14th of December a Spanish soldier, trying
to come over to the English, was pursued
by two troopers, cut down, and secured, in
spite of one of the pursuer's horses being
killed by our fire. The next day the
deserter was hung near the Spanish artillery
park, and his body exposed till sunset.
In January, 1780, the garrison began to
be hard driven for food. Many of the
poorer classes now lived on thistles,
dandelions, and wild leeks, and the women,
children, and infirm persons were often
jostled out of their allowance by the mobs
who assembled daily at the bakers' doors.
But all this distress was relieved at the
end of January by the arrival of Admiral
Rodney, with a fleet of twenty-one sail of
the line and a large convoy of merchant
vessels. He was in high spirits, having
just captured six armed Spanish vessels
and a fleet of fifteen merchantmen, belonging
to the Caracca Company, going from
Bilbao to Cadiz. Rodney's fleet took back
with it to England all the soldiers' wives
and children who were not provided with
the provisions required for twelve months
—that is, two hundred and fifty pounds of
flour, or three hundred and sixty pounds of
biscuits. From the Spanish prizes the
governor purchased a great number of heavy
guns and some hundred barrels of powder,
notwithstanding the supply brought by the
convoy. The garrison now was in a good
state of defence, the stores and magazines
being fall, and the soldiers confident that
they were not forgotten in England. The
salt fish, however, and the insufficient
vegetables soon gave rise to a great deal of
scurvy, which became very fatal.

On the 7th of June, six Spanish
fireships bore down on the two English
men-of-war and the ordnance ships in the New
Mole; but our sailors instantly commencing
a brisk cannonade to retard the fire-ships,
manned their boats and grappled bravely
with the burning vessels, towed them under
the walls, where they were one by one
extinguished. Though several of the
fireships were bound together with chains and
cables, our sailors separated them and
towed them to land without losing a man.

At this very time, when scurvy was
making great ravages, and many of the
soldiers, rather than yield to the disease,
were limping to their duty on crutches, our
ships' boats cut off a Danish dogger from a
Dutch convoy that was passing, and its
cargo of lemons and oranges from Malaga
was devoured with avidity by the sick, who
in a few days began to recover. The Spanish
gunboats preventing all communication
with Barbary, the garrison now trusted
chiefly for wine, spirits, sugar, and
occasional live stock, to the small boats from
Minorca, which were very daring and
successful in running the blockade. On the
12th of November an English privateer,
called the Young Sabine, after beating off
several armed Spanish vessels and three
gunboats, put in with a cargo of cheese,
hams, and potatoes; the latter sold at
forty-three dollars (seven pounds ten
shillings and sixpence) the hundredweight.
Two days after, the enemy mounted twelve
guns en barbette, near Fort St. Philip—in
the Black Battery, as it was called by the
garrison. Though the most distant from
the Rock, this battery proved throughout
the whole siege the most vexatious, as its
line of fire enfiladed the town wall and
main street, the principal communication
with the northern part of the fortress. As
the Spanish gunboats seemed directed in
their firing at night by the lights in the
houses along the sea-wall, no lights were
henceforward allowed after seven o'clock
P.M. in any window looking towards the
bay.

Provisions were now getting seriously
deficient on the Rock; the poorer soldiers,
who were unable to purchase from the
Minorca vessels, were in intolerable
distress, even biscuit crumbs selling for a
shilling per pound, while the common
soldiers received only five pounds and a quarter
of bread a week, thirteen ounces of salt
beef, eighteen ounces of half putrid beef,
and two and a half ounces of rancid
congealed oil, which was called butter. On
the 3rd of April, to the infinite joy of the
whole garrison, the enemy began to make
some uneasy movements in the batteries
round the bay, and a British cutter arriving
in twenty-nine days from Plymouth,
announced that a grand fleet, under charge
of Admiral Derby, was coming to the relief
of Gibraltar. At daybreak on the 13th, a
thick mist rose in the Gut, and the sun
shone full on the fair and welcome sight of
a convoy of one hundred vessels, led by
several stately men-of-war. As they
entered the bay fifteen Spanish gunboats
advanced in regular order from Algeziras,
and seconded by the guns and mortar
batteries on land, opened a smart cannonade
on the fleet; but they fled at the approach
of a line-of-battle ship and two of our
frigates, which might have then entirely
destroyed these afterwards harassing small
fry. The moment the convoy came to an