carried thirty-six rounds of ammunition,
with a good flint in his piece, and one in his
pocket. The Thirty-ninth and Fifty-eighth
Regiments, under Brigadier-General Picton,
were drawn up on the Grand Parade to
assist the sortie if necessary. The enemy,
surprised, almost instantly abandoned the
works that had cost them so much expense,
and employed them so many months. The
works were soon alight, and the magazines
blew up with tremendous explosion, just
as our men passed back into their own
batteries. Although these works were
nearly a mile from Gibraltar, and close to
the camp, mounting one hundred and
thirty-five pieces of heavy artillery, the
English lost only four men, and twenty-four
wounded. They spiked ten mortars
and eighteen twenty-six pounders, and took
two Spanish officers and sixteen privates
prisoners.

On the 24th of February, 1782, a shot
came through one of the capped embrasures
on Princess Amelia's battery, and took off
the legs of two men of the Seventy-third,
and one leg of another soldier, wounding a
fourth man in both legs. A boy, whose sight
was so quick and sure, that he could see the
enemy's shot almost immediately it quitted
the gun, had just reproved the working
party for disregarding his warnings, and
had warned them of the coming missile. At
the end of May five thousand more troops
arrived in the Spanish lines, and on the
17th of June a French convoy of sixty
transports, under three frigates, arrived with
several thousand men from Minorca, which
they had just captured. The Due de Crillon
now took the command, assisted by M.
d'Arcon, a celebrated engineer, and Admiral
Moreno, who had lately invented a plan of
rendering the battering ships of his most
Catholic majesty bomb-proof and
incombustible. These vessels were covered six
or seven feet thick with green timber,
bolted with iron, cork, junk, and raw hides;
the boats were to have mantlets to let
down and facilitate the landing of troops.
General Eliott, relying on his little army
that had already done so much, was busy
as ever. Sergeants, musicians, everybody
now had to carry the musket. On the
8th of July, as an artilleryman was in
the laboratory filling shells, and driving
fuses, one of them, by some unaccountable
accident, took fire. Although surrounded
by powder, the brave fellow instantly
carried out the lighted shell and threw
it where it could explode safely. Two
seconds more and it burst. If the laboratory
had gone, the loss would have been
irreparable, the fortifications would have
suffered, and many lives have been lost.
Forges for heating shot were now
distributed in different batteries, and the
engineers began to work out a covered battery
in the upper rock, which subsequently
grew into St. George's Hall, one of the
lions of modern Gib.

The enemy grew very active on the
night of the 15th of August; ten thousand
men raising, unknown to the garrison, an
epaulement five hundred yards long, in
which one million six hundred thousand
sand-bags were used. On the 19th, the
Due de Crillon sent the governor a
present of vegetables, game, and rice, which
the governor reluctantly accepted, hating,
like a good bluff Englishman, all such
ill-timed affectations of courtesy. The crisis
was coming. Enraged at the garrison guns
setting a battery on fire, and afraid of a
renewal of sorties, the duke opened the ball.
At daybreak on the 9th of September, one
hundred and seventy pieces of ordnance
vomited fire at the north of the Rock; at
the same time nine line-of-battle ships got
under way from the Orange Grove, and
blazed at the sea line; while fifteen gun
and mortar boats also added to the
annoyance.

The next day the enemy's fleet of seven
three-deckers and thirty-one smaller ships,
beside xebecs and bomb-ketches, anchored
in the bay. On the land side, forty thousand
men were thirsting for English blood,
while two hundred cannon scowled at the
tough old Rock, now illuminated by a
volcano of incessant flame. On the 19th
of September the battering ships took tip
their position, and opened fire. In spite of
our steady use of red-hot shot, the battering
ships at first seemed invulnerable. The
heaviest shells rebounded from their tops,
and thirty-two-pound shot fell harmless
from their hulls. Occasionally a fire broke
out, but the Spaniards instantly
extinguished it. About noon, however, some
impression was made, for their flag-ship
and another vessel began to smoke, then
gradually their firing slackened, rockets
were sent up to summon boats to their
help, and there arose an indistinct clamour
of cries and groans. A little before
midnight the wreck of a launch floated in
under the town wall, with only twelve
men saved out of a crew of three score.
An hour after midnight two ships were
ablaze, and between three and four o'clock
six more. Our boats then captured some