Gibraltar and Its Sieges, with a Description of Its Natural Features.

by Frederic George Stephens

EFORE entering on a description of the Great Siege, which stands foremost among the brilliant episodes of our military history, it will be necessary for the reader’s understanding of its details to put before him a view of the Rock and its defences as they then existed. In doing so we must necessarily avail ourselves of the close and careful account furnished by Captain Drinkwater, who wrote from personal knowledge, and shared in the various experiences of the siege. We shall, however, as far as possible, spare our readers the infliction of purely technical language.

The Rock of Gibraltar forms a kind of promontory rising seaward to a height of 1300 feet, and connected with the mainland by a low sandy isthmus. The landward face varies considerably in elevation. The breadth of the isthmus at the foot of the Rock is about 2700 feet, but towards the country it broadens rapidly. Across this neck of land, which, with the Rock and the Algesiras coast, forms the Bay, the Spaniards, before the Great Siege, had erected a line of fortifications, 1700 yards in length, and distant about a mile from the nearest posts of the garrison. At each extremity a fort of twenty-four guns was erected; one christened St. Barbara, and the other St. Philip. Their cross-fire completely commanded the so-called Neutral Ground, a narrow belt or strip between English Gibraltar and the Spanish mainland.

The Rock, we must add, is divided into two unequal parts by a ridge extending from north to south. The western section is a gradual slope, broken up with precipices; but the eastern, which looks out upon the blue Mediterranean, and the northern, facing the Spanish batteries, are both very steep, and, in fact, inaccessible.

At the foot of the north-west slope, and surrounded by irregular fortifications, lies the town, which communicates with the isthmus by a long, narrow causeway, strongly bristling with defensive works. These, and the causeway itself, are over-looked by the guns mounted in the King’s, Queen’s, and Prince’s lines; ramparts excavated out of the solid rock, and practicable only to birds of prey. At different heights, up to the very crest, batteries are planted so as to present to an enemy a peculiarly grim and forbidding aspect. The Old Mole, to the west of the Grand Battery, joined with the above lines to pour a tremendous cross-fire on the causeway and Neutral Ground. So great an annoyance did this battery prove to the besiegers, that, by way of distinction, they named it the Devil’s Tongue; and the entrance into the garrison, with its batteries here, there, and everywhere, and its cannons and mortars on the causeway and Old Mole, suggested to them the picturesque title of the Mouth of Fire.

All along the sea-line were stout bastions, joined by curtains, which were mounted with great guns and howitzers, and supplied with casemates for 1000 men. These sufficiently defended the town; which was protected also by a rocky shoal, stretching along the front far into the Bay, and preventing the approach of large ships. From the south bastion a curtain stretched up the base of the hill, and terminated the fortifications of the town at an inaccessible precipice. Here was placed the South-port gate, with a dry ditch in front of it, a covered way, and glacis. Above this gate, on the rugged slope of the hill, and connected with the curtain, was a large bastion, pointing its guns at the Bay. Further up, an ancient Moorish wall ran along to the ridge of the rock, in the front of which a curtain, with loop-holes and redans, built in the reign and christened by the name of Charles V., extended to the summit. Between these two walls, the Moorish and the Emperor’s, stood the Signal-House, whence, on a clear bright day, the guard could command an unimpeded view of the Mediterranean, and discern even the shining waters of the Atlantic over the Spanish mountains. “Signals,” says Drinkwater, “formerly were made at this post on the appearance of topsail vessels from east and west, but soon after the commencement of the late war we discovered that the Spanish cruisers were more frequently informed of the approach of our friends by our signals than by their own. The signals were therefore discontinued during the siege, but resumed after the general peace of 1783.”

Following a line of ramparts along the beach, the visitor, at the time we are speaking of, came to the New Mole, with its 26-gun battery, and thence proceeded to the well-known quay of the Ragged Staff, usually employed for the landing of stores for the garrison. Ships of the line could lie along the Mole, such was the depth of water; and at the Mole head was stationed a circular battery for heavy cannon. The Rock is not easily accessible from the New Mole fort to the north end of Rosia Bay, but it was defended, like every other point, by batteries and ramparts.

From the south end of Rosia Bay the cliff rose gradually to Buena Vista—so called on account of its beautiful view of the Spanish and African coasts, bathed in a glow of colour. Several guns were mounted there, and the hill towards Europa Point bore some defensive works. Thence the Rock sweeps down by the Devil’s Bowling-Green—so named, on the lucus à non lucendo principle,[1] from its rugged surface—to Little Bay, where a battery stood surrounded by frowning precipices; and onward stretched the line of works and batteries to Europa Point, the southern extremity of the garrison, though not the southern extremity of the European continent. From this point frown precipitous cliffs of the gloomiest aspect to Europa Advance, where the fortifications were terminated by some few batteries.

Whether the young reader can or cannot follow in every particular the foregoing description, he will at least derive from it the idea of a not insufficient system of defensive works, which did credit to the ability of the engineer-officers of the time. Every point of vantage had its battery or bastion. The natural advantages of the position were carefully utilised, and the approaches were commanded by heavy guns, which could pour on an advancing enemy a withering fire. In all, the fortifications were armed with six hundred and sixty-three pieces of artillery.

The town of Gibraltar, says Drinkwater, is built on a bed of red sand. The houses were composed of different materials, principally of a solid well-tempered cement called tapia; but some of the rock-stone, plastered, and blue-washed on the outside, so as to moderate the fiery rays of the sun. These were generally covered with tiles, but the flat terraced roofs remained in the Spanish houses, and, in many, the mirandas or towers, whence the inmates, without removing from home, could luxuriate in a bright and ample prospect of the Bay and neighbouring coasts.