History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, Vol. 1 / Compiled from the Original Records

by Francis Duncan

During the night, several of the battering-ships took fire, and the scenes on board were terrible. Next day "three more blew up, and three were burnt to the water's edge;" and of the only two remaining, one "unexpectedly burst out into flames, and in a short time blew up, with a terrible report," and the other was burnt in the afternoon by an officer of the English navy.

"The exertions and activity of the brave Artillery," says Drinkwater, "in this well-fought contest, deserve the highest commendations.... The ordnance and carriages in the Fort were much damaged; but by the activity of the Artillery, the whole sea-line before night was in serviceable order.... During this action the enemy had more than three hundred pieces of heavy ordnance in play; whilst the garrison had only eighty cannon, seven mortars, and nine howitzers in opposition. Upwards of 8300|rounds, more than half of which were hot-shot, and 716 barrels of powder, were expended by our Artillery.... The distance of the battering-ships from the garrison was exactly such as our Artillery could have wished. It required so small an elevation that almost every shot took effect."

On the 13th, the day of the attack, Captain Reeves and five men of the Royal Artillery were killed: Captains Groves and Seward, and Lieutenant Godfrey, with twenty-one men, were wounded.

It was, indeed, as Carlyle says, a "Doom's-blast of a No," which the Artillery of Gibraltar answered to the summons of this grand attack.

After the failure of the attack, the enemy did not discontinue their old bombardment, nor did the gunboats fail to make their nightly appearance, and molest the inhabitants longing for rest. The Governor accordingly directed the Artillery to resume the retaliation from the Old Mole Head with the highly-elevated guns against the enemy's camp. The command of the Royal Artillery now lay with Colonel Williams, an officer who joined the service as a cadet-gunner in 1744, and died at Woolwich in 1790.

The work of the Artillery in the interval between the grand attack and the declaration of peace was incessant, day and night.

On the 2nd February, 1783, exchange of shots ceased; and letters were sent by the Spanish to the Governor announcing that the preliminaries of peace were signed at Paris. From this date, courtesies were constantly exchanged. It was on the occasion of a friendly visit of the Duke de Crillon to the Fort, that on the officers of Artillery being presented to him he said, "Gentlemen! I would rather see you here as friends, than on your batteries as enemies, where you never spared me."

The siege had lasted in all three years, seven months, and twelve days; and during this time the troops had well earned the expressions used with regard to them by General Eliott, when he paraded them to receive the thanks of the Houses of Parliament,—"Your cheerful submission to the greatest hardships, your matchless spirit and exertions, and on all occasions your heroic contempt of every danger."

To the Artillery, for their share in this matchless defence, there came also the commendation of their own chief, the Master-General of the Ordnance, then the Duke of Richmond. The old records of the Regiment seem to sparkle and shine as one comes on such a sentence as this:—"His Majesty has seen with great satisfaction such effectual proofs of the bravery, zeal, and skill by which you and the Royal Regiment of Artillery under your command at Gibraltar have so eminently distinguished yourselves during the siege; and particularly in setting fire to, and destroying all the floating batteries of the combined forces of France and Spain on the 13th September last."

There was so much in the Peace of 1783 that was painful to England, not so much in a military as in a political point of view, but undoubtedly in the former also, that one hesitates to leave this bright spot in the history of the time, and to turn back to that weary seven years' catalogue in America, of blunders, dissensions, and loss. It was one and the same Peace which celebrated the salvation of Gibraltar, and the loss of our American Colonies. A strong arm saved the one: a foolish statesmanship lost the other. But be statesmen wise or foolish, armies have to march where they order; and the history of a foolish war has to be written as well as that of a wise one.