1783.
State of the fortress—Execution of the works depended upon the company—Casualties filled up by transfers from the line—Composition—Recruiting—Relieved from all duties, garrison and regimental—Anniversary of the destruction of the Spanish battering flotilla.
For about six months previously to the termination of hostilities, the siege had been carried on with fearful vigour, and the destruction it occasioned, revealed to a mournful extent the efficiency of the enemy’s cannonade. The tiers of batteries on the north front, the whole of the fortifications along the sea face, and indeed every work of a permanent character, were considerably damaged or thrown down. The town too was little better than a vast ruin, and its houses were levelled to the rock, or were left standing in tottering fragments, or at best in their shells, despoiled and untenanted, as so many monuments of an unbounded calamity. The inhabitants, driven shelterless into the streets, were compelled either to leave the fortress, or to locate themselves under canvas amid the general desolation; or to seek a comfortless retreat in the dark and gloomy caverns of the rock. Such was the wreck to which Gibraltar was reduced at the close of the siege, and the work of restoration, therefore, was both extensive and pressing.
The reconstruction or repair of the fortifications and other public works at the fortress, in great part depended upon the company; and the more so, since the numbers of the line competent to work as tradesmen were inconsiderable. Assistance from the civil population of the place was neither given nor expected, as the works in the town secured to them abundance of employment and excellent wages. Policy, therefore, dictated the expediency of paying particular regard both to the numerical and physical efficiency of the company.
At the close of the siege, there were twenty-nine rank and file wanting to complete the soldier-artificers, which number was increased to thirty-nine by the end of May. To supply this deficiency, the Governor ordered the transfer of an equal number of artificers from regiments in the garrison; and on the 31st July, the company was complete. Still, there were many of the men who, from wounds received at the siege, or from privation and hardship, or from exposure in camp, in summer, to the excessive heat of the sun, and in the autumn, to the heavy rains, were unequal to the exertion required from them on the works. Among them were the best masons and carpenters of the company, who were stated to have been “expended” during the siege. Accordingly, on the 31st of August, sixty-seven men, good “old servants, and those that had lost the use of their limbs in the service,” were discharged and “recommended,” whose vacancies were at once filled up by volunteers from the line.
After this desirable pruning, the composition of the company stood as under:—
| 1 | Sergeant-major. |
| 10 | Sergeants. |
| 10 | Corporals. |
| 4 | Drummers. |
| 38 | Masons. |
| 33 | Smiths. |
| 54 | Carpenters. |
| 21 | Sawyers. |
| 32 | Miners. |
| 6 | Wheelers. |
| 5 | File-cutters. |
| 4 | Nailors. |
| 3 | Gardeners. |
| 7 | Lime-burners. |
| 3 | Coopers. |
| 1 | Painter. |
| 1 | Collar-maker. |
| 1 | Brazier. |
| Total | 234 |
As far as circumstances permitted, the strength of the company was never allowed to sink beneath its establishment, for whenever a casualty occurred, it was immediately filled up. Not only was the Chief Engineer anxious on this point, but the Governor and Lieut.-Governor felt equal concern, and were ready to give effect to any measure which should yield the required result. If, at Gibraltar, the recruiting failed from the want of the proper classes of mechanics to join the company, the Duke of Richmond found means in England and Scotland to meet the case. His Grace was both an admirer and an advocate of the military system of carrying on the works, and took peculiar interest in the recruiting, even to superintending the service, and acting in some cases as the recruiting sergeant. Hence the company, seldom short of its complement of men, invariably afforded a force of more than 220 non-commissioned officers and artificers to be employed constantly in restoring the fortifications, &c.: the sick at this period averaged about eight a day.
To obtain the full benefit of their services, and to expedite the works, the soldier-artificers were excused from all garrison routine—as well as from their own regimental guards and fatigues—and freed from all interferences likely to interrupt them in the performance of their working duties. Even the cleaning of their rooms, the care of their arms and accoutrements, and the cooking of their messes, were attended to by soldiers of the line. Every encouragement was thus given to the company to work well and assiduously, and every liberty that could possibly be conceded, not excepting a partial abandonment of discipline, was granted to them. Nevertheless, to impress them with the recollection that their civil employments and privileges did not make them any the less soldiers, they were paraded generally under arms, on the Sunday; and to heighten the effect of their military appearance, wore accoutrements which had belonged to a disbanded Newfoundland regiment, purchased for them at the economical outlay of 7s. a set. Perhaps no body of men subject to the articles of war were ever permitted to live and work under a milder surveillance; and it might be added, that none could have rendered services more in keeping with the indulgences bestowed. They did their duty with zeal, and the works progressed to the satisfaction of the engineers and the authorities.
The remembrance of the late siege was not likely soon to be effaced from the memory of those who participated in it; and hence the company, regarding themselves in a peculiar sense as the fencibles of the fortress, and as having contributed largely to its defence, commemorated the event by means of a ball and supper. The festival was held at the “Three Anchors Inn,” on the 13th of September—the anniversary of the destruction of the battering flotilla—on which occasion Lord Heathfield, and Sir Robert Boyd, the Lieutenant-Governor, with their respective staff-officers, dined with the company, and retired after drinking one or two complimentary toasts in praise of their gallantry at the siege, and their useful services on the fortifications and works.[[57]]