This was a fact, for commissions were--in those days--given in the army to mere lads, and the ensigns were often no older than midshipmen.
Late in the afternoon, a procession of carts was seen crossing the neutral ground, from the Spanish lines; and it was soon seen that these were the English officers and merchants from San Roque, and the other villages. They had, that morning, received peremptory orders to leave before sunset. Some were fortunate enough to be able to hire carts, to bring in their effects; but several were compelled, from want of carriage, to leave everything behind them.
The guards had all been reinforced, at the northern batteries; pickets had been stationed across the neutral ground; the guard, at the work known as the Devil's Tower, were warned to be specially on the alert; and the artillery in the battery, on the rock above it, were to hold themselves in readiness to open fire upon the enemy, should they be perceived advancing towards it.
It was considered improbable, in the extreme, that the enemy would attack until a great force had been collected; but it was possible that a body of troops might have been collected secretly, somewhere in the neighbourhood, and that an attempt would be made to capture the place by surprise, before the garrison might be supposed to be taking precautions against attack.
The next morning orders were issued, and large working parties were told off to go on with the work of strengthening the fortifications; and notice was issued that all empty hogsheads and casks in the town would be bought, by the military authorities. These were to be filled with earth, and to take the places of fascines, for which there were no materials available on the Rock. Parties of men rolled or carried these up to the heights. Other parties collected earth, and piled it to be carried up in sacks on the back of mules--there being no earth, on the rocks where the batteries would be established--a fact which added very largely to the difficulties of the Engineers.
On the 24th the Childers, sloop of war, brought in two prizes from the west; one of which, an American, she had captured in the midst of the Spanish fleet. Some of the Spanish men-of-war had made threatening demonstrations, as if to prevent the sloop from interfering with her; but they had not fired a gun, and it was supposed that they had not received orders to commence hostilities. Two English frigates had been watching the fleet; and it was supposed to be on its way to join the French fleet, off Cape Finisterre.
The Spaniards were seen, now, to be at work dragging down guns from San Roque to arm their two forts--Saint Philip and Saint Barbara--which stood at the extremities of their lines: Saint Philip on the bay, and Saint Barbara upon the seashore, on the eastern side of the neutral side. In time of peace, only a few guns were mounted in these batteries.
Admiral Duff moved the men-of-war under his command, consisting of the Panther--of sixty guns--three frigates, and a sloop, from their usual anchorage off the Water Port--where they were exposed to the fire of the enemy's forts--to the New Mole, more to the southward.