Gibraltar

by Roy Adkins

  Not everyone left with the fleet, because after gunfire on the last day of sailing, a search was made for seamen who had absconded, and forty were found who were handed over to the new commodore, John Elliot.51 Rodney had left Captain Elliot’s 74-gun battleship HMS Edgar at Gibraltar to bolster the Mediterranean Fleet of one 64-gun battleship, two frigates, an armed brig and an armed sloop. While Rodney’s fleet was at Gibraltar, the Spanish troops had done very little and Admiral Barcelo had withdrawn his own blockading vessels to the safety of Algeciras and Ceuta, but they now re-emerged into the Straits and the Bay of Gibraltar. Arranged against the Royal Navy warships was a Spanish force of over forty vessels of varying sizes, with a total of 320 guns and 5000 men. The balance of naval power tipped firmly in favour of Spain once again, and the blockade was back in place, with the renewed intention of starving Gibraltar into submission and continuing to prepare for a final assault.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SMALLPOX

  By the end of February 1780, numerous children had contracted smallpox and several fatalities had already occurred, which would continue over the following weeks. Normally possessing a robust attitude to life, Mrs Green became very depressed with all the suffering and grief felt by their parents, a mood exacerbated by her own periodic bouts of illness. She confided in her diary in mid-March:

  Find myself exceedingly indisposed, could not get up to breakfast. The hurry and daily hopes and expectations which now prevailed, particularly in weak minds, began to affect me, and I grew exceedingly ill. My head and eyes very bad, hardly indeed am able to write this, and fear I am going to be very ill. It was the same with me some weeks ago, but as I only write for the amusement of myself and if ever it so happen for my own family’s information in a few points, so I am the less anxious about the style or manner.1

  Mrs Green’s diaries were full of comments about her health, with minor and acute symptoms interspersed with periods of being completely well. Even before the siege had started, when the way of life was pleasant, she was constantly afflicted by episodes of ill health and had been very sick for much of June 1779. In July she had been ‘taken with a cold shivering like an ague’, and two months later she had great pain in one foot, while in October she wrote: ‘At this time I was taken exceedingly ill and continued so till the end of the year.’ For many weeks, her diary was patchy, but at the start of January 1780 she wrote: ‘Find myself not quite so lame or ill as I was yesterday’, though she recorded two weeks later: ‘I was taken ill again, in the course of the evening, a cold shivering and a pain in my left arm.’ The very next day, she heard about the new outbreak of smallpox from Dr Baynes, when she herself was ‘exceedingly ill, pains all over’.2

  By Easter Day, which was early that year, on 26 March, Mrs Green’s health was still unpredictable: ‘I walked out before dinner with the child [her daughter Charlotte], find myself very indifferent whilst out and come home very low.’3 Looking at all the symptoms that she describes over the following months, various conditions (such as heart disease) can be discounted. One likely cause was relapsing fever, a tick-borne infection that is treatable today with antibiotics. Known then as remitting fever, it was endemic in north Africa and Spain and was characterised by periods of feeling unwell and short periods of feeling fine, while the leg pain she suffered could well have resulted from septicaemia.4 She tried all sorts of remedies that may have made her worse, such as dosing herself with an assortment of potions, and in spite of being in the care of Dr Baynes she had no idea of the reason for her problems and neither did he, which caused her acute anxiety and depression.

  In between the recurrent attacks, Mrs Green recorded the events around her. Reviews of the different regiments tended to take place in March each year, and she was particularly intrigued by a strange incident a few days after Easter during a routine review of the 39th:

  to the astonishment and wonder of many people, Colonel Ross attended at the 39th review and went through that business. It was not known to any of the officers that he would be there, but just before the regiment went on, he sent to Colonel Kellet and informed him [that] he had let the Governor know he intended to fall in with the regiment. In the same time, General Boyd went on to the Parade, but never joined the regiment, only as a spectator as on other days. The whole went on pretty well, better indeed than it could be expected, as it was very reasonable to think the men were taken at a disadvantage by the changing [of] the commanding officer that very morning.5

  Lieutenant-Governor Boyd was colonel of the 39th, and according to Mrs Green, he normally watched his regiment at reviews, though played no active role so as not to undermine the authority of the commanding officer. This was normally Major William Kellett, as Lieutenant-Colonel Ross had not participated for some time. Several weeks earlier, she had mentioned Ross being very ill for several months, though in early February, while Rodney’s fleet was present, she had noted a change in him: ‘Colonel Ross quite in spirits now his friend [Admiral Lockhart Ross] is here. We all wish, for his own sake, he could go home with the Admiral.’6 Boyd and Ross were not the only examples of a full colonel of a regiment being in the same place as the lieutenant-colonel, because Colonel Charles Mawhood of the 72nd Regiment and Colonel William Picton of the 12th had both come to Gibraltar with Rodney’s convoy to join their respective regiments, but in the case of Boyd and Ross it had turned into a feud.7

  After the review, Mrs Green said that all the officers dined together at the Convent, including Boyd, who was present as the deputy governor ‘in his general’s uniform with his aid de camps, not making himself Colonel of the 39th the whole day. He or Colonel Ross did not speak to each other.’8 Their quarrel dated back a considerable time, supposedly over an officer in their regiment, though at a court-martial several years later, it was stated that Boyd ‘being on the spot with his regiment at Gibraltar, took the business of orders and regulations upon himself, without attending to the etiquette observed. Lieutenant Colonel Ross first spoke to the Colonel upon this unusual interference, and afterwards remonstrated against what he considered as a reflection upon his military character.’9 Because he had arrived in Gibraltar years after Boyd, Ross felt at a disadvantage and a rift developed, not helped by their class difference. Boyd had been brought up on Minorca and became the civilian storekeeper of ordnance there, a role that his father had previously held. He distinguished himself in the attempt to take dispatches to Admiral Byng’s fleet when the island was besieged in 1756 and for that gallantry was rewarded with a commission in the army, but most army officers were sons of the upper echelons of society, like Charles Ross. The evening after the review of the 39th, Ross went to the Greens’ house, where Mrs Green ‘as usual heard all the story’.10 She afterwards lamented that both Boyd and Ross were valuable officers, and yet their feud was intensifying.

  While Ross may have been under severe mental strain, making him sensitive about his status, other troops were in poor physical health, as were numerous Spanish prisoners-of-war still being held at the naval hospital. ‘One man was ordered from each regiment ... to carry water for the Spanish prisoners in the Hospital,’ Horsbrugh noted. ‘They were to deliver the water at the kitchens and doors, but on no account to enter the wards.’11 All water on Gibraltar needed to be fetched from wells, cisterns and fountains, and this may have been an attempt at disease control or to prevent fraternisation with the enemy. Within a week the captives were well enough to be sent back to Spain, 286 men in all, in response to Spain returning almost four hundred British prisoners-of-war as their side of the exchange deal. Just twelve Spaniards were left who were too sick to move.

  Like the prisoners-of-war from the Moonlight Battle, the soldiers of the 73rd Highland Regiment had also come to Gibraltar with Rodney’s convoy. The Great Siege was taking place on the southernmost edge of Europe, within sight of Africa, yet the thousands of men on both sides were drawn from right across Europe. Many of the 73rd had never before travelled beyond Scotlan
d, but Gibraltar was to be the final resting place for some, as many now fell ill with typhus. John Macdonald was still helping in the regiment’s hospital in the town: ‘The change of climate and likewise of diet had such an effect upon our men that a great many of them fell sick of the flux, of which numbers died. From the beginning of the month of March to the end of June, we never had fewer than one hundred or a hundred and twenty or thirty men sick in the regimental hospital.’12 In late April Mrs Green recorded: ‘7 men died of the Highland Regiment between last night and this evening, of a flux and fever. They had lost near 100 before!’ Four days later, she wrote: ‘Great complaints now making about salt fish.’ Many attributed this ‘putrid fever’ epidemic to the salt fish, and it would likewise be blamed for scurvy, which was starting to afflict people. Eliott had purchased cargoes of salt cod from two Newfoundland fishery vessels, with Mrs Green remarking at the end of February: ‘the troops had for the first time salt fish delivered them, instead of meat, and some rice and peas; not any butter, which occasioned great discontent; as it seems hard to oblige them to take the fish in place of meat and not to give them a little butter with it.’13

  A month later, things were no better: ‘The troops ... think it hard to be obliged to eat so much salt fish when it is well known there is an amazing quantity of beef and pork in store! Salt fish without the proper sauces is but poor diet, and particularly in the hot season coming on.’ Drinkwater simply commented: ‘The salt cod being indifferent in its kind, and the soldiers not having proper vegetables to dress with it, proved very pernicious.’ This supply of salt cod lasted several months, and when a Swedish ship came too close and was forced to come in, it was cruel to find that the entire cargo was salt, and not fresh provisions. Small boats from Morocco did now and again evade the blockade with supplies of meat, fruit and vegetables, but it was sold on the open market at very high prices. One small boat from Tetuan arrived with twelve dozen fowl, including several cocks that the crew had to kill for fear that their crowing would alert the Spanish cruisers.14

  Mrs Green now heard that the 73rd was also the first regiment to be affected by smallpox: ‘Doctor Baynes informs me that the smallpox is broke out upon a man of the Highland Regiment on Friday last. NB This is the first soldier that has got that disorder. At the same time there is now a number of children ill with it.’ She added: ‘It is supposed the Governor will allow of innoculation, as he has said he would not have any objection to it when once it got among the troops.’ The tedium and hardships of the siege oppressed everybody, but the dread of smallpox, real and imagined, was proving too much to bear, and so Mrs Green was in a state of panic when her daughter developed a fever: ‘Charlotte was greatly indisposed all night, quite burning with heat. I gave her one of the small pills, and she grew very ill afterwards. Doctor Baynes is of the opinion she is breeding the smallpox. The child has not been quite well these last ten days.’ Her ailment turned out not to be smallpox, and Charlotte rapidly recovered, but a week later Mrs Green lamented: ‘Smallpox raging very bad, children dying every day’, and a few days afterwards: ‘The smallpox is now getting into all the regiments. A man of the soldier artificers exceedingly bad with it. No innoculation yet!’15

  She herself continued to suffer from multiple ailments, with violent headaches, a pain in her left knee and then her right leg. In some despair, she wrote: ‘am worse this day than yesterday, and at night beyond all possibility of bearing it with any degree of patience’, followed by ‘the worst night I have ever experienced in my life’. In mid-April she took to her bed for several days. Although Eliott had promised to allow inoculation once the disease spread to the soldiers, he changed his mind, and at the end of April Mrs Green vented her anger: ‘it is not very easy to tell, how exceedingly uncomfortable all ranks of people now are. This circumstance of the General’s refusing to allow of innoculation has hurt all degrees of people. Several men are quite miserable at not being allowed to innoculate ... and it is the more to be wondered at as the Governor did actually say he would not have any objections if it once got amongst the troops, which it has now, and likewise has been already fatal.’16 Mrs Green was evidently trusted not to spread gossip, because Dr Baynes and others often confided in her, and he now told her of his failure to persuade Eliott:

  Doctor Baynes ... asked the Governor this question, if the smallpox happened in any family where there were more than one child, would it not be a better way to innoculate the other children as it is not to be questioned but they would get it, and it would be the means of its being sooner over. He answered ‘No, by no means! He could not answer it to his conscience!’ What the Governor’s meaning is, I know not. I think he should make a point of getting this cruel disorder over as soon as possible well knowing the violent [hot] season coming on and also to comfort so many anxious people.17

  There was too much to worry about, from smallpox to typhus, lack of food and the intentions of the opposing forces, and for Mrs Green the uncertainty over Spain’s plans was unbearable: ‘Would to God, they either would leave us, or show themselves in earnest.’18 Since the departure of Rodney’s fleet, the Spanish squadron was at large once more in the bay, but work in their camp had slowed down and several regiments departed, to be redeployed in the West Indies, while new ones gradually took their place. ‘The enemy at this time was not particularly active,’ Drinkwater commented. ‘Some new arrangements were made in their artillery-park; and in their camp they were busy collecting brush-wood for fascines, which caused various conjectures in the Garrison concerning their future operations.’19

  In early May, the camp became much busier, with carts bringing in artillery, shot and shells, and the troops undertook exercises each day, so it appeared as if they were planning an attack. The nervous inhabitants of the garrison began to erect more wooden sheds south of the Greens’ Mount Pleasant estate, away from the dangers of shot and shells. On 6 May, the entire Spanish army in the camp rehearsed an assault of Gibraltar, which Ancell described to his brother in England:

  This afternoon the Spanish army were arranged in two divisions, and about four o’clock began a sham fight, similar to an attack upon the garrison. One division took post on the rising ground under the Queen’s Chair (supposed to be the British) while the other division, in the valley on the common, endeavoured to dislodge them, and take possession of their intrenchments. The fire was well supported on both sides for three hours, when the British forces were entirely routed ... I assure you that the fight afforded great entertainment, and the army displayed some merit in their performance. They have been practising several days. It is evident they mean to familiarize their troops to the nature of an attack, so that they may be more expert when they make a regular assault.20

  Horsbrugh wrote down a detailed description of the sham fight, which he judged to be tolerably performed, and ‘the only fault seemed to be a great number of small detached parties from both sides placed too much in the line of fire to be of an essential service. The whole however viewed from our heights had a very fine effect, was extremely picturesque, and afforded us a few hours agreeable amusement.’21

  On the following night, four deserters tried to escape to Gibraltar, but two were taken and one was shot. Horsbrugh had earlier heard that ‘there was a general murmuring throughout the country against the present war, and that great numbers (particularly the Catalonians) had lately deserted both from the fleet and army through discontent’.22 On this occasion, one Walloon deserter made it and brought intelligence that Madrid had given General Alvarez permission to start a bombardment whenever he thought fit. The next day, two men were executed in the camp, who were presumed to be the unsuccessful deserters,23 but that did not deter a native Spanish deserter two days later. All previous ones had been from Spain’s foreign forces, and so Drinkwater wrote:

  Another deserter, belonging to the regiment of Estremadura, came in on the 11th [May 1780], and was remarkable for being the first native of Spain who deserted. The
Spanish army are all raised upon a local establishment. Each district is required to furnish a certain proportion of troops; and the men are enrolled for, I believe, about seven years service, after which time they are permitted to return to their respective provinces. And as the Spaniards are all strongly attached to their native spot, desertion is consequently less common with them than with any other troops. Most of the men, therefore, who deserted to us came from those regiments in their service which are composed of foreigners.24

  The Estremadura Regiment had arrived in the camp at the end of March, and, according to Ancell, the deserter ‘says that the duty in the Spanish camp is incessant and fatiguing, and that cannon and mortars are mounted for the purpose of opening a fire upon us immediately’.25 Intelligence from merchant boats also suggested that a bombardment would begin at the start of May and that many Spanish and French troops were marching towards the camp.

  Deserters might not have been so keen on coming to Gibraltar if they had realised smallpox was still raging, and at this point Mrs Green’s daughter Charlotte fell ill again: ‘Our little daughter seems heavy and dull today ... It is dreadful to hear the number of children that are dying. Our Charlotte not able to hold up her head. We are exceedingly anxious, indeed I am quite miserable from fears.’ The next day, her anguish continued: ‘Abundance of children dies with the smallpox. Charlotte very bad and sleepy all day. This is the 2nd day when she has been so ill. On each side of our house and directly opposite three very fine children have died since yesterday after being 9 days bad ... Doctor Baynes seems to think our child will get it now, indeed it seems an absolute certainty as it is in every house in our street, and in the opposite door.’ Within twenty-four hours, her daughter was desperately ill: ‘Charlotte had an exceeding bad night and is quite delirious to day. Dr Baynes has no doubt of it being the smallpox.’ In the evening Mrs Green recorded the appearance of the distinctive pus-filled blisters: ‘We observed some spots coming out, and she grew more cool and composed. She is kept in the air, and drinks cold drink, chiefly toast and water.’26