and expense to complete; he deliberately
observed their approaches, and seized on the proper moment in which
to make his attack with success." For months he had been waiting and
watching: the time for action had now come.
During the siege there had been frequent desertions on both sides. Now
and then soldiers of the garrison, wearied with the interminable siege
(and thinking it better to take the chances of instant death than to be
shut up in a fortress-prison and perish by inches), let themselves down
by ropes over the face of the Rock. Some escaped to the enemy, and some
were dashed on the rocks below. On the other side there were among the
Spanish soldiers a good many Walloons from Belgium, who had no interest
in the contest, and were as ready to fight on one side as the other.
Occasionally one of these would stray out of the camp, as if without
intention, and when he had got at a distance which he thought gave him
a chance of escape, would take to his heels and run for the gates of
the fortress. If discovered, he was immediately fired at, and a mounted
guard started in pursuit, and if overtaken, he was brought back, and the
next day his body, hanging from the scaffold, in full sight of the Rock,
served as a ghastly warning alike to the besiegers and the besieged.
But, in spite of all, desertions went on. One day a couple of deserters
were brought to the Governor, one of whom proved to be uncommonly
intelligent, and gave important information. "Old Eliott" took him up to
a point of the Rock from which they could look down into the camp of
the besiegers, and questioned him minutely as to its condition and the
intentions of the enemy. He said that the parallel was nearly completed;
and that as soon as all was ready the Spaniards would make a grand
assault; but that meanwhile the works, enormous as they were, were not
guarded by a large force, the besiegers not dreaming that the batteries
prepared for attack could be themselves attacked! The Governor instantly
perceived the value of this information, but kept it to himself, and
had the deserter closely confined lest he should incautiously reveal
to others what he had told to him. Keeping his own counsel, he made his
preparations, which he did not disclose even to his lieutenants until
the moment for action. It was in the evening when he called them
together, and announced his intention to make an attack on the works of
the besiegers _that very night_, and at midnight about two thousand men
were in arms on the "Red Sands," now the Alameda, to carry the daring
purpose into execution. Their orders were of the strictest kind: "Each
man to have thirty-six rounds of ammunition, with a good flint in his
piece and another in his pocket. No drums to go out, excepting two with
each of the regiments. _No volunteers will be allowed._" The brave old
commander wanted no amateurs on such an occasion. "No person to advance
before the front, unless ordered by the officer commanding the column:
and _the most profound silence to be observed_." As it took two or three
hours to form the columns, and acquaint all with the special duty to be
undertaken, and the necessity for the strictest obedience, it was nearly
three o'clock when they began to move. The moon was just setting across
the bay, and soon all was dark and still, as the men advanced with quick
but cautious steps through the silent streets. The commander had picked
his men for the daring attempt. Knowing how powerful are the traditions
of bravery, he had chosen two regiments that had fought side by side at
the battle of Minden, twenty-two years before. The officers to lead them
he had chosen with equal care, and yet, when it came to the moment of
action, the old soldier felt such a fire in his bones that he could not
resist the impulse to keep them company. As they emerged from the gates
they had still three-quarters of a mile across the plain to reach the
enemy's works. With all the precautions to secure silence, the tramp of
two thousand men, however muffled, could not but reach the ears of the
Spanish sentinels, and a few rapid shots told that they were discovered.
But the alarm was given too late. It only quickened the advance of
the column, which, as it reached the works, rushed over the parapet,
bayoneting the men, such as did not flee, panic-stricken by the sudden
attack, and spiking the guns. As the soldiers had come prepared with
faggots for the purpose, they immediately set the works on fire. But
even at this moment of terror there was one who thought of mercy as well
as of victory. Before the flames had spread the Governor, "anxious
that none of the wounded should by any accident perish in the burning
batteries, went into the trench himself and found among the bodies of
the slain a wounded officer, whom by his uniform he knew to be a captain
of the Spanish artillery, to whom he spoke with all kindness, and
promising him every assistance, ordered him to be removed, as the fire
was now rapidly spreading to the spot where he lay. But the Spaniard,
raising himself with difficulty, feebly exclaimed, "No, sir, no, leave
me and let me perish amid the ruins of my post." In a few minutes he
expired. It was afterward found that he had commanded the guard of the
San Carlos battery, and that when his men threw down their arms and
fled, he rushed forward into the attacking column, exclaiming, "At least
one Spaniard shall die honorably," and fell where he was found, at the
foot of his post."[10]
It was now too late to talk of mercy. In an hour the flames had spread
into a conflagration that could not be subdued. As it rose into the air,
it lighted up the Rock above and the plain below. Leaving the elements
to complete the work of destruction, the assailants made their retreat,
only to hear, as they re-entered the gates, the explosion of the
magazines. So vast was the ruin wrought that the camp was like a city on
fire, and continued to burn for four days, without an effort on the part
of the Spaniards (who seemed to be stunned and bewildered by the sudden
attack) to subdue the flames. Thus was destroyed at a single stroke what
it had cost months of labor and millions of money to construct.
And so the game of war went on for three long years, until it had
fixed the gaze of the whole civilized world. The last act was to be
inaugurated by a change in the military command, and in the method of
attack. Hitherto the siege had been conducted chiefly by the Spaniards,
as was fitting, since, if the fortress were taken, to Spain would fall
the splendid prize. They had fought bravely, maintaining the reputation
which had never been shaken from the days of Alva, when the Spanish
infantry was more dreaded than any other on the battle-fields of Europe.
During the siege the officers of the garrison, as they looked down from
their heights into the hostile camp, could not but admire the way in
which both officers and men exposed themselves. It was not to their
dishonor if they had failed in attempting the impossible. But having to
confess defeat, it was but military prudence to see if another mode of
operation might not be more successful. Accordingly, French skill in the
art of war was now called in to take part in the tremendous conflict.
The Duc de Crillon, who had recently distinguished himself by the
capture of Minorca, was put in command of the combined land forces;
while a French engineer, the Chevalier d'Arçon, was to prepare an
armament more formidable than had ever been known in naval warfare.
The plan had certainly the merit of boldness. There was to be no more
long blockade, and no more attempt to take the place by stratagem.
Gibraltar was to be taken, if at all, by hard fighting. But the
conditions of battle were unequal: for how could wooden ships be matched
against stone walls? No ships of the day could stand an hour against
guns fired from behind those ramparts. But this engineer was bold
enough to believe that vessels could be made so strong that they would
withstand even that tremendous fire. He proposed to construct "battering
ships" of such enormous strength that they could be moored within short
range, when he in turn would open a fire equally tremendous, that should
blow Gibraltar into the air! All he asked was that his flotilla might
be laid close alongside the enemy, when, gun to gun and man to man, the
contest should be decided. Once let him get near enough to make a breach
for a storming party to mount the walls, and his French grenadiers
would do the rest. It was bravely conceived, and to the day of battle it
seemed as if it might be bravely done.
To begin with, ten of the largest ships in the Spanish navy were to be
sacrificed: for it seemed like a sacrifice to cut down the huge bulwarks
of their towering sides. But show was to be sacrificed to strength. The
new constructor would have no more three-deckers, nor two-deckers. All
he wanted was one broad deck, reaching the whole length of the ship,
from stem to stern, which should be as solid as if it were a part of the
mainland, or a floating island, on which he could plant his guns as on
the ramparts of a fortress. Having thus dismantled and razeed the great
ships, he proceeded to reconstruct them without and within. His method
is of interest, as showing how a hundred years ago a naval engineer
anticipated the modern construction of ironclads. His battering ships
were in outward shape almost exactly what the Merrimac was in our civil
war. He did everything except case them with iron, the art of rolling
plates of wrought iron, such as are now used in the construction of
ships, not being then known. But if they could not be "plated" with iron
on the outside, they were "backed" by ribs of oak within. Inside their
enormous hulls was a triple thickness of beams, braced against the
sides. Next to this was a layer of _sand_, in which it was supposed
a cannon-ball would bury itself as in the earth. To this sand-bank,
resting against its oaken backing, there was still an inner lining in a
thick wall of _cork_, which, yielding like india-rubber, would offer the
best resistance to the penetration of shot.
Having thus protected the hulls, it was only necessary to protect the
crews. For this the decks were roofed with heavy timbers, which were
covered with _ropes_, and next with _hides_, after the manner of the
ancient Romans; so that the men working at the guns were almost as
secure from the enemy's fire as if they were inside of the strongest
casemates that the art of fortification could construct. Thus shielded
above and below--from the deck to the keel--these novel ships-of-war
were in truth floating fortresses, and it was hardly presumptuous in
their constructor to say that they "could not be burnt, nor sunk, nor
taken."
These preparations for attack could not be made without the knowledge
of the garrison. From the top of the Rock they had but to turn their
glasses across the bay, and they could see distinctly hundreds of
workmen swarming over the great hulks, and could almost hear the sound
of the hammers that ceased not day nor night. Turning to the camp of the
besiegers, they could see "long strings of mules streaming hourly into
the trenches laden with shot, shell, and ammunition." Deserters brought
in reports of the vast preparations, and the confidence they inspired.
The fever of expectation had spread to the capitals of Spain and
France. The King of Spain was almost beside himself with eagerness and
impatience. Every morning his first question was "Is it taken?" and when
answered in the negative he always kept up his courage by saying, "It
will soon be ours." His expectations seemed now likely to be realized.
All felt that at last the end was nigh, and the Comte d'Artois, the
brother of Louis XVI., the King of France, had made the journey all the
way from Paris to be present at the grand culmination of the surrender
of Gibraltar!
So sure were the allies of victory that they debated among themselves as
to "how many hours" the garrison could keep up a resistance. Twenty-four
hours was the limit, and when the French commander, less sanguine than
the naval constructors and engineers, thought it might be even _two
weeks_ before the place fell, he was the subject of general ridicule.
Taking for granted that the fire of the garrison would soon be silenced,
precise directions were given about the landing of the storming party.
As soon as a break was made, the grenadiers were to mount the walls.
It was especially ordered that strong bodies of troops should _advance
rapidly and cut off the retreat_ of the garrison, which might otherwise
flee to the heights of the Rock, and keep up for a while longer the
hopeless resistance. The victory must be complete.
On the other hand, the garrison was roused to greater exertion by the
greater danger. Its ardor was excited also by what was passing in other
parts of the world. War was still raging in both hemispheres, with the
usual vicissitudes of victory and defeat. England had lost America, but
her wounded pride was soon relieved, if not entirely removed, by a great
victory at sea. Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, in October, 1781,
and only six months after, in April, 1782, Admiral Rodney (the same who
had relieved Gibraltar only two years before) gained a victory in the
West Indies over Count de Grasse, which almost annihilated the French
fleet, and assured to England, whatever her losses upon land, the
mastery of the seas. The tidings of this great victory reached
Gibraltar, and fired the spirit of every Briton. The Governor was now
sixty-four years old, and the events of the last three years might well
make him feel that he was a hundred. But his youth returned in the
great crisis that was upon him. Both Governor and garrison burned to do
something worthy the name and fame of Old England. The opportunity soon
came.
Though the battering ships were regarded as invincible, yet to make
assurance doubly sure the French and Spanish fleets had been quadrupled
in force. If any man's heart had been trembling before, it must have
failed him on September 12, 1782, when there sailed into the bay
thirty-nine ships of the line, raising the naval armament to fifty
line-of-battle ships, with innumerable smaller vessels--the largest
naval armament since the Spanish Armada--supported on land by an army of
forty thousand men, whose batteries, mounted with the heaviest ordnance,
stretched along the shore.
Against this mighty array of force by land and sea the English
commander, mustering every gun and every man, could oppose only
ninety-six pieces of artillery, manned by seven thousand soldiers and
sailors.
As the allied forces had been waiting only for the fleet, the attack was
announced for the following day, and accordingly soon after the sun rose
the next morning the battering-ships were seen to be getting under way.
It was a grand sight, at which the spirits of the besiegers rose to
the highest pitch. So confident were they of victory that thousands of
spectators, among whom were many of the Spanish nobility, had gathered
near the "Queen's Seat," in the Spanish lines, to witness the final
capture of Gibraltar, for which they had been waiting three long years.
Even the Englishmen who lined the ramparts could not but admire the
order in which the ships took up their positions. So confident was the
Spanish Admiral that they were shot-proof and bomb-proof, that he took
no pains to keep at long range, but advanced boldly and moored within
half gunshot, with large boats full of men ready to land as soon as the
guns of the fortress were silenced. To both sides it was evident that
the decisive day had come.
While the ships were being ranged in line of battle, the English stood
at their guns in silence till "Old Eliott" took his stand on the King's
Bastion, and gave the signal for the roar of earth and hell to begin.
Instantly the floating batteries answered from the whole line, and their
fire was taken up along the shores of the bay, till there were four
hundred guns playing on the devoted town. No thunderstorm in the tropics
ever shot out such lightnings and thunderings. As the hills echoed the
tremendous reverberations, it seemed as if the solid globe was reeling
under the shock of an earthquake.
The ships at first aimed their guns a little too high, so that balls and
shells flew over the line-wall and fell in the rear; but they soon
got the range, and lowering their guns to almost a dead-level, fired
point-blank. "About noon their firing was powerful and well-directed."
Guns were dismounted, and the wounded began to fall and to be carried
to the rear. But others took their place at the guns, and kept up
the steady fire, never turning from the one object directly in front.
Although the batteries on the land tried to divert their fire, the
Governor disdained to answer them with a single gun. "Not there! not
there!" was the danger. His keen eye saw that the fate of Gibraltar was
to be decided that day by the answer given to those battering ships that
were pouring such a terrific fire into his lines. In the midst of it
all he was as cool as if on parade. A large part of the day he kept his
place on the King's Bastion, the centre at which the enemy's fire was
directed, and his presence had an inspiring effect upon his men. To do
them justice, the soldiers, who had served under such a commander for
three years, were worthy of their leader. As he looked along the lines
they were wrapped in a cloud of smoke, and yet now and then, by the
flashing of the guns, he could see their heroic features glowing
"with the light of battle in their faces." On that day, as with Nelson
twenty-three years later, "England expected every man to do his duty,"
and did not expect in vain.
But for a time all their courage and skill seemed to be without result.
For hours the battle raged with doubtful issue. Though the English
fired at such short range, they did not produce much effect. Their
thirty-two-pound shot could not pierce the thick-ribbed sides of the
battering-ships, while their heaviest shells were seen to rebound from
the roofs, as the shots of the Congress and the Cumberland rebounded
from the roof of the Merrimac. Apparently the fire of the garrison
produced as little impression on the ships as the fire of the ships
produced on the rocks of Gibraltar.
The disparity of forces was so great that the allies might have carried
the day if that inequality had not been balanced by one advantage of the
besieged. They had one means of destruction which could not be so easily
turned against land defences--in the use of hot shot. The experiment had
been tried on the works of the besiegers, and they now hoped it would
have still greater effect upon the ships. But their enemies were neither
surprised nor daunted by this new mode of attack. They were fully aware
of what the English had done, and what they proposed to do, and with
true Castilian pride laughed at this new method of destruction. So much
did they despise it, that one of the Spanish commanders said "he would
engage to receive in his breast all the hot shot of the enemy."
Meanwhile "Old Eliott" had gone on with his preparations. A few days
before, coal had been served out to the furnaces, which had been placed
beside the batteries. These were now kept at white heat, and the heavy
balls dropped into them till they glowed like molten iron, and then were
carefully lifted to the guns.[11]
As the artillerymen sighted their guns they observed with grim
satisfaction that the ships had anchored at the right distance, so that
they had but to elevate their guns _very slightly_, just enough to save
the necessity of ramming the ball with a second wadding to hold it in
place; and thus not a moment was lost when moments were very precious,
but the ball was simply rolled into the cannon's mouth, from which it
was instantly hurled at the foe.
Yet even the hot shot did not at first make much impression. The French
engineer had guarded against them by having pumps constantly pouring
water into the layer of sand below, where a red-hot cannon-ball would
soon be rendered harmless. In fact, a number of times during the day
smoke was seen to issue from the floating batteries, showing that the
hot shot had taken effect, but the flames were promptly extinguished. It
was not till late in the afternoon that they began to burst out, and it
was seen that the Admiral's ship was on fire. As the night drew on the
flames became more visible, showing the exact position of the Spanish
line, and furnishing a mark for the English guns. On another ship the
fires advanced so rapidly that they had to flood the magazine for
fear of an explosion. Others threw up rockets, and hoisted signals of
distress to their consorts, and boats were seen rowing toward them. At
midnight nine out of the ten battering-ships were on fire. The scene at
this moment was awful beyond description, as the flames mounted higher
and higher till they lighted up the whole bay and the surrounding
shores. When it became evident that the ships could not be saved, there
was a panic on board; all discipline was lost in the eagerness to escape
from the burning decks; sailors and gunners threw themselves into the
sea. French and Spanish boats picked up hundreds, and still there were
hundreds more who were perishing, whose agonized shrieks rose upon the
midnight air. The English heard it, and stout hearts that quailed not at
the roar of guns, quivered
"At the cry
Of some strong swimmer in his agony."
Then it was that the English showed that their courage was equalled
by their humanity, as the very men who had fought all day at the guns
pushed off in boats to save their foes from drowning. This was an
attempt which involved the utmost danger, for the ships were on fire,
and might blow up at any moment. But Brigadier Curtis, learning from
the prisoners that hundreds of officers and men, some wounded, still
remained on board, forgot everything in his eagerness to save them.
Careless of danger from the explosions which every instant scattered
fragments of wreck around him, he passed from ship to ship, and
literally dragged from the burning decks the miserable Spaniards whom
their own countrymen had left to perish. The Governor watched the
movement with the utmost anxiety, which rose to "anguish," to use his
own word, as he saw the gallant officer push his boat alongside one of
the largest ships, that was a mass of flames. As he stood transfixed
with horror at the sight, there came a tremendous explosion, and the
ship was blown into the air, its fragments falling far and wide over the
sea. That was a moment of agony, for he could not doubt that friend
and foe had perished together. But as the wreck cleared away the little
pinnace was seen, by the light of the other burning ships, to be still
afloat, though shattered. A huge beam of timber had fallen through
her flooring, killing the coxswain, wounding others of her crew, and
starting a large hole in her bottom, through which the water rushed so
rapidly that it seemed as if she must sink in a few minutes. But English
sailors are equal to anything, and stripping off their jackets they
stuffed them into the hole, and thus kept the boat above water till they
reached the shore, bringing with them 357 of their late enemies, whom
they had saved from a horrible death. The wounded were sent to the
hospitals and treated with the greatest care; and an officer who died
four days after, received the honors that would have been paid to one of
their own countrymen, the grenadiers following his bier and firing their
farewell shot
"O'er the grave where the hero was buried."
This last act was all that was wanting to complete the glory of England
on that immortal day. History records the heroic conduct of British
seamen at the Battle of the Nile, when the French Admiral's ship, the
Orient, took fire, and Nelson sent his boats to pick up the drowning
crew. While this should be remembered, let it not be forgotten that
sixteen years before the Battle of the Nile, the garrison of Gibraltar
had set the splendid example.
The next morning saw the bay covered with wrecks. The victory was
complete. The siege was still kept up in form, and the besiegers
continued firing, and for some days threw into the town four, five,
and six hundred shells, and from six hundred to a thousand shot, every
twenty-four hours! But this was only the muttering thunder after the
storm. The battle was over, and from that day to this--more than a
hundred years--the Red Cross of England has floated from the Rock of
Gibraltar.
The close of this long and terrible conflict was like the ending of a
play, when the curtain falls at last upon a scene of happy reunion.
Even during the years of fiercest strife the courtesies of war had been
strictly observed. Flags of truce passed between the garrison and the
camp of the besiegers; prisoners were exchanged, and now and then one or
the other of the commanders paid a compliment that was well deserved,
to the courage and skill of his antagonist. Especially did the Duc de
Crillon, true Frenchman as he was, indulge in these flattering phrases.
In a letter written just before the attack of the battering-ships, he
assures General Eliott of his "highest esteem," and of "the pleasure to
which I look forward of becoming your friend, after I shall have proved
myself worthy of the honor, by facing you as an enemy!" That pleasure
he was now to have. He had faced the General as an enemy; he was now to
know him as a friend.
[Illustration:
Painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds P.R.A. Engraved by J. Cochran.
GEORGE AUGUSTUS ELIOTT, LORD HEATHFIELD, BARON GIBRALTAR.
[The above portrait of "Old Eliott" was taken on his return from
Gibraltar, in 1787, when he was the hero of England. The figure is
drawn against a background of the clouds of war, with the cannon
pointing downward, as when fired from the top of the Rock; while he
holds firmly in his hand the key of the fortress he has won. The face
is open, frank, and bold, with eyes looking straight before him, as
if he did not fear any enemy. Many have remarked a likeness to
Wellington, with a more prominent nose, a feature which Napoleon
always looked for in one whom he chose for a post of peculiar
difficulty and danger.]]
For months, there had been whispers in the air of a coming peace, and
the attitude of the contending parties was more that of armed neutrality
than of active war.
At last the announcement came. The besiegers were the first to receive
it, and sent the news to the garrison; but "Old Eliott," true soldier as
he was, waited for orders from home. At length a British frigate
sailed into the harbor with the blessed tidings that Great Britain
had acknowledged the independence of America, and that the three
powers--England, France, and Spain--had solemnly agreed to be at peace.
Now all barriers to intercourse were removed, and the Governor rode
out to meet his late enemy at a point midway between the lines. Both
Generals instantly dismounted and embraced, thus answering a blow, or
the many blows given and received, with a kiss. The Duke soon after
returned the visit, and found the gates of Gibraltar, which had not been
forced in three and a half years of war, now thrown wide open to his
coming in the attitude of peace. He was received with all the honors of
war. As he rode through the gates his appearance was greeted with
loud huzzas, which ran along the lines, and echoed among the hills, a
salutation which at first he did not understand, and was confused by it,
as it might be interpreted as a cheer of triumph over a fallen enemy;
but when it was explained to him that it was the way in which English
soldiers greeted one whom they recognized as a hero, he was very much
flattered by the demonstration. As the artillery officers were presented
to him he complimented them highly on their courage and skill, saying
pleasantly (no one could doubt his sincerity in this) that he "would
rather see them here as friends than on their batteries as enemies!" And
so at last, after these long and terrible years, the curtain fell on a
scene as peaceful as ever ended a tragedy on the stage.
Such are the heroic memories which gather round Gibraltar, and
overshadow it as its mighty crags cast their shadows on the sea. Let us
not say, "All this is nothing to us, because we are neither Englishmen,
nor Frenchmen, nor Spaniards." "We are men, and whatever concerns man
concerns us." If it be indeed "beautiful to die for one's country," the
spot is holy ground where, for the dear sake of "country," brave men
have fought and died.