Gibraltar

by Henry M. Field

It was in the year 1779, and on the very longest day of the year, the 21st of June, that Spain, by order of the King, severed all communication with Gibraltar. But this was not war; it was simply non-intercourse, and not a hostile gun was fired for months. It is an awkward thing to strike the first blow where relations have been friendly. It had long been the custom of the Spaniards to keep a regiment of cavalry at San Roque, and one of infantry at Algeciras, across the bay, between which and the garrison there was a frequent exchange of military courtesies. Two days before this abrupt termination of intercourse, the Governor had been to pay his respects to General Mendoza, and found him very much embarrassed by the visit, so that he suspected something was wrong, and was not surprised when the order came down from Madrid to cut off all friendly communication. The Spaniards had resolved to make a fresh attempt to recapture Gibraltar, thinking at first that it might be done by a blockade, without a bombardment. There are two ways to take a fortress—by shot and shell, or by starvation. The latter may be slower and not so striking to the imagination as carrying a walled city by storm, but it is even more certain of success if only the operation can be completely done. But to this end the place must be sealed up so tightly that there shall be no going out nor coming in. This seems a very simple process, but in execution is not so easy, especially if the fortress be of large extent, and has approaches by land and sea. The Spaniards began with a vigor that seemed to promise success, by constructing a parallel across the isthmus which connects the Rock with the mainland. This was itself a formidable undertaking, but they seemed not to care for cost or labor. Putting ten thousand men at work, they had in a few weeks drawn a line across the Neutral Ground, which rendered access to the garrison impossible by land. Any supplies must come by sea.

To prevent this, the Spaniards had a large fleet in the Bay and cruising in the Straits. But with all their vigilance, they found it hard to keep a blockade of a Rock, with a circuit of seven miles, when there were hundreds of eyes looking out from the land, answered by hundreds of watchers from the sea. In dark nights boats with muffled oars glided between the blockading ships, and stole up to some sheltered nook, bringing news from the outside world. And there were always daring cruisers ready to attempt to run the blockade, taking any risk for the sake of the large reward in case of success. Sometimes the weather would favor them. A fierce "Levanter" blowing from the east, would drive off the fleet, and fill the Straits with fog and mist, under cover of which they could run in undiscovered. At another time a bold privateer would come in, in face of the fleet, and if sighted and pursued, would set all sail, and rush to destruction or to victory. Once under the guns of the fortress she was safe. Thus for a time the garrison received irregular supplies.[5]

But in spite of all it was often in sore and pressing need. The soldiers required to be well fed to be fit for duty, and yet not infrequently they were half starved. Six thousand capacious mouths made havoc of provisions, and a brig-load was quickly consumed. As if this was not enough, the hucksters of the town, who had got hold of the necessaries of life, secreted them to create an appearance of greater scarcity, that they might extort still larger prices from the famine-stricken inhabitants. Drinkwater, in his "History of the Siege," gives a list of prices actually paid.

"The hind-quarter of an Algerian sheep, with the head and tail, was sold for seven pounds and ten shillings; a large sow for upwards of twenty-nine pounds; a goat, with a young kid, the latter about twelve months old, for near twelve pounds. An English milch cow was sold for fifty guineas, reserving to the seller a pint of milk each day whilst she gave milk; and another cow was purchased by a Jew for sixty guineas, but the beast was in such a feeble condition that she dropped down dead before she had been removed many hundred yards."

But it was not only meat that was wanted: bread was so scarce that even biscuit-crumbs sold for a shilling a pound! The economy of flour was carried to the most minute details. It was an old custom that the soldiers who were to mount guard should powder their hair, like the servants in the royal household; but even this had to be denied them. The Governor would not waste a thimbleful of the precious article, which he had rather see going into the stomachs of his brave soldiers than plastered on their hair.

A brief entry in a soldier's diary, tells how the pinch came closer and closer: "Another bakery shut up to-day. No more flour. Even salt meat scarce, and no vegetables."

Shortly after this an examination of supplies revealed the fact that no fresh meat remained, with the exception of an old cow, which was reserved for the sick. A goose was sold for two pounds, and a turkey for four.

In such a condition—so near to the starvation point—there was but one thing to do. It was a hard necessity, but there was no help for it, and an order was issued for the immediate reduction of the soldiers' rations, already barely sufficient to sustain life.

The effect of this continued privation upon the morale of the garrison was very depressing. Hunger, like disease, weakens the vital forces, and when both come together they weigh upon the spirit until the manliest give way to discouragement. That this feeling did not become general was owing chiefly to the personal influence of the Governor, whose presence was medicine to the sick, and a new force to the well, making the brave braver and the strong stronger. When famine stared them in the face he made light of it, and taught others to make light of it by sharing their privations. At the beginning of the siege he had formed a resolution to share all the hardships of his men, even to limiting himself to the fare of a common soldier. His food was of the plainest and coarsest. As a Scotch boy he had perhaps been brought up on oatmeal porridge, and it was good enough for him still. If a blockade-runner came in with a cargo of fresh provisions, he did not reserve the best for himself, but all was sold in the open market. If it be said that he had the means to buy which others had not, yet his tastes were so simple that he preferred to share the soldier's mess rather than to partake of the richest food. Besides, he had a principle about it. To such extent did he carry this, that, on one occasion, when the enemy's commander, as a courtesy not unusual in war, sent him a present of fruit, vegetables, and game, the Governor, while returning a polite acknowledgment, begged that the act might not be repeated, for that he had a fixed resolution "never to receive or procure, by any means whatever, any provisions or other commodity for his own private use;" adding, "I make it a point of honor to partake both of plenty and scarcity in common with the lowest of my brave fellow-soldiers." Once indeed when the stress was the sharpest, he showed his men how close they could come to starvation and not die, by living eight days on four ounces of rice a day! The old hero had been preparing for just such a crisis as this by his previous life, for he had trained himself from boyhood to bear every sort of hardship and privation. The argument for total abstinence needs no stronger fact to support it than that the defence of Gibraltar was conducted by a man who needed no artificial stimulus to keep up his courage or brace his nerves against the shock of battle. "Old Eliott," the brave Scotchman and magnificent soldier, was able to stand to his guns with nothing stronger to fire his blood than cold water. Chalmers' Biographical Dictionary says:

"He was perhaps the most abstemious man of the age. His food was vegetables, and his drink water. He neither indulged himself in animal food nor wine. He never slept more than four hours at a time, so that he was up later and earlier than most other men. He had so inured himself to habits of hardness, that the things which are difficult and painful to other men were to him his daily practice, and rendered pleasant by use. It could not be easy to starve such a man into a surrender, nor to surprise him. His wants were easily supplied, and his watchfulness was beyond precedent. The example of the commander-in-chief in a besieged garrison, has a most persuasive efficacy in forming the manners of the soldiery. Like him, his brave followers came to regulate their lives by the most strict rules of discipline before there arose a necessity for so doing; and severe exercise, with short diet, became habitual to them by their own choice."