Hearing from the prisoners that hundreds of officers and men, some wounded, still remained on board the batteries and must certainly perish, Captain Curtis, at the utmost risk of his own life, made the most heroic efforts to effect their rescue. Careless of danger from the explosions which every instant scattered showers of débris around him, he passed from ship to ship and literally dragged from the burning decks the miserable men who yet remained on board. With the coolest intrepidity he pushed his pinnace close alongside one of the largest batteries at the very moment she blew up, covering the sea with fragments of her wreck. For a time the boat was engulfed amid the falling ruin, and her escape was miraculous. A huge balk of timber fell through her flooring, killing the coxswain, wounding others of the crew, and starting a large hole in her bottom. Through this leak the water rushed so rapidly that little hope was left of reaching the shore, but, the sailors' jackets being stuffed into the aperture, the hole was plugged, and the gallant men got safe to land. By the heroic and humane exertions of Captain Curtis and his boat's crew three hundred fifty-seven persons were saved from a horrible death.
While these disasters were occurring in the bay, the land batteries on the isthmus never for an instant slackened the tremendous fire that had been commenced on the previous morning; until at daybreak on the 14th the Spaniards, having become aware of the fate of their comrades on board the vessels, ordered the cannonade to cease.
Captain Curtis had scarcely completed his service of humanity before eight of the remaining ships blew up and one only remained unconsumed. At first it was hoped that she might be saved as a trophy of the glorious action, but this was afterward found impossible, and she was set fire to like the rest. The flag of Admiral Moreno remained flying until his battery was totally destroyed.
Desperate had been the struggle and great was the victory. During the hottest of the fire General Eliot took his station on the King's Bastion, exposed to the guns of the two most powerful battering-ships. Nothing could exceed the coolness and courage of the troops during this trying day; the steady and incessant fire was never allowed to slacken, the guns were served, says the governor, "with the deliberate coolness and precision of school practice, but the exertions of the men were infinitely superior."
The furnaces for heating the shot were found to be too few, and huge fires were kindled in convenient corners of the streets. An immense amount of ammunition was expended on both sides; three hundred twenty of the enemy's cannon were in play throughout the day, and to these were opposed only ninety-six guns from the garrison. Upward of eight thousand shot and seven hundred sixteen barrels of gunpowder were fired away by the garrison.
When the unparalleled force of the bombardment is considered, the casualties among the troops were remarkably few: one officer, two sergeants, and thirteen men only were killed, and five officers and sixty-three men wounded. The enemy's losses, on the contrary, were very great; on the floating batteries alone one thousand four hundred seventy-three men were either killed, wounded, or missing.
By the evening of the 14th the bay was cleared of the shattered wrecks, and not a vestige of the formidable armament, which the day before had been the hope and pride of Spain, remained.
The contest was at an end, and the united strength of two ambitious and powerful nations had been humbled by a straitened garrison of six thousand effective men. With the destruction of the floating batteries the siege was virtually concluded.
In Spain the news was received with consternation and despair. The thousands who on the preceding day crowded upon the neighboring hills, and with eager anxiety awaited the anticipated victory, returned to their homes disappointed and chagrined. They had been taught to believe that the attack would be crushing and invincible; that the batteries were indestructible; that the fortress must be annihilated by their overwhelming fire; but instead of these disasters they had seen every ship destroyed or sunk, with all their guns, and two thousand men of their crews either killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. In the first moment of consternation the inventor of those vast machines, upon the success of which the whole attack depended, could not restrain his poignant grief and was led into confessions which he afterward regretted. Writing to the French ambassador, Montmorin, he said: "I have burned the Temple of Ephesus; everything is lost, and through my fault. What comforts me under my misfortune is that the honor of the two kings remains untarnished."
At Madrid the news of the disaster was received with dismay; and the King, who was at the palace of Ildefonso, listened to the intelligence in mute despair. The recovery of Gibraltar had been his unswerving aim, and with this repulse almost his last hope was extinguished. In Paris the intelligence was no less unexpected and unwelcome; so certain indeed had the fall of the fortress been considered that a drama illustrative of the destruction of Gibraltar by the floating batteries was acted nightly to applauding thousands.