In planning a combined attack by land and sea upon the Rock, the besiegers felt it was necessary to guard against the destruction of the naval force by the batteries of the fortress before it could get near enough to render any service. But how was the fire of the English guns to be silenced? It occurred to M. d’Arçon that what was wanted was a number of fireproof batteries, which could take up and maintain a position in the Bay, regardless of the cannonade delivered against them by the garrison. In the construction of these floating castles M. d’Arçon exhausted all his ingenuity. There were ten of them, each armed with fifteen heavy guns, and their structure was as follows:—On the larboard side they were six or seven feet thick, made of green timber, bolted and cased with cork, iron, and raw hides. Inside they were lined with a bed of wet sand, and in case they should nevertheless take fire, currents of water were poured through them by a system of pumps and channels, so that, should any red-hot shot pierce the vessel and open up any one of the ducts, the water would pour forth instantly and extinguish the flames. As an additional protection, each tower was covered with a slanting bomb-proof roof, capable of being raised or lowered at pleasure, by means of machinery, from which, it was calculated, the balls would glide harmlessly into the sea. In fact, the devices for the protection of the besiegers seem to have been more numerous and more skilful than those for the attack of the besieged. We must add that these ponderous floating batteries were masted and rigged, so as to sail like frigates.
It must not be thought that General Elliot had made no provision against the coming storm. He was a man fertile in expedients, and it would appear that his engineer-officers were as able as they were zealous; so that at all the exposed points new works of great strength were thrown up, and the fortifications were everywhere repaired and put in order. A fleet of gunboats was got ready in the Bay; a body of Corsicans, under the leadership of a nephew of the celebrated Paoli, had arrived to offer their services; and some vessels loaded with ammunition had run the blockade, and refilled the magazines of the fortress. The garrison reposed the most absolute confidence in their commander, and after so protracted a siege had come to think of themselves as invincible. Nor was their confidence lessened by the news which reached them of Admiral Rodney’s great victory over a French fleet in the West Indies. For some time the governor had looked on very calmly at the new works raised by the Spaniards across the isthmus and along the shore, but as they had been pushed forward to an inconvenient position, he thought the moment had come for administering
LARBOARD AND STARBOARD SIDES OF A SPANISH BATTERING-SHIP.
(From on Old Engraving.)
a stern rebuke. He therefore opened upon them a cannonade of red-hot shot, which in a few hours involved the greater portion in flames.
This contemptuous demonstration so annoyed the Duke of Crillon, that, though his lines were incomplete, he ordered a general bombardment. It began with a volley of about sixty shells from the mortar boats; then all his artillery, numbering one hundred and seventy pieces of heavy calibre, joined in the feu d’enfer; while nine line-of-battle ships hurled their broadsides as they sailed along the sea-front. The attack was repeated on the following day, in the hope apparently of terrifying the garrison by revealing the formidable nature of the preparations made for their destruction. While the air echoed with the hurtling missiles, the astonished soldiers saw through the occasional gaps in the smoke-clouds a vast press of sail coming up from the westward; it proved to be the combined fleets of France and Spain. Such an accumulation of force, by land and sea, could not fail to surprise, though it did not alarm, Elliot and his veterans. The armada, beneath which, to use the expression of an old poet, “the waters groaned,” consisted of 47 sail of the line, and 10 battering-ships, regarded as impregnable and invincible, carrying 212 guns, besides frigates, xebecs, bomb-ketches, cutters, gun and mortar boats, and smaller craft for disembarking men. On the land-side the batteries and works were of the most formidable character, mounting 200 pieces of heavy ordnance, and protected by an army of nearly 40,000 men, under the command of a general of experience and ability, and animated by the presence of two princes of the royal blood of France, with other eminent personages, and many of the Spanish grandees. No such naval and military combination had been attempted in Europe since the days of the Armada; and it was not unnatural that the Spaniards should anticipate from it a decisive triumph. They seem, however, to have put their faith more particularly in the battering-ships; and so great an enthusiasm was excited, that to hint at their possible failure was considered a mark of treason.