The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

It was during the morning of the 12th that the governor received information that the combined attack would commence on the following day. Calmly as this courageous man awaited the hour of trial, he could not but be influenced by the gravest anxiety for the result. He had witnessed the gigantic armaments that were preparing for the assault; and though ignorant of the exact force which was to be brought against him, he was aware that neither France nor Spain had spared labor or expense to accumulate a strength hitherto unknown in the history of sieges. On the land he was threatened by two hundred forty-six pieces of cannon, mortars, and howitzers, and an army of near forty thousand men; while by sea fifty sail of the line, ten floating batteries, of a construction supposed to be indestructible, with countless gun- and mortar-boats, and three hundred smaller craft were waiting only the signal for the attack. To this enormous armament, but seven thousand men and ninety-six guns could be opposed. At a council of war held in the Spanish camp on September 4th the final details for the arrangement of the grand attack had been settled, and it was decided to open the bombardment on the 13th of the month.

At this council M. d'Arçon vehemently protested against the precipitate haste with which the preparations of the floating batteries had been hurried on, and vainly pleaded for a few days' further delay, in order that some experiments might be made upon the vessels, and especially that the effectiveness of the water apparatus might be tested. His arguments were met by others equally cogent. Lord Howe with a powerful fleet was known to be on his way to relieve the fortress, and it was of vital importance that his arrival should be anticipated. The season was already far advanced, and the works on the land side, which had only just been repaired, were at any moment exposed to a second partial destruction by red-hot shot. All objections, therefore, were overruled, and the day was named.

At about seven o'clock on the morning of September 13th the enemy's fleet was observed to be in motion off the Orange Grove, and shortly afterward the ten floating batteries were under way, and with a crowd of boats standing for the southward with a light northwest breeze.

Shortly after ten o'clock they had reached their respective stations off the line-wall, and Admiral Don Buenoventura Moreno, in the Pastora, having taken up a position opposite the capital of the King's Bastion, the others anchored in admirable order on his right and left flanks, at about one thousand yards distance from the walls of the fortress.

At this time the enemy's camp and the surrounding hills were covered with countless thousands of spectators, who had hurried from all parts of Spain to witness the fall of Gibraltar. The batteries had no sooner let go their anchors than a tremendous cannonade of hot and cold shot was opened upon them all along the line; at the same instant the ponderous vessels replied from all their guns, supported by the fire of one hundred eighty-six pieces of ordnance from the works on the isthmus.

Never before in the annals of war had a spectacle so magnificently grand been witnessed—four hundred cannon belched forth their volleys of fire at the same moment, the whole heaven was obscured by the curling clouds of smoke which clung around the rugged peaks of the rocks, while the misty gloom was fitfully illumined by the flashes of a thousand saucisses and shells. The whole peninsula was overwhelmed with a torrent of shot.

For two hours this terrible cannonade continued without intermission, and no impression had been made upon the floating batteries; so well calculated was their construction to withstand the effects of artillery that the heaviest shells rebounded from their roofs and the shot struck harmless on their sides. Upward of two thousand red-hot balls had been thrown against them, and no symptoms of combustion appeared, except here and there a feeble flame, which ere it could spread was quenched.

At noon the enemy slackened their fire from the sea for a moment, but seemingly only for the purpose of amending the direction of their guns, which had previously been uncertain and too high; the pause was but for an instant, and the artillery again burst forth with a more powerful and better-directed fire. Showers of every missile swept over the walls, and already the British troops, disappointed with the effects of the red-hot shot, and fatigued with the mid-day sun, began to look gloomily upon the issue of the fight. But about two o'clock slight wreaths of flame were observed issuing from the Admiral's ship, and at the same time a strange confusion was remarked among the men on board the Talla Piedra. On board this battery was the Chevalier d'Arçon, who was present in the action as a volunteer to watch the success of his own inventions. Several red-hot shot had struck this ship, but one alone gave any uneasiness to those on board; to reach the smouldering woodwork the guns were silenced, and the smoke clearing away left the vessel exposed to such a concentrated fire that all efforts to arrest the progress of the flames were in vain. The blaze rapidly spread, the crew were seized with a panic, and, fearful of an explosion, turned the water into the powder-magazines. Thus one battery was rendered useless during the remainder of the action.