AWFUL CONDITION OF GIB--GRANDFATHER STABBED--A
VENDETTA--THE DUKE WAS THE BEST-HATED MAN ON
THE ROCK.
The scene of our story shifts away now to a far-off land.
In imagination I walk or wander with my gallant grandfather from
point to point of the most famous rock that history can boast of. It
is almost the first name that a child learns to lisp at school, when
commencing to learn geography, and has been so for the last hundred
years.
Personally speaking, when I myself first visited it, many years ago,
I was astonished at everything I saw around me and above me. I had
been taught to believe that it was but a lonesome rock, like a lion
couchant, almost isolated from everything worth beholding; a rock
that, though armed, was of no use to us, but only held in a spirit of
bravado, a kind of clenched fist held up as a menace before the face
of any or every other nation in the world, a John Bull fist, a
British fist, saying as well as words could express it:
"Here I am, and I've come to stay, and the fate of the foe that would
dare to face me is a foregone conclusion."
But I did not quite understand this. We Britons are proud of our
great history, it is true, proud of our associations with an almost
forgotten past, and with these may, and doubtless does, mingle a
little romance. We bear no great goodwill for the iconoclast, the
snivelling, snarling, unpatriotic idiot who would smash the people's
idols, and trample them in the dust, who would hardly leave us a
museum of antiquities, or relics that fathers may point to with
pride, as he tells his children the story of the half-forgotten past.
These relics may sometimes be but symbols, as, for instance, says the
great Carlyle, "the clouted shoe that the peasants bore aloft as
ensign in their Bauernkrieg, or Peasant's War. Or the wallet and
staff, round which the Netherland Gueux, glorying in that nickname of
beggars, heroically rallied, and prevailed, though against King
Philip himself. _In_trinsic, significance these had, not only
_ex_trinsic, as the accidental standard of multitudes, more or less
sacredly uniting together, in which union itself there is ever
something mystical, and borrowing of the god-like. Under a like
category, too, stand or stood the stupidest heraldic coats of arms;
military banners everywhere. Nevertheless, through all there
glimmers something of a divine idea; as, through military banners
themselves, the divine idea of duty, of heroic daring, in some
instances of freedom, of right."
But these iconoclasts would tear the shot-rent standards or flags,
around which so many heroes bled and fell, from the very walls of
Windsor Castle itself; but a few years ago they would have deprived
us of that nation's pride, the grand old ship _Victory_, on whose
blood-slippery deck the hero Nelson fell. And they would deprive us
of Gibraltar also.
Yet, though we Britons are thus proud of our blood-stained symbols
and relics, we are also just, and would retain no portion of any
nation's territory it has a legal right to, and would not use against
ourselves, or hand over to our enemies.
If you disarm a burglar, are you to give him back the pistol with
which he tried to blow your brains out? Or are you to hand it over
to the burglar's friend, who must be your foe?
No, and so we shall stick to Gibraltar.
What we have we mean to hold,
Though pretended friends at home may scowl:
Though blood be shed,
And men fall dead,
And savage foes around us howl,
Still, what we have we'll stick to,
As in the dashing days of old.
I am not at all proud of my composition, reader. The verse may be
doggerel, but there is truth in it.
Well, I had not been a day in Gibraltar, or Gib as we call it for
short, before I found out it was by no means so barren a rock as had
been represented.
There is a great town there now, though the streets be narrow, and
here you may meet people of all nationalities, and in almost every
garb, from the felt-hatted cute and clever Yankee to the Arab
himself, or even the dastardly Turk. Vegetables of almost all sorts
grow here. It is the paradise of fruit, and on the mountain-slopes,
as well as in the cultivated gardens, grow flowers of every hue and
shape.
Both the Horse Guards and the Duke of York placed unbounded
confidence in the Duke of Kent. His former good conduct as a
soldier, his hatred of intoxicants, and his skill as a
disciplinarian, all told in his favour, and unlimited powers were
placed in his hands. He was expected to reduce the Rock to a
condition of greater sobriety, and to restore discipline. Nay, more,
he was commanded to do so.
Hard indeed and thankless was the task he had before him.
Put not your trust in princes, nor in those in high places, either.
Fine clothes never make the man. As true and loyal a heart may beat
beneath a jacket of fustian as beneath the ermine-trimmed robes of a
peer.
Kings and queens, or their ministers, make many "nobles." Nature
makes a few, but she takes infinitely more pains with them than does
royalty, and I know to which category I would rather belong. It may
be treason to speak thus, but it is also the truth. And having said
so boldly, I shall be all the more readily believed when I say also
that I consider the Duke of Kent to have been one of the grand men of
the early part of this century.
"Much exertion"--thus spoke the Horse Guards, or the
Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of York--"will be necessary on your
part, in order to restore a due degree of discipline among the
troops."
And the Duke of Kent left England on the 27th of April, 1802, to take
command of the historic fort, determined to do his duty, and relying
on the promise that he would be supported by the high authorities at
home.
Put not your trust in princes!
Arrived at Gib, the Duke commenced work at once.
There were all kinds of reforms to make among the rock scorpions, as
soldiers who had been here a long time were called. Even the
officers, as well as the men, were simply giving themselves up
entirely to having what the Americans call a real good time of it.
If drunkenness and every vice that follows in its train could be
called happiness, then these men were happy.
It was then considered no crime to be intoxicated while _off_ duty.
But officers were too unsteady sometimes to walk straight or talk
plainly, even on parade. This state of things led to much illness
among all hands, in addition to extreme slovenliness.
It has been said that, even in the public streets, the men, and
sometimes their superiors, might be seen at any hour of the day so
clothed as to resemble a roving horde of lawless plunderers, rather
than drilled and organised soldiers.
I can believe that.
It is, however, stated that the Duke laboured cheerfully seventeen
hours a day.
This is an exaggeration.
My grand-dad, however, has assured me that, what with office work and
other duties, he himself was never harder worked even while
campaigning.
It is sad to have to add that the Duke came to Gib with the character
of a martinet and a man who carried discipline, even over his
officers, to the extent of positive tyranny. This is not true. I
have what _I_ consider good authority for stating that he was a man
of mild mien, though bold and brave as a lion when occasion demanded
it.
Swearing and the use of terribly vulgar expressions were considered
quite the thing in those days. A bad word was never heard on the
Duke's lips. He would reason with his officers rather than lose his
temper and scold them for what he considered conduct--in private
life--that did not accord with the grand old title of "gentleman."
He was as fair also in his dealings with the sergeants or men, or
between officers and men, as any judge could have been.
I will give but one instance of this. My grandfather, who now in a
great measure took his ideas of strict discipline from the Duke
himself, one day when on duty did a daring thing. He found two
friends--not males--of an officer of pretty high rank quarrelling and
fighting near the door of the officers' mess. I am sorry to say that
neither was sober, but glad to add they did not belong to my gallant
progenitor's company. He, however, had them both arrested and
confined to separate rooms, placing a sentry at the door of each
compartment. The wrath of the officer, when this was reported to
him, knew no bounds.
"I'll do for your career," he cried.
My grand-dad answered never a word, but he was reported to the Duke
as having been guilty of insubordinate, almost mutinous conduct.
Some men would have taken that officer's word, and a really
painstaking sergeant would have been lost to the company. Not so the
kindly Duke. He investigated the case, with the result that the
officer was quietly but sternly reprimanded.
Returning from town about a week after this with letters for
headquarters, just in the dusk of the evening, two men rushed
suddenly out from a drinking-booth, and attacked my grandfather might
and main. The sergeant, however, had not forgotten the use of his
fists, and one of the would-be assassins speedily found himself in
the filthy gutter. He would have settled the other fellow just as
quickly, but a third Spaniard appeared upon the scene.
The _mêlée_ now became general--a kind of civil and military riot.
It might have been bad indeed for the sergeant, had not Drake himself
appeared on the scene, and with a few of his men speedily cleared the
decks. But grandfather had been wounded with a stiletto, and,
although he insisted on carrying the letters to headquarters, he lost
so much blood that it was weeks before he was able to resume duty.
"That looked like a vendetta,* Sergeant, did it not?" said the Duke
quietly when he resumed work.
* Act of revenge.
"I'm afraid, your Royal Highness," was the reply, "I'm afraid I dare
not say so."
"Humph!" said the Duke. "You see, Sergeant, one may do what is
right, and yet receive no reward in this world."
As the Duke therefore was no favourite, even the officers did as much
as they could to thwart all his endeavours to curb vice and
drunkenness.
His Royal Highness, however, was not to be curbed, and many of his
reforms were excellent indeed. He diminished the number of
wine-shops by one-half--humanely, however. It is not said, even by
his enemies, that he turned the families of wine-shopkeepers adrift
to starve. In fact it was quite the reverse, for he often supported
some of them out of his own pocket. He weeded out the worst of those
dens, especially those that were down narrow lanes, and in which foul
murder itself was often committed. Nor would he have wine-shops near
to the barracks or guardrooms.
Idleness is oftentimes the parent of vice, just as sorrow may be the
parent of genius, hard work, and fame. The Duke was a man of the
world, and knew this. He therefore instituted extra drills and dress
parades, and even confinement to barracks after the second evening
gun-fire.
He also established regimental canteens, and made many other reforms
that soon began to work for the good not only of the soldiers, but of
the civilians themselves.
All these reforms took time and very hard work, and though the Duke
got himself well hated by the Rock scorpions--both officers and
men--he persevered and did his duty right honourably and according to
his light.
It is no wonder, therefore, that he became about the best-hated man
on the Rock.
All this could have but one ending.
_The men mutinied at last._