Gibraltar
Page 9
On the highest pinnacle of this mountain, which fronts the Spanish lines, is built a guard-house, called the Rock-Guard ... a battery was erected thereon, and called the Sky Battery. It was amazing to see with what spirit and resolution our British troops dragged the heavy pieces of cannon that are mounted on this battery up the precipice. The Spaniards, who at a distance saw our brave fellows at work, were astonished, and could hardly believe it possible men would attempt so laborious a task, and in the height of summer; they were, however, soon convinced the work was compleatly effected. They perceived an additional fort opened on them, and saw the fatal ball and shell flying from the Sky Battery about their lines.54
In spite of all the incoming shells and cannonballs, the Spanish working parties managed to keep up their hard work by night, so that the threat facing the Rock grew ever more menacing. By October, the cavalry and infantry forces before Gibraltar had increased considerably in number, and Holloway reckoned that the Spaniards had 16,000 men on land and about 6850 men on board the various armed vessels in the Bay.55 Unless there was a full moon, it was impossible to discover exactly where work was taking place, making it difficult to know in what direction to fire. All that the garrison gunners could aim for was the general direction where flickering lights were visible or where noise could be heard, both of which depended on weather conditions. ‘Being on Waterport Guard during the stillness of the night,’ Price commented on one occasion, ‘I could plainly hear the Spanish working parties nailing their [gun] platforms.’ He resented the attitude of the opposing forces: ‘The enemy continue to hold us in contempt and as yet have never returned us either shot or shell,’56 while Ancell said: ‘The enemy are quiet, but exceedingly watchful, and labour much at their approaches; we cannot form any judgment of what they are doing. We keep up a fire upon them.’57
The frustration of being literally in the dark led to the development of lightballs or fireballs, to illuminate enemy territory. Initial experiments took place in early September, when Paterson recorded one that travelled over 500 yards: ‘Experiments were made this evening with a light ball fired from an 8 inch howitzer on South Bastion. One of them burnt 6 minutes.’58 On the evening of 19 October, Drinkwater described an experiment with a new kind of lightball that took place in the presence of Eliott, ‘the invention of Lieut. [Abraham] Whitham, of the artillery. It was made of lead, filled with composition, and weighed 14lb. 10 oz. With 4 lb. of powder, at six degrees elevation, the ball was fired out of a thirty two-pounder, upon the glacis of their lines. It burnt well; and the experiment was to have been repeated, if a thick fog had not suddenly arisen.’ Eliott had a reputation for sleeping very little, and he was soon back the next morning: ‘the fog being dispersed, the Governor was at Willis’s by half past four, to see a second trial, when the lightball answered to his satisfaction’.59
This was a new development, Price explained, enabling them to be fired much further: ‘Some fireballs for a new plan – hooped with lead so as to make them weigh about 15 pounds ... Lt Whetham of the Artillery had the credit of the improvement, though not of the original invention. Four or five hundred yards used to be the usual distance to which these fire balls could be thrown, but by the addition of the lead they carried upwards of eighteen hundred yards, that being the distance of the nearest part to us of the Spanish Lines.’60 Unfortunately, Drinkwater said, they failed to illuminate anything on this occasion: ‘The enemy, during the night, had been uncommonly noisy; but when the lightballs were fired, no parties were discovered at work. At day-break, however, to our surprise, we observed 35 embrasures [for guns] opened in their lines, disposed of in three batteries.’61 It looked as if Gibraltar was about to be bombarded.
CHAPTER FIVE
SHORTAGES
At about five in the evening of 16 October 1779, one of the soldiers on duty at the Prince’s Lines spotted a man dressed in a brown coat, laced hat and white stockings, traipsing through the market gardens near the inundation and heading towards the Spanish Lines. Governor Eliott immediately ordered Captain Horsbrugh to investigate. He was found to be a servant of Mr Davies, an agent-victualler of the garrison, and against all regulations he had been allowed to pass through the Landport barrier after pretending to search for his master’s goat. Captain Price said that ‘he imposed on the Captain of Landport by a cock and ball story, who allowed him to pass the barrier. For this, poor Sam Moore [captain] of our regiment got chocolate [a reprimand] from the Governor.’1 This desertion was especially worrying, because in order to ensure a favourable reception it was believed that he might have taken information with him about the state of provisions in the garrison.
It was not long before Drinkwater complained that ‘Provisions of every kind were now becoming very scarce and exorbitantly dear in the garrison ... Fish was equally high, and vegetables were with difficulty to be got for any money; but bread, the great essential for life and health, was the article most wanted.’2 When two Walloon Guards succeeded in deserting from the Spanish Lines, they said it was believed that ‘the Garrison was reduced to a fortnight’s provisions’.3 The regiments of Walloon Guards were originally recruited in the Netherlands, from an area now mainly within Belgium. By the time of the siege, recruits also came from places such as Switzerland, Italy and, especially, Ireland. Most of the deserters to Gibraltar were Walloons, and, being foreign troops, they did not have the same allegiances as those from Spain itself.
This information about the state of the garrison may well have been supplied by Mr Davies’s servant, even though he and the other deserters into Spain were treated as spies and held shackled in prison. According to Price, the Walloon deserters also said that the newly invented shells had proved highly effective: ‘they have had twelve men and a woman killed by our fire and about twice that number wounded, that the shells fired from cannon have annoyed them extremely and confused them at first by their novelty’.4 Although the Spanish commander had intended firing on the garrison before now, it was decided to let starvation take its course and force Gibraltar to surrender.
The besieging troops were also hungry, and the Walloons pointed out that ‘Bread is very scarce and dear in Camp, and water brought from a great distance.’5 Spain was not blockaded and so was responsible for the provision of adequate supplies to the camp, but on Gibraltar the blockade by land and sea was badly affecting food stocks, even though Eliott had introduced various regulations from the outset. A fit man of frugal habits, he himself was a vegetarian who ate very little, drank only water and never slept more than four hours a night. In Europe in the late eighteenth century, vegetarianism was not common, though the mass of the population rarely ate meat because of its cost. Only in the early nineteenth century did the idea of abstaining from meat take hold, so he was an unusual figure. Around this time, he conducted a trial in order to see ‘what quantity of rice would suffice a single person for twenty-four hours, and actually lived himself eight days on four ounces of rice per day’. Eliott, Drinkwater said, ‘is remarkable for an abstemious mode of living, seldom tasting any thing but vegetables, simple puddings and water; and yet is very hale, and uses constant exercise’. While the shortages would never bother him unduly, Eliott was mindful of the dangers of reduced rations. Few others on Gibraltar willingly shared his habits, and as for his experiment, Drinkwater concluded, ‘the small portion just mentioned would be far from sufficient for a working man kept continually employed, and in a climate where the heat necessarily demands very refreshing nourishment to support nature under fatigue’.6
As food stocks fell, prices rose, which shocked Spilsbury: ‘Charged seven shillings sterling for dinner of salt beef and a little bit of fish and pudding.’7 Because meat was a luxury for most people, those in the army or navy were fortunate to have meat as part of their rations. Soldiers serving abroad did not always have fresh produce, and that was certainly the case during the siege, when salt meat was instead shipped in wooden casks from England. Beef and pork were salted by
cutting the meat into pieces and repeatedly rubbing them with dry salt and saltpetre, which preserved them by drawing off moisture and preventing bacteria. After a few days the meat pieces could be packed into wooden casks filled with brine. Salt meat was more palatable if soaked in water before cooking, but it still made the soldiers thirsty. If the meat portions were too large or if the brine leaked out, the contents would rot, which was a common complaint during the siege.8 Ancell reflected that ‘It is really vexing and mortifying to view the Spanish hills and heights, covered with cattle, while we can scarce procure a piece of salt beef, and that at a price’, and Spilsbury grumbled: ‘Rice sold at 21 dollars 6 reals per cwt., raised five times the usual price. Little fresh meat now. Geese at a guinea each, and ducks at 2 dollars, pork 5 reals per lb.’9
It was not just rising prices that affected the garrison, but the unfavourable fixed exchange rate for their pay, as Drinkwater explained:
The troops are paid in currency, which, let the exchange of the garrison be above or below par, never varies to the non-commissioned and privates. A serjeant receives weekly, as full garrison-pay, one dollar, six reals, equal to nine-pence sterling, per diem; a corporal, and drummer, one dollar, one real, and five quartils [quarts], in sterling about six-pence per diem; and a private, seven reals, or four-pence half-penny sterling, per diem. Officers receive their subsistence according to the currency: thirty-six pence per dollar is par.10
None of the soldiers thought their pay was enough to cope with the rising prices, but the problem for officers was that although they were paid at an exchange rate of 36 pence for a dollar, the actual exchange rate was often 39 pence and sometimes as much as 42 pence. Because their garrison pay was set in pounds, shillings and pence sterling, but paid in the local currency at an unfavourable rate, this amounted to a cut in pay. It was an issue that would continue to annoy them throughout the siege.
Exchange rates were a constant worry because various currencies were used, often at arbitrary exchange rates, and the local currency relied on Spanish coins. Visiting Gibraltar just before the siege, Richard Twiss said: ‘All European coins are current here, but considerably under the value; a guinea [21 shillings] passes [at] no more than nineteen shillings and six pence; five Spanish reals are only three here.’11 In the same way as British currency was based on the pound sterling, the Gibraltar currency was based on the Spanish dollar. Spilsbury jotted down the different values: ‘16 quarts is 1 real; 1 dollar is 8 reals; 1 cob is 12 reals [1½ dollars]; 1 pistol is 5 dollars 5 reals or 45 reals; 1 doubloon is 22½ dollars (or 22 dollars 4 reals) or 180 reals.’12 Ancell explained the coinage in a letter to his brother: ‘A rial is a piece of Spanish coin, Gibraltar currency, eight-pence value, equal to four-pence three farthings sterling. A quart is a Spanish half-penny, forty of which is given in change for an English shilling.’ Small coins were in constant short supply, with quarts, reals (or rials) and cobs used in everyday transactions.13
Even those who had money found little to buy, and Ancell lamented how they were isolated and neglected: ‘We have not received any supplies or intelligence ... No prospect of relief: We begin to think England has forgot that such people are in existence.’14 The problem was not just a lack of a relief convoy from Britain, but that all supplies had to evade the Spanish blockade while sailing into the bay. Most provisions came across the Straits from Morocco (Barbary), as well as from the British-held Mediterranean island of Minorca, over six hundred miles away, or from Portugal’s Atlantic port of Lisbon, a distance of nearly four hundred miles. There were no other allies closer to hand, but Gibraltar could not support itself. With steep, rocky hillsides, there was limited land fertile enough to be farmed, although the Genoese inhabitants did continue to cultivate their market gardens out on the isthmus.
Eliott ordered any supplies evading the blockade to be sold on the open market to the highest bidder – quite often to a merchant, who would resell at an even greater profit. Prices spiralled upwards, but any attempt to control prices would have deterred those captains of vessels who were willing to risk breaking the blockade. It was, after all, only the lure of quick profits that was the motivation to run the gauntlet of Spanish warships, but the feeling among the resentful population was that ‘The Governor does not care how dear things are’.15 For both soldiers and civilians, the lack of food and the rising prices were a source of antagonism and distress. Soldiers received some food rations, with extra rations given to officers, but additional provisions had to be purchased. Soldiers’ wives who had permission to be with their husbands were entitled to half-rations and their children to quarter-rations.16 The civilians had to pay for everything.
At great risk, vessels slipped unseen into Gibraltar by night or were concealed by the all-too-frequent fogs, while others eluded the Spanish guns by taking advantage of the awkward winds and currents. Not all were lucky. At the end of October, after a long trip from Minorca, the Peace and Plenty privateer, a Belfast vessel, had almost reached Gibraltar when several Spanish ships moved in to intercept, and Lieutenant Holloway described what happened: ‘an English ship of 20 guns was engaged at the back of the Rock by a Spanish xebeque, a galley and several row-boats. The guns at Europa Advance [battery] was fired and also the gun at Middle Hill, which was found to be of great use in preventing the ship from falling into the enemy’s hands, besides protecting the boats of our squadron which were sent round by the Admiral to give assistance.’ The privateer was trapped between the Spanish ships and the coast and had no option but to run on to the eastern beach: ‘notwithstanding all that could be done, the ship was under the necessity of running ashore on the isthmus between the Devil’s Tower and Fort St Barbara, from which they fired on her, killed the boatswain and wounded three men. Several of the crew quitted the ship and came on shore near the Devil’s Tower and then along under the Rock into the Garrison. The Master with the remainder of the crew were taken out of the ship and brought in by our boats.’17
In response to the firing from Fort St Barbara, the garrison retaliated: ‘The enemy firing on the ship from Fort St Barbara was the occasion of Willis’s and all the upper batteries opening upon the Fort which dismounted one of their guns and kept them in pretty good subjection.’18 There were still hopes of salvaging something from the wreck, even if only firewood, so the batteries continued firing to keep the Spaniards at a distance, and guns were hauled up even higher to protect the wreck, as Paterson outlined: ‘Two 24 pounders were moved to Farrington’s Battery, an officer and 30 men were sent up to reinforce the batteries, and they kept up a pretty brisk fire upon fort St Barbara for most part of the day, yet that fort fired many shot through the vessel. The xebeqs came so near that it was thought two shot were fired into them from Europa, two from Middle Hill, and one from Green’s Lodge.’19
The next day, an attempt was made at salvage. ‘Some of the crew of the stranded vessel attempted going on board her this morning,’ Price said, ‘to get some livestock and other things out of her, but the fire from the Spanish fort with round and grape shot was so well directed and kept up that the poor fellows could not accomplish their purpose and were obliged to desist. She has on board hogs, poultry, sheep, several casks of beef and many barrels of powder and letters for the Garrison.’20 Grapeshot was a shower of smaller balls and miscellaneous projectiles, usually contained in a canvas bag and fired from a cannon over short distances. At about 8 o’clock at night, the vessel was set on fire, though nobody was certain who was to blame. Price was captain of the guard at Landport that night:
between seven and eight the centry posted on Coverport Battery reported to me that a light ball had been thrown from Willis’s on the eastern strand in a line with the privateer with intention of discovering whether the Enemy who had a xebeque all day at anchor off Fort Barbara had boarded her. Soon after I went to the centry’s post, a carcass [an incendiary device] was thrown from our batteries at the ship. In two or three minutes I saw her on fire in three different part
s. This had every appearance of being done by ourselves but the centry at the extremity of the Prince’s Lines reported to his captain that he could perceive by the light of the fire ball burning on the Strand a boat putting off from the ship’s side, a pretty convincing proof that this little exploit ought in strict justice to be ascribed to the Spaniards, though some in the Garrison are still of a contrary opinion. She was in a few moments compleatly on fire, and by some little sudden flashes, some loose powder seemed to be strewed over her deck, her guns and swivels went off as the fire reached them. I plainly saw several of the shot strike the water. Upon the whole, it was a splendid but awful spectacle ... in the morning she was burnt to the water’s edge, but still continues burning.21
It was a bitter blow whenever vessels were captured or destroyed, and this one was a total loss. At the time, nobody seems to have noted the irony of the Peace and Plenty, the two things they desperately wanted, being completely destroyed when almost within reach.
Just as the Peace and Plenty was shipwrecked, an outbreak of smallpox was detected among the civilians. When the border was closed in June, the children sick with smallpox at San Roque were not allowed back into Gibraltar but had to stay in the area of the market gardens until they had recovered.22 Eliott gave new orders to protect the troops:
The smallpox having appeared in the Garrison, all the men of the different Corps who have not had that disorder to be removed to the southward this day at three o’clock. They are to remain there, and on no account be permitted to come to town. The Hanoverian Brigade [is] to occupy Wind Mill Hill, the other detachments will be quarantined by the regiments at the southward, the Grand Company of the 12 Regiment and Light Company of the 72 Regiment to come into town.23