Gibraltar

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.

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.

CHAPTER VIII.
HOLDING A FORTRESS IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY

There is one thing in Gibraltar which strikes me unpleasantly, and yet (such are the contradictions in our likes and dislikes) it is the very thing which has made it so attractive, viz., the English occupation. For picturesqueness of situation, the mighty Rock, standing at the entering in of the seas, is unique in the world, and the outlook along the shores of Africa and Europe is enough to captivate the eye of the most sight-worn traveller. And the people who hold this rock-fortress are worthy to be its masters, for they are not only brave, as soldiers are by profession, but they have all the manly qualities of the English race; they are chivalrous and generous. Nowhere does English hospitality appear more charming. If ever a man had occasion to like Gibraltar and the English in Gibraltar, I have; and I shall keep them both in grateful memory.

And yet – and yet – in this general accord of pleased reflection, which comes to me in the midst of these happy days, there is one thing which strikes a discordant note. The English are here, not by right of birth, but of conquest. Gibraltar is not a part of England: it is a part of Spain, to which it belongs by nature, if nature has anything to do with the boundaries of States. True, the English have taken it and hold it, and by the right of war it belongs to them, as a fortress belongs to the power that is strongest. Yet that does not change the relation of things, any more than it changes the geographical position of the captured fortress. And so it remains that England holds Gibraltar, I will not say in an enemy's country, but certainly in a foreign country – a fact which, however it be disguised, it is not pleasant to contemplate.

The stranger does not feel this so much while he is inside the gates as when he leaves the town and goes out into the country. Perhaps the reader will share my feeling if he will give me the pleasure of his company. It was a bright, crisp winter afternoon that a friend from Boston and I planned an excursion on foot. But stop a moment! When I travelled in the East I learned the wisdom of the old Oriental custom of "girding up the loins"; and so, stepping into a shop in Waterport Street, I bought something like a soldier's belt, my only military trapping, with which I braced myself so firmly together that I felt "in prime marching order," and away we went at a swinging gait, as merry as two New England boys out of school and off for a holiday. It is not a long walk to the gates, and once through them and outside the walls we took a long breath as we once more inhaled the free air of the country.

At a little distance we came to a row of sentries – a line of red-coats that kept guard over the majesty of England. Then a half-mile walk across a low, sandy plain – the Neutral Ground – and we came to another line of sentinels in different uniforms and speaking a different tongue, a little beyond which is Linea (so named from its being just beyond the lines), a place of twelve thousand inhabitants, which has the three requisites of a Spanish town – a church, a market, and a bull-ring!

Here was the situation: a double line of soldiers facing each other, not in a hostile attitude, not training their guns on each other, but certainly not in a position which was calculated to promote friendly relations.

Strolling through the town it seemed to us (perhaps it was only imagination) that there was a sullen look in the faces of the people; that they did not regard Englishmen, or those speaking the English tongue, with special affection. Linea has a bad name for being a nest of smugglers; but whether it is worse than other frontier towns, which afford special facilities for smuggling, and therefore offer great temptations, I cannot say. It was not an attractive place, and after an hour's walk we retraced our steps back to our fortress home.

As we turned toward the Rock we were facing the British Lion just as the descending sun was putting a crown upon his royal head. Never did he wear a more kingly look than in that evening sky. If the God of War has a throne on earth, it must be on that height, more than a thousand feet in air, looking down on the petty human creatures below, all of whom he could destroy with one breath of his nostrils.

It was indeed a glorious sight. But how do the Spaniards like it? How should we like it if we were in their place? This was a very inconvenient question to be asked just at that moment, as we were crossing the Neutral Ground. But if I must answer, I cannot but say that, if I were a Spanish sentinel, pacing back and forth in such a presence and compelled at every turn to look up at that Lion frowning over me, it would be with a very bitter feeling. I might even ask my English friends who are masters of Gibraltar, how they would like to see the flag of another country floating over a part of their country?

Of course, the retention of Gibraltar is to England a matter of pride. It is a great thing to see the red cross flying on the top of the Rock in the sight of two continents, and of all who go sailing up and down in these waters. But this pride has to be paid for by a good many entanglements of one kind and another.

For example: It is a constant source of complaint on the part of Spain that Gibraltar is the headquarters for smuggling across the frontier. This is not at all surprising, since (like Singapore and perhaps other distant places in the British Empire) it is a "free port." Its deliverance from commercial restrictions dates back to the reign of Queen Anne, in the beginning of the last century – an immunity which it has enjoyed for nearly two hundred years. A few years since a light restriction was placed upon wines and spirits, probably for a moral rather than a commercial purpose, lest their too great abundance might lead to drunkenness among the soldiers. But with respect to everything else used by man, trade is absolutely free; whatever is brought here for sale is not burdened with the added tax of an import duty. Though Gibraltar is so near Tarifa, there is no tariff levied on merchandise any more than on voyagers that go up and down the seas. Not only English goods, but French and Italian goods, all are free; even those which, if imported into England, would pay duty, here pay none, so that they are cheaper than in England itself. Thus Gibraltar is the paradise of free-traders, since in it there is no such "accursed thing" as a custom-house, and no such hated official as a custom-house officer! This puts it at an advantage as compared with any port or city or country which is not free, and they have to suffer from the difference. Especially does Spain, which is not yet converted to free trade, suffer from its close contact with its more liberal neighbor. The extraordinary cheapness on one side of the Neutral Ground, as compared with the dearness on the other, is a temptation to smuggling which it requires more virtue than the Spaniards possess to resist.

The temptation takes them on their weakest side when it presents itself in the form of tobacco, for the Spaniards are a nation of smokers. The manufacture and sale of tobacco is a monopoly of the Government, and yields a large revenue, amounting, I believe, to fifteen millions of dollars. It might amount to twice as much if every smoker in Spain bought only Spanish tobacco. But who will pay the price for the Government cigars and cigarettes when they can be obtained without paying duty? Smuggling is going on every day, and every hour of the day; and the Spaniards say that it is winked at and encouraged by the English in Gibraltar; to which the latter reply that whatever smuggling is done, is done by the Spaniards themselves, for which they are not responsible. A shopkeeper in Gibraltar has as good a right to sell a pound of tobacco to a Spanish peasant as to an English sailor. What becomes of it after it leaves his shop is no concern of his. Of course the Spanish police are numerous, and are, or are supposed to be, vigilant. The Carabineros are stationed at the lines, whose duty it is to keep a sharp look-out on every passing vehicle; whether it be a lordly carriage rolling swiftly by, or a market wagon; to poke their noses into every little cart; to lift up the panniers of every donkey; and even to thrust their hands into every basket, and to give a pinch to every suspicious-looking parcel. And yet, with this great display of watchfulness, which indeed is a little overdone, somehow an immense quantity slips through their fingers. Many amusing stories are told of contrabandists. One honest Spaniard had a wonderful dog that went through miraculous transformations: he was sometimes fat and sometimes lean, nature (or man) having provided him with a double skin, between which was packed a handsome allowance of tobacco. This dog was a model of docility, and would play with other dogs, like the poor innocent that he was, and then dart off to his master to "unload" and be sent back again! It was said that he would make several trips a day. In another case a poor man tried to make an honest living by raising turkeys for market; but even then fate had a spite against him, for after he had brought them into town, he had no luck in selling them! The same ill-fortune attended him every day. But one evening, as he came out of the gates looking sad and sorrowful, the Carabineros took a closer inspection of his cart, and found that every turkey had been prepared for another market than that of Gibraltar, by a well-spiced "stuffing" under her motherly wings!

Of course the Spanish officers are indignant at the duplicity which permits this smuggling to take place, and utter great oaths in sonorous Castilian against their treacherous neighbors. But even the guardians of the law may fall from virtue. The Governor, who took office here but a few weeks since, tells me that when the Governor of Algeciras, the Spanish town across the bay, came to pay his respects to him, the officers of his suite, while their horses were standing in the court of the Convent [the Government House], filled their pockets with tobacco! Fit agents indeed to collect the revenue of Spain!

But smuggling is not the worst of the complications that arise out of having a fortress in a foreign country. Another is that Gibraltar becomes the resort of all the characters that find Spain too hot to hold them. Men who have committed offences against Spanish law, flee across the lines and claim protection. Some of them are political refugees, who have escaped from a Government that would persecute and perhaps imprison them for their opinions, and find safety under the English flag. The necessity for this protection is not so great now as in former years, when the Government of Spain was a despotism as absolute and intolerant as any in Europe. Even so late as thirty years ago, Castelar would have been shot if he had not escaped across the frontier into Switzerland; as his father, twenty years before, had been sentenced to death, and would have been executed if he had not made haste to get inside of Gibraltar, and remained here seven years. In his case, as in many others, the old fortress was a bulwark against tyranny. Within these walls the laws of national hospitality were sacred. No Spanish patriot could be taken from under this flag, to be sent to the dungeon or the scaffold. All honor to England, that she has a City of Refuge for the free and the brave of all lands, and that she has so often sheltered and saved those who were the champions, and but for her would have been the martyrs, of liberty!