having secured possession of Gibraltar, she should keep that
famous stronghold. By successfully defending it during the
long siege of 1779-1783, she retained it in what has proved
a lasting tenure.
The fortified promontory and town of Gibraltar, now a
British crown colony, have long been objects of historical
interest. The Rock of Gibraltar, anciently called Calpe, one
of the Pillars of Hercules, is on the southern coast of
Spain. Its name has been for centuries a synonyme of
strength. Near it in the eighth century landed Tarik, the
first Saracen invader of Spain. The Moors mainly held it
till 1462, when it was finally taken by the Spaniards.
Charles V fortified it; in 1704 it was captured by an
English and Dutch force under Sir George Rooke. The
Spaniards and French unsuccessfully besieged it in
1704-1705, and the Spaniards again in 1727.
No further attempt was made to capture this seemingly
impregnable fastness until the great siege here described by
Sayer, when once more the Spaniards and French combined
against it. England was now somewhat weakened by the war
with the American colonies and France. All Europe was
unfriendly to her, and Spain, as well as France, was
actively hostile. Gibraltar was closely invested in 1779,
and so remained for three years, when the final assault was
made. In 1782 Alvarez, the Spanish commander, was superseded
by the Duc de Crillon, who had just taken Minorca from the
British.
George Augustus Eliot, afterward Lord Heathfield, Baron of
Gibraltar, who made the memorable defence, was appointed
governor of Gibraltar in 1775. Lord Howe, who went to his
assistance, had conducted the English naval operations in
America. He returned to England in 1778, in 1782 was made a
viscount of Great Britain, and was sent to relieve
Gibraltar, where he arrived too late to assist against the
grand attack, but landed welcome troops and supplies.
Piqued at the successful defence which for three years had baffled every
effort, and burning with the desire to wipe out the stain on the
national honor, the Spaniards were urged on in this last struggle by all
the impulses of pride, ambition, and revenge. The slow and regular
operations of a siege having proved but labor lost against this
stubborn rock, rewards were offered to the most skilful engineers in
Europe for plans to subdue the fortress.
Stimulated by these liberal offers, a thousand schemes had reached
Madrid, some bold to extravagance, others too ludicrous to deserve
attention. Among them, however, was one, the invention of the Chevalier
d'Arcon, of such superior merit that it instantly arrested the attention
even of the King himself. His plan consisted of a combined attack by sea
and land upon a scale so tremendously formidable, and assisted by such
ingenious inventions of art, that it held out a prospect of certain
success.
After a brief consideration the Court of Madrid announced its
unqualified approval of the scheme, and orders were at once issued for
its adoption. Not only was the reduction of the fort now considered
certain, but so vast were the powers to be employed, and so prodigious
the armament to be brought against the walls, that the annihilation of
every stone upon the rock was not unexpected. The plan embraced two
leading features: first, a bombardment from the isthmus, upon a scale
hitherto unknown; secondly, an attack by sea along the whole length of
the line-wall. For this purpose floating batteries of such construction
that they were to be "at once incombustible and insubmergible," were to
be employed.
Each battery was clad on its fighting side with three successive layers
of squared timber, three feet in thickness; within this wall ran a body
of wet sand, and within that again was a line of cork soaked in water
and calculated to prevent the effects of splinters, the whole being
bound together by strong wooden bolts. To protect the crews from shells
or dropping shot, a hanging roof was contrived, composed of strong
rope-work netting, covered with wet hides, and shelving sufficiently to
prevent the shot from lodging.
Not the least remarkable part of these vessels was a plan for the
prevention of combustion from red-hot shot. A reservoir was placed
beneath the roof from which numerous pipes, like the veins of the human
body, circulated through the sides of the ship, giving a constant supply
of water to every part, and keeping the wood continually saturated.
To form these powerful batteries, ten ships, from six hundred to
fourteen hundred tons burden, were cut down to the proper proportions,
and upward of two hundred thousand cubic feet of timber were used in
their construction. Each battery was armed with from eight to twenty
heavy brass cannon of new manufacture, with a reserve of spare pieces.
The crews varied in number from seven hundred sixty to two hundred fifty
men. One large sail propelled each ship.
Besides this tremendous armament which was to annihilate the line of
defence from the sea, preparations of no less magnitude were being made
for the attack on the northern front. Not fewer than twelve hundred
pieces of heavy ordnance were ready for use in the artillery park,
enormous quantities of ammunition and warlike stores were in the
magazines, and the reserve of gunpowder alone was reported at
eighty-three thousand barrels. Immense works were being hurried forward
on the isthmus of a grandeur which eclipsed anything that had been
previously constructed.
In twenty-four hours a flying sap was thrown out with a rapidity of
execution unequalled. The parallel extended to a length of two hundred
thirty _toises_, with a _boyau_ of six hundred thirty toises from the
place where it joined the principal barrier of the lines. The
construction of this boyau required one million six hundred thousand
bags of sand, and thousands of casks were used in forming the parallel.
In a single night this enormous work was raised to the height of twelve
feet with eighteen feet of thickness, and it was supposed that during
the seven hours in which it was erected ten thousand men were at labor.
To assist in the assault by sea, the combined fleets of France and
Spain, amounting to fifty sail of the line, with forty gunboats,
numerous frigates, and fifty mortar-vessels, were to act in support.
Three hundred boats, fitted with hinged platforms at their prows, were
to accompany the expedition, and at the proper moment to land the
troops.
The outline of the attack having been arranged, the plan was drawn out
by the Duc de Crillon, and submitted for approval, first to the Court of
Madrid, and afterward to the King of France. Subsequently the details
were very materially altered, but the principle remained the same. The
method originally proposed was as follows:
"The plan for taking Gibraltar, presented by Crillon, with the opinion
of the minister, was imparted, by order of his majesty, to France, by
the hand of Aranda, and, it being approved of, that Court offered
twenty-seven auxiliary ships. According to this plan the assault will be
conducted in the following manner: Brigadier Don Ventura Moreno will
command the fire of the fleet. The vanguard of the combined squadron
will be commanded by Senor Cordova, and among the divisions that compose
it will be included the third of twelve fireproof ships, which will
anchor in Algeciras until Senor Alvarez completes the sixty paces of
intrenchment opposite the fortress. Our ships will then attack; four by
the Europa Point, two by the New Mole, their fire being supported by
that of the gun- and mortar-boats and bomb-ketches, which will hold
themselves in readiness to support where it may be required.
"At a given signal the fire from our whole line will open with that of
the intrenchment, which will not cease until a breach shall have been
made at the Europa Point. The battering-ships will not be allowed to
quit their respective posts till they require relief, and they will then
retire to Algeciras, whence others will proceed to supply their places,
taking up the same points. The officer who shall act counter to his
orders will be removed from his post without its being referred to the
King. The breach having been made, the commander-in-chief, the Duc de
Crillon, will notify to the governor the surrender of the fortress; and
should he consent to the capitulation, the preliminaries will be
arranged, conceding to him military honors; if he persist in the
defence, the operations will continue in the following manner:
"The fire by sea and land will protect the disembarkation of our troops
on the flanks of the advance. The boats conveying them will be covered
by large planks on hinges, which on unfolding will fall on the moles on
the right, while on the left others will rest on the transports that
follow, in order to link them to each other and adjust them to the
breach, binding them firmly together, the first boat being attached to
the ground by means of grappling-irons, which it will carry for the
purpose. The troops will advance along these in the following order: Two
companies of grenadiers of about seventy men each, and as many more of
chasseurs, with three companies of dragoons, the whole under the
command of Senor Cagigal, general of the second column, and his
subaltern officers, the brigadier Don Francesco Pacheco, Colonel of
Seville, and Senor Aviles, Colonel of Villaviciosa. Two battalions of
volunteers of Catalonia will form the flying troops to effect a support
where it may be necessary, and to strengthen either flank, or profiting
by any opportunity the enemy may offer of attacking him. This corps will
be commanded by Brigadier Don Benito Panogo.
"The army will be formed into three divisions; its right commanded by
Lieutenant-General Buch, its left by the Count of Cifuentes, and its
centre by Marshal Burghesi. The best company of grenadiers from each
regiment will be detached to cover its respective corps, and when the
disembarkation of the troops, or part of them, shall have been executed,
the boats carrying the fascines, powder-saucisses, gabions, panniers,
pickaxes, etc., will be sent forward in order that they may cover
themselves as the disembarkation proceeds, keeping up at the same time a
lively fire along with the rest of the army. Detached parties will scour
with promptitude the Campo Huevo in order to intercept the advanced
guard and to cut off the retreat of the enemy to the mountain; which
dispositions being well concerted, the enemy will be reduced to the
extremity of either surrendering or being destroyed.
"The squadron of Senor Cordova will cover the mouth of the Straits, and
the French will place itself as much within as circumstances may
require; two hundred _muheletes_ and two hundred artillerymen more have
been asked for from the camp, those that are present being required for
the intrenchment. These have been sent for from their respective corps."
The fame of the siege of Gibraltar had ere this spread to the remotest
corners of Europe. The Count d'Artois, brother to the King of France,
and the Duc de Bourbon arrived in the camp in August, impatient to
witness the fall of the invincible fortress, and they were followed by
crowds of the nobility of Spain, eager to join in an enterprise which it
was anticipated would result in a victory most glorious to their arms.
General Eliot regarded the progress of the tremendous armaments without
despondency. He prepared for the coming storm, and made every effort to
meet it manfully and with success. An experiment which had lately been
tried with red-hot shot produced such effects that he founded his hopes
of destroying the enemy's battering-ships almost solely upon that
expedient, and great numbers of furnaces for heating the shot were
immediately prepared and placed in convenient positions within the
principal batteries. The defences too were thoroughly repaired, the Land
Port was more carefully protected, and unserviceable guns were laid
across the tops of the embrasures in many of the works, as a protection
to the artillerymen when under fire.
The arrival of the Count d'Artois in the camp gave rise to an
interchange of courtesies between the governor and the Duc de Crillon,
and though the two chiefs were on the eve of a great struggle for the
mastery, letters couched in the most affable and peaceful terms passed
between them. The Count having brought with him a packet of letters for
some officers of the garrison, the Duc de Crillon took advantage of the
opportunity, and, when the parcel was sent into the fortress,
accompanied it by a letter from himself to General Eliot, in which he
expressed the highest esteem for the governor's person and character,
and assured him how anxiously he looked forward to becoming his friend;
at the same time he offered a present of a few luxuries for the
General's table. In reply to this courteous note the governor returned
his sincerest thanks for the gift, but begged that in future no such
favor might be heaped upon him, as by accepting the present he had
broken through a rule to which he had faithfully adhered since the
beginning of the war, never to receive anything for his own private use,
but to partake both of plenty and scarcity in common with the lowest of
his brave fellow-soldiers.
Toward the end of August, 1782, a grand inspection of the floating
batteries took place at Algeciras, at which the French princes were
present. To exhibit the ease and simplicity with which they could be
manoeuvred, the vessels were put through various movements, to the
admiration and surprise of the spectators. So satisfactory was this
trial considered that it became the popular opinion that twenty-four
hours would suffice for the demolition of the fortress, and the Duc de
Crillon was made the subject of the greatest ridicule when he cautiously
hinted that fourteen days might elapse ere the place fell. Crillon, in
fact had no affection for the schemes of the Chevalier d'Arcon, and, as
we shall presently see, he attributed his subsequent failure almost
entirely to the blind confidence that was placed in the floating
batteries.
As the time approached, the greatest impatience was manifested not only
by the troops, but throughout all Spain, for the commencement of the
attack, and so loud was the clamor for immediate action that D'Arcon was
ordered to hurry on the completion of the floating batteries with every
despatch.
Late in August a council of war was held in the camp, at which the
French princes were present, and it was then proposed that the command
and direction of the floating batteries should be confided to the
officer of the navy, Crillon taking upon himself the responsibility of
the attack by land. Disputes had already arisen as to the proper
dispositions for the bombardment, Crillon claiming an undivided
authority over the whole proceeding, while the Minister of Marine was
anxious that the Admiral should direct the movements of the batteries
and their mode of equipment.
When the before-mentioned proposal was conveyed to Crillon he
peremptorily refused to accede to it. Nor could any decision be arrived
at regarding the most proper point of attack; the Old Mole, which at
first appeared the weakest part of the fortress, was found to be covered
by the guns of the principal batteries on the Rock, while the New Mole
presented even greater difficulties. There was another matter too which
became the subject of discussion up to the very moment of the attack,
and this was whether it would not be expedient to supply each floating
battery with warp-anchors and the double cables, that they might
withdraw in case of accident.
These unfortunate disputes, which arose at a time when perfect unanimity
was most essential, hampered the progress of operations, and destroyed
that harmony which should have existed between Crillon and his
subordinates. D'Arcon especially was offended and annoyed; he claimed
for himself the merit of having invented the machines which were to
annihilate the place, and insisted upon his right to have the sole
direction of their movements. Crillon, on the other hand, perceived that
if the command were divided, and the attack should prove successful,
the glory of the triumph would be appropriated by the French engineer.
In the many councils of war that preceded the bombardment the Duke did
not care to conceal his jealousy of the Chevalier d'Arcon. On one
occasion, deriding the propositions of the engineer, he exclaimed: "You
have a fatherly love for your batteries, and are only anxious for their
preservation. Should the enemy attempt to take possession of them, I
will burn them before his face." On another occasion, when in the
presence of the French princes, he said: "You were summoned into Spain
to execute _my_ plan for the attack of Gibraltar by floating batteries.
_Your_ commission is performed: the rest belongs to me."
While these discussions and misunderstandings were distracting the
councils of the besiegers, a master hand was guiding the preparations
for the defence within the fortress. Every emergency that might occur
was provided for, every danger that could be foreseen averted, and the
garrison itself reenforced by a marine brigade of six hundred men under
command of Brigadier Curtis. In the first week of September the land
works of the enemy had progressed with gigantic strides, immense
batteries, some containing as many as sixty-four guns, only waited to be
unmasked, and long strings of mules streamed hourly into the trenches,
laden with shot, shell, and ammunition.
The advanced works were not, except in some instances, yet armed, and
large masses of material which had accumulated in their vicinity
cumbered the embrasures and rendered their parapets liable to
destruction by fire. Seizing upon the opportunity thus afforded by the
negligence of the Spaniards, General Boyd wrote to the governor
recommending the use of red-hot shot against these works. Though the
distance was great, and the effect of heated shot had not then been
thoroughly ascertained, Eliot acquiesced in the proposition, and Major
Lewis, commanding the artillery, was ordered to execute the attack.
On September 8th the preparations were completed, and at 7 A.M. the
guards having been relieved, a tremendous fire was opened from all the
northern batteries. Throughout the day this fiery cannonade was kept up
with unabated fury. By 10 A.M. the Mahon battery and another work of two
guns were in flames and by five in the evening were entirely consumed,
with all their gun-carriages, platforms, and magazines. The effect of
the red-hot shot exceeded the most sanguine expectations; the damage
done was extensive and for a time irreparable; the greater part of the
communication to the eastern parallel was destroyed, and the batteries
of St. Carlos and St. Martin so much injured that they were no longer
serviceable. At one moment the works were on fire in fifty places, and
the flames, lifted by the wind, spread with terrible rapidity; but by
the prodigious exertions of the enemy's troops, who, notwithstanding the
galling fire from the garrison to which they were exposed, displayed a
reckless intrepidity, the work of destruction was arrested and many of
the batteries saved from ruin. Irritated at this unexpected attack upon
works which had cost him so much labor and anxiety, Crillon was
precipitated into a premature bombardment, which, while it exposed to
view the hitherto masked batteries, and thus gave General Eliot an
opportunity of preparing counter-works upon the Rock, at the same time
did considerable damage to the unfinished lines.
On the morning of September 9th a battery of sixty-four guns opened at
daybreak and a tremendous discharge from one hundred seventy pieces of
cannon announced the commencement of the final bombardment. At the same
time a squadron of seven Spanish and two French line-of-battle ships got
under way at Orange Grove, and, dropping slowly past the sea-line wall,
delivered several broadsides against the south bastion and Ragged Staff,
until they arrived off Europa. Then, having first formed line to
eastward of the Rock, they attacked the batteries from the Point as far
as the New Mole, with some energy. On the following day this manoeuvre
was repeated, and the cannonade from the lines was renewed with all its
fierceness, six thousand five hundred shot and two thousand eighty shell
being thrown into the fortress every twenty-four hours. Notwithstanding
this overwhelming fire the loss in the garrison was exceedingly small.
On the 12th the combined fleets of Spain and France, numbering
thirty-nine ships of the line, entered the Bay of Algeciras, and having
formed a junction with the squadron already at anchor, raised the naval
force to fifty ships of the line and two second-rates; nine vessels bore
an admiral's flag.
General Eliot was conscious that the hour of trial approached, and so
ably had he conducted his preparations that during the twenty-four hours
preceding the attack not a single alteration had to be made, even in the
most minute directions that had been given to the troops. Every man knew
his place, each gun was told off for one particular duty, simple and
efficient arrangements had been made for a constant supply of
ammunition, and every bastion was furnished with its fuel and furnace
for the dreaded red-hot shot.
It was during the morning of the 12th that the governor received
information that the combined attack would commence on the following
day. Calmly as this courageous man awaited the hour of trial, he could
not but be influenced by the gravest anxiety for the result. He had
witnessed the gigantic armaments that were preparing for the assault;
and though ignorant of the exact force which was to be brought against
him, he was aware that neither France nor Spain had spared labor or
expense to accumulate a strength hitherto unknown in the history of
sieges. On the land he was threatened by two hundred forty-six pieces of
cannon, mortars, and howitzers, and an army of near forty thousand men;
while by sea fifty sail of the line, ten floating batteries, of a
construction supposed to be indestructible, with countless gun- and
mortar-boats, and three hundred smaller craft were waiting only the
signal for the attack. To this enormous armament, but seven thousand men
and ninety-six guns could be opposed. At a council of war held in the
Spanish camp on September 4th the final details for the arrangement of
the grand attack had been settled, and it was decided to open the
bombardment on the 13th of the month.
At this council M. d'Arcon vehemently protested against the precipitate
haste with which the preparations of the floating batteries had been
hurried on, and vainly pleaded for a few days' further delay, in order
that some experiments might be made upon the vessels, and especially
that the effectiveness of the water apparatus might be tested. His
arguments were met by others equally cogent. Lord Howe with a powerful
fleet was known to be on his way to relieve the fortress, and it was of
vital importance that his arrival should be anticipated. The season was
already far advanced, and the works on the land side, which had only
just been repaired, were at any moment exposed to a second partial
destruction by red-hot shot. All objections, therefore, were overruled,
and the day was named.
At about seven o'clock on the morning of September 13th the enemy's
fleet was observed to be in motion off the Orange Grove, and shortly
afterward the ten floating batteries were under way, and with a crowd of
boats standing for the southward with a light northwest breeze.
Shortly after ten o'clock they had reached their respective stations off
the line-wall, and Admiral Don Buenoventura Moreno, in the Pastora,
having taken up a position opposite the capital of the King's Bastion,
the others anchored in admirable order on his right and left flanks, at
about one thousand yards distance from the walls of the fortress.