Gibraltar now lives on its former credit. There are no Scipios or Hannibals now-a-days, nor even Napoleons or Walpoles.[36] We are now men learned in facts. Gibraltar being a place of great strength, it is assumed to be a place of great value, and we are perfectly content with having for the sake of it disturbed Europe, endured the abomination and the load of public debt, sullied our name, and squandered our treasure. And yet this cost would not be wholly vain, if the word “Gibraltar,” could but bring some of that blood to the cheek of the Englishman, which it causes to rush to the heart of the Spaniard. No doubt there is for the Spaniard, a conflict of disgusts, and he has severally been under obligations to England and France, when spoiled by the other; but that has been, as regards him only, a temporary relaxation of wickedness and perfidy, and in aiding him, each has only been opposing its own antagonist.
The Spaniard alone in Europe has retained the faculty of looking at a nation’s acts as those of a man, and appreciating it thereby. He does not ask what it says or intends, or what food it eats, or how many servants it has. He looks at its dealings with himself. The Spaniard knows that his two neighbours, for one hundred and forty years, have been seeking to rob and overreach him; plotting one day the partition of his property, the next, the supplanting of his heir; constantly engaged in intrigues amongst his servants, and the one or the other insisting on ruining his steward. He sees that, during all that time, they have gained nothing; but while injuring him, have themselves squandered incalculable fortunes and innumerable lives,—what can he feel towards them but hatred and disgust? Fortunate is it for them, he does so; for this prevents either of them getting a footing in Spain: if the one could, the other would and could also; and the scenes of the Inquisition would then be repeated. But in the struggle of Rome and Carthage the world remained the prize of the victor; the struggle between England and France will be certainly at the cost of both, and assuredly will terminate in the supremacy of neither, and out of Spain that contest may yet come, unless there be sense enough in one country or the other to know what its agents are about, and to stop them.
GIBRALTAR AS EXHIBITED IN MURRAY’S HAND-BOOK.
“It was captured during the War of the Succession by Sir George Rooke, July 24th, 1704, who attacked it suddenly, and found it garrisoned by only one hundred and fifty men, who immediately had recourse to relics and saints. It was taken by us in the name of the Archduke Charles; this was the first stone which fell from the vast but ruinous edifice of the Spanish monarchy, and George I. would have given it up at the peace of Utrecht, so little did he estimate its worth, and the nation thought it ‘a barren rock, an insignificant fort, and a useless charge.’ What its real value is as regards Spain, will be understood by supposing Portland Island to be in the hands of the French. It is a bridle in the mouth of Spain and Barbary. It speaks a language of power which alone is understood and obeyed by those cognate nations. The Spaniards never knew the value of this barren rock until its loss, which now so wounds their national pride. Yet Gibraltar in the hands of England is a safeguard that Spain never can become a French province, or the Mediterranean a French lake. Hence the Bourbons north of the Pyrenees have urged their poor kinsmen-tools to make gigantic efforts to pluck out this thorn in their path. The siege by France and Spain lasted four years. Then the very ingenious M. d’Arcon’s invincible floating batteries, that could neither be burnt, sunk, nor taken, were burnt, sunk, and taken by plain Englishmen, who stood to their guns on the 13th of September, 1783.”—(p. 341.)
“Gibraltar, from having been made the hotbed of revolutionists of all kinds, from Torrijos downwards, has rendered every Spanish garrison near it singularly sensitive; thus the Phœnicians welcomed every stranger who pryed about the Straits, by throwing him into the sea.”—(p. 226.) “There is very little intercommunication between Algeciras and Gibraltar; the former is the naval and military position from whence the latter is watched, and the foreigner’s possession of Gibraltar rankles deeply, as well it may. Here are the head-quarters of Spanish preventive cutters, which prowl about the Bay, and often cut out those smugglers who have not bribed them, even from under the guns of our batteries: some are now and then just sunk for the intrusion; but all this breeds bad blood, and mars, on the Spaniards’ part, the entente cordiale.”—(p. 227).
FOOTNOTES:
[29] The last one disappeared while I was at Gibraltar.
[30] This Vandalism was gazetted, and the turret termed “Stanley Tower.”
[31] Afterwards, at Madrid, Don P. Gayangos referred me to Ibn Batuta as fixing the date in the fourteenth century. On consulting that traveller, I find that he spoke of repairs under Abn El Haran, who ascended the throne of Fez in 1330. An inscription which existed in the last century, and of which a fac-simile is given in Col. James’s History of Gibraltar, seems to fix the date at A.D. 750. The following is the passage from Ibn Batuta:—“A despicable foe had had possession of it for twenty years, until our lord the Sultan Abn El Haran reduced him; he then rebuilt and strengthened its fortifications and walls, and stored it with cavalry, treasure, and warlike machines.”
[32] When this was told to M. Thiers, he would not believe it, till he went out and watched the balls and flags, and had the use explained to him by a boatmen of the port.