The Siege of Gibraltar 1782

This series has seven easy 5 minute installments. This first installment: Armored Batteries at Sea.

Introduction
How did Great Britain become a major Mediterranean power?

Gibraltar’s location at the western entrance of the Mediterranean Sea made Britain it possible. Great Britain conquered the territory in 1704 and held it through multiple attempts by Spain to take it back in the following decades. When the American Revolution crippled the British military power, the allies (Spain and France) saw their best chance ever to take it back.

This is the story of one of the longest, most important, and most desperate sieges in history.

This selection is from The History of Gibraltar and of Its Political Relation to Events in Europe by Frederick Sayer published in 1862. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Time: 1782
Place: Gibraltar

Piqued at the successful defense which for three years had baffled every effort, and burning with the desire to wipe out the stain on the national honor, the Spaniards were urged on in this last struggle by all the impulses of pride, ambition, and revenge. The slow and regular operations of a siege having proved but labor lost against this stubborn rock, rewards were offered to the most skillful engineers in Europe for plans to subdue the fortress.

Stimulated by these liberal offers, a thousand schemes had reached Madrid, some bold to extravagance, others too ludicrous to deserve attention. Among them, however, was one, the invention of the Chevalier d’Arçon, of such superior merit that it instantly arrested the attention even of the King himself. His plan consisted of a combined attack by sea and land upon a scale so tremendously formidable, and assisted by such ingenious inventions of art, that it held out a prospect of certain success.

After a brief consideration the Court of Madrid announced its unqualified approval of the scheme, and orders were at once issued for its adoption. Not only was the reduction of the fort now considered certain, but so vast were the powers to be employed, and so prodigious the armament to be brought against the walls, that the annihilation of every stone upon the rock was not unexpected. The plan embraced two leading features: first, a bombardment from the isthmus, upon a scale hitherto unknown; secondly, an attack by sea along the whole length of the line-wall. For this purpose, floating batteries of such construction that they were to be “at once incombustible and insubmergible,” were to be employed.

Each battery was clad on its fighting side with three successive layers of squared timber, three feet in thickness; within this wall ran a body of wet sand, and within that again was a line of cork soaked in water and calculated to prevent the effects of splinters, the whole being bound together by strong wooden bolts. To protect the crews from shells or dropping shot, a hanging roof was contrived, composed of strong rope-work netting, covered with wet hides, and shelving sufficiently to prevent the shot from lodging.

Not the least remarkable part of these vessels was a plan for the prevention of combustion from red-hot shot. A reservoir was placed beneath the roof from which numerous pipes, like the veins of the human body, circulated through the sides of the ship, giving a constant supply of water to every part, and keeping the wood continually saturated.

To form these powerful batteries, ten ships, from six hundred to fourteen hundred tons burden, were cut down to the proper proportions, and upward of two hundred thousand cubic feet of timber were used in their construction. Each battery was armed with from eight to twenty heavy brass cannon of new manufacture, with a reserve of spare pieces. The crews varied in number from seven hundred sixty to two hundred fifty men. One large sail propelled each ship.

Besides this tremendous armament which was to annihilate the line of defense from the sea, preparations of no less magnitude were being made for the attack on the northern front. Not fewer than twelve hundred pieces of heavy ordnance were ready for use in the artillery park, enormous quantities of ammunition and warlike stores were in the magazines, and the reserve of gunpowder alone was reported at eighty-three thousand barrels. Immense works were being hurried forward on the isthmus of a grandeur which eclipsed anything that had been previously constructed.

In twenty-four hours a flying sap was thrown out with a rapidity of execution unequalled. The parallel extended to a length of two hundred thirty toises, with a boyau of six hundred thirty toises from the place where it joined the principal barrier of the lines. The construction of this boyau required one million six hundred thousand bags of sand, and thousands of casks were used in forming the parallel. In a single night this enormous work was raised to the height of twelve feet with eighteen feet of thickness, and it was supposed that during the seven hours in which it was erected ten thousand men were at labor.

To assist in the assault by sea, the combined fleets of France and Spain, amounting to fifty sail of the line, with forty gunboats, numerous frigates, and fifty mortar-vessels, were to act in support. Three hundred boats, fitted with hinged platforms at their prows, were to accompany the expedition, and at the proper moment to land the troops.

The outline of the attack having been arranged, the plan was drawn out by the Duc de Crillon, and submitted for approval, first to the Court of Madrid, and afterward to the King of France. Subsequently the details were very materially altered, but the principle remained the same. The method originally proposed was as follows:

“The plan for taking Gibraltar, presented by Crillon, with the opinion of the minister, was imparted, by order of his majesty, to France, by the hand of Aranda, and, it being approved of, that Court offered twenty-seven auxiliary ships. According to this plan the assault will be conducted in the following manner: Brigadier Don Ventura Moreno will command the fire of the fleet. The vanguard of the combined squadron will be commanded by Señor Cordova, and among the divisions that compose it will be included the third of twelve fireproof ships, which will anchor in Algeciras until Señor Alvarez completes the sixty paces of intrenchment opposite the fortress. Our ships will then attack; four by the Europa Point, two by the New Mole, their fire being supported by that of the gun- and mortar-boats and bomb-ketches, which will hold themselves in readiness to support where it may be required.

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