by Roy Adkins
After a few days, on Thursday 11 May, she wrote with relief about Charlotte: ‘Going on well, but very sore, and bad nights. Still everything appears well. She was very patient, though in a good deal of throbbing pain.’ It was more than a week before she had time to set down her child’s gradual recovery:
Her nights very restless, notwithstanding her taking opiates. On Monday they were at the height and highly inflamed ... All the next week continued doing right and had hardly any second fever which is common upon the turn ... she was put into a bath of warm water and herbs ... She has had about 300 [blisters] all over her body and of the finest kind. During the fortnight she has been ill, more than 50 English children have died and several soldiers besides inhabitants. The whole air is infected and very dangerous. A very dangerous fever [typhus] is also in the garrison. Every means has been tried to obtain the Governors leave to innoculate. His refusals make everybody unhappy. Not any fresh provision comes near us now; so that we are badly off indeed.27
Just as Charlotte was improving, her maid Elizabeth Dixon became ill. Because it was a Sunday, Elizabeth had some hours of leisure, and Mrs Green wrote: ‘Betty Dixon first complained of a headache but not so bad as to prevent her walking out with some of our servants in afternoon to New Mole. Seemed greatly indisposed when going to bed. NB She sleep in a room close to my bed chamber and I found she was ill all night and frequently sick, attended with a griping.’ The following morning brought worse news: ‘Doctor Baynes pronounces the maid’s complaint to be the smallpox. Great uneasiness on that occasion. Thinking she had had it long before, therefore she was no ways prepared and is a remarkable, strong, hearty person, 25 years old, full of health and fat ... a very tall large-made woman.’ The fact that she had succumbed to smallpox with such a robust constitution worried Mrs Green greatly: ‘This adds to our uneasiness and the more so, as she is solely friendless in the world. Doctor Baynes is as attentive to her as he was to our own child. We put her into a most charming airy apartment.’ Two days later, Mrs Green was very agitated: ‘We are greatly distressed in our family. The young woman very bad. I am particularly hurt at it as she now wishes she had been innoculated.’28 She later wrote:
any one who knew her, were of the opinion she must have had this disorder when she was an infant. A brother and sister of hers had died of it. It was therefore most likely she had it, though it was supposed very slightly, but as the parents both died before she had knowledge of them, it remained an uncertain matter. She had lived in two families where 3 or 4 children had also died. From all the above circumstances, she never allowed herself to harbour a doubt, nor had the young woman any idea of fears, on the contrary, was the first to go to any house where she heard of the smallpox.29
Over the next week, Elizabeth became much worse, and her employer could not contain her anger: ‘Our servant maid is past all possibility of recovery. Every means is tried but we find it will not do. Men, women, and children dying every day and the utmost distress now appears in everybody. The air is full of this cruel infection. It is to be wished that the innoculation had been allowed. That would have stopped this weeks ago.’30 Ancell said much the same: ‘Our garrison are beginning to be very sickly – the smallpox rages with great violence, and carries off 18 or 20 per week, but mostly children.’31 Apart from Mrs Green, his comment is a rarity within the military garrison. Especially for those without children, the smallpox epidemic was not sufficiently newsworthy to be mentioned, because it fell heaviest on the civilians and the families of the rank-and-file soldiers.
Elizabeth was being cared for by Mrs Green’s own maid by day and a nurse at night, with the housekeeper assisting. She became totally helpless, and on 31 May Dr Baynes was extremely uneasy and similarly helpless. Being the army doctor, he was not obliged to treat the servants, but was doing all he could, and Mrs Green was grateful for his compassion: ‘Baynes hardly ever leaves the house and, I sincerely believe, tries anything that art or study can do.’ In desperation he ‘applied garlic upon the soles of her feet’, which was in the form of a poultice. Mrs Green thought it helped her to sleep, and because her feet did not swell or blister, other poultices were also tried ‘in hopes to draw down the swelling and disorder’. Nothing worked, and Mrs Green was in despair. Elizabeth lasted three more days: ‘At 20 minutes before 3 all was over with our maid servant, upon the 15th day from her being taken ill. It is a most unwelcome circumstance and has greatly affected the Colonel [William Green]; I am not able to tell what I experience.’32 Two days later, Colonel Green dismissed his servant James, because the man’s children had smallpox.
Around the time Elizabeth Dixon first fell ill, the garrison heard bad news about the Buck that had so valiantly beaten the blockade. The vessel had stayed at Gibraltar for a month before heading into the Mediterranean for Minorca, but, Drinkwater said, ‘she unfortunately fell in with a French frigate, which, after a few broadsides, captured the Buck; but before she could be got into port, she sunk, from the damage received in the action’. Captain Fagg and the crew survived, but some years later, in 1794, Fagg was commanding another privateer named the Buck, which was tragically lost with all hands off the east coast of England.33
Rather than attack the garrison, as deserters thought would happen, the Spanish army undertook yet another sham fight at the end of May, which Horsbrugh watched: ‘In the afternoon the whole of the Enemy’s army was put under arms and marched from camp in two columns, one to the north, the other to the west, formed and afterwards performed the following manoeuvres.’ He then described how one half of the infantry and cavalry lined up along the shore as if to protect a convoy, which they acted out with covered waggons and loaded horses, while the rest of the army attempted to intercept the convoy, with gun fire and small-arms fire. The weather in the afternoon was so murky that Horsbrugh could barely make out what was happening. ‘We imagined,’ he commented, ‘this general Field Day to have been in honour of San Fernando Rey de Espana, which is one of the great Gala days at Court.’34
Nearly twelve months had passed since Spain’s declaration of war on Britain and the start of the siege of Gibraltar. The joint Spanish and French invasion of Britain had failed, and although the Spaniards continued to build up a formidable military zone all round the bay, they were increasingly anxious to force a surrender of Gibraltar through starvation. Hungry themselves, the Spanish soldiers kept raiding the garrison’s market gardens, just outside the defences. If they were heard, the guards fired in their direction, and in the early hours of 4 June Horsbrugh said that ‘Bayside Guard having heard a rustling noise resembling the approach of persons through the nearish garden, they turned out and fired several shots that way.’ On this occasion, they were mistaken about Spanish soldiers pilfering vegetables, because ‘In the morning one of our mules which had strayed towards the Enemy’s Lines was found dead.’35
The Royal Navy warships stationed at Gibraltar occasionally helped those few small vessels that were still prepared to risk breaking the blockade to supply the garrison with fresh food, albeit at exorbitant prices. To complete the blockade, Spain needed to destroy those warships, and Admiral Barcelo decided to set them on fire. His task was made easier, because the Admiralty had disagreed with Rodney’s decision to leave Captain John Elliot and his 74-gun battleship Edgar at Gibraltar. Having been recalled to England to join the Channel Fleet, the Edgar had sailed towards the end of April, which was a severe blow because the Mediterranean Fleet was left with only five warships – the Panther (a battleship of 60 guns), the Enterprise (a frigate of 28 guns), the Porcupine (a frigate of 28 guns), the Gibraltar (an armed brig with 10 guns) and the Fortune (an armed sloop with 10 guns).
Spanish workers were converting nine old vessels into fireships by packing them with tar, gunpowder, other flammable material and fuses. The idea was to sail them across the bay with a skeleton crew, set the fuses alight, ram the British warships and use grappling hooks to entangle them. The Spanish crews would esca
pe in small boats, while the Royal Navy squadron was consumed by fire, but in case any vessels cut their cables and attempted to sail to safety, Admiral Barcelo’s warships would be waiting. It was hoped that fires would spread to all the other vessels in the New Mole and the nearby naval stores, and when flames reached the gunpowder stores in the warships, they would blow up and cause catastrophic damage on Gibraltar.
Late at night on 6 June, the fireships set sail from Algeciras, with the help of a westerly wind. Because it was so dark, they managed to cross the bay undetected. It was well past midnight when an alert guard on board a boat from the Enterprise frigate made out a vessel close to the New Mole, which, when challenged, claimed to be a beef boat from Barbary. Suspicions were raised, and the guard went back on board the Enterprise and immediately fired a shot to raise the alarm. According to Ancell, ‘the enemy finding they were discovered, took to their boats, and set them [the fireships] on fire, one after another ... The wind now dropped, and a dead calm ensued; the garrison and shipping kept a brisk fire on the boats as they retreated, from which they must have suffered considerably.’36
Eliott gave orders for the drums to beat to arms, and the soldiers hurried to their stations, leaving everyone else panic-stricken, while the artillery was ordered to try to sink the fireships. Nobody on Gibraltar had seen anything like it, and they waited with dread for the Spanish land batteries to open fire as well. ‘The terrified inhabitants,’ Ancell related, ‘together with the women and children, were wringing their hands, weeping with the most bitter and inexpressible anguish, expecting every minute a bombardment from the land-side. Such a scene would pierce the most insensible heart, to hear their piteous lamentations ... the Rock appeared as bright as if Aurora had just risen, to bless the creation with her enlivening rays.’37 Even Mrs Green admitted her own terror:
It was a most grand though alarming sight as they burnt with great violence. It seemed to me just so many moving mountains of fire. Every regiment was at their alarm post ... to hear the drums beating, the noise of the guns, guns from the garrison, all our ships, together with the bursting open of the port holes in the fire ships, was beyond the power of my pen to express ... I little expected such a shock but I believe I am not born to partake any very common fate; otherwise I must have long ceased to exist, considering all I have experienced. My heart now seems totally full of concern and vexation; my bad state of health has rendered me miserable ... I was actually stupid with fright.38
The fireships kept approaching, burning fiercely, and Royal Navy crews risked their lives by towing them out of the way. Ancell documented their efforts:
Our seamen in an undaunted and gallant manner, rowed alongside of the flaming devourers, and having grappled to their burning sides, they towed them quietly to the back of the New Mole, among the clefts of the rock, where they burnt to the water’s edge ... Three of the fire-ships drove to the eastward; two dropped very near the Panther in Rosia Bay; and the others to Europa and Little Bay. They burnt with surprizing fierceness for three hours. The masts of some stood to the very last, and appeared as under sail. The largest was a 40 gun ship, and burnt till this afternoon.39
Father Messa said that the largest fireship almost made it to the entrance of the New Mole:
the English launches managed to steer it towards the walls in front of the Naval Hospital. This vessel was so large that it alone could have set alight the whole mole, as it was made up of so much combustible material that, despite the amount of sea water poured on it by the sailors, it continued giving off smoke for more than 40 hours. On this occasion, the English sailors carried out their duties so well that seven of them suffered burns to their hands and backs and had to be taken to the hospital. It is said that the naval commander [Captain Leslie] has rewarded them with the equivalent value of burnt ships, that is, with whatever could be salvaged.40
The wrecked hulls of the fireships were now recovered and sold as firewood.
When the next batch of prisoners-of-war was returned by Spain to Gibraltar, they included the crew of a boat that had been bringing supplies from Morocco. Horsbrugh said that among them was a very intelligent man who was proficient in both Spanish and Catalan and who had overheard much information while held prisoner. The original plan, he told Horsbrugh, was for the batteries along the Spanish Lines to join in the fireship attack once they received the agreed signals. Because the mission had already been aborted twice, it was thought that the garrison must have realised what was planned, and so it was decided to seek further instructions from King Carlos, but ‘Admiral Barcelo objected, said he would make another attempt and take the consequences upon himself, which was at last agreed to, and the attempt accordingly made on the morning of the 7th June ... But when he found the fireships had miscarried he was outrageous [outraged] beyond measure, and for many hours would not suffer anyone to speak with him.’41 A deserter from the Walloon guards confirmed the story, saying that on the night of the attack he was himself on duty as a gunner, ready to fire at the garrison: ‘From him we learned that the matches were lighted and everything in readiness to bombard us the night they sent in the fireships, which would have been put in execution had they succeeded in burning our shipping in and about the New Mole.’42
Captain Price thought the scheme could easily have worked: ‘The enterprise, however defective in point of execution, was by no means ill planned. The wind was not perfectly favorable and the Enemy appeared to want that kind of daring intrepidity required in the conduct of similar exploits. The vessels in succession were fired [set on fire] at too great a distance from their objects and left too much to the guidance of chance to succeed.’43 The garrison had had a lucky escape, but word was that further fireships were being prepared.
CHAPTER NINE
GUNBOATS
After beating off the fireship attack in early June 1780, the garrison may have hoped for a quieter summer, but Admiral Barcelo was already plotting his next move – night-time gunboat attacks. The first strike was in the early hours of 27 June, though Ancell said it was not possible to determine what kind of vessel was attacking them: ‘It is conjectured they were gun-boats or floating-batteries, for it being very dark, it was impossible to perceive their form.’ Horsbrugh was able to observe them more closely as they approached Rosia Bay, where the 60-gun Panther was moored:
A little before two o’clock in the morning, it being then quite calm, the Enemy made an attempt against the Panther man of war with four gun boats, who as soon as they were discovered by our guard boats, began to fire which gave us the alarm on shore. The whole of their fire being directed against the Panther, she returned it very briskly, but the morning being dark, the objects small, and lying low in the water, we had nothing to direct us in pointing our guns but the flashes of theirs, which against boats who were using oars, and could quickly change their situation, was extremely uncertain.1
In Ancell’s opinion, this new venture would harden the resolve of the garrison:
Several shot (26lb. weight) came on shore at South-barracks, but happily did no damage. The shipping and garrison kept up a brisk fire, the picquets of the several regiments were under arms, and the women and children roused on hearing a general discharge of cannon. It is not improbable that this is a stratagem of Admiral Barcelo’s, to harrass and fatigue us with repeated firings and alarms from the Bay, and then give the decisive stroke; but they have Britons to encounter. The more we feel our Enemy, the more ardent are our desires to engage them.2
One of the women he referred to was Mrs Green. At the time, she was suffering greatly from stress and had left her townhouse three days earlier to go to The Mount, ‘with an intention to remain ... come up in very great dejection of spirits – fear I shall soon feel the fatal effects of it’. Instead of some calm recuperation in its beautiful location, she was woken on her third night by the noise of the attack: ‘I got up, and my windows at the Mount afforded me the means to see much more of this attack
than I expected or desired.’ When it was all over, she said everybody remained nervous: ‘From this time, and for many nights after, we were constantly alarmed by shot firing, sometimes by the frigate mistaking the watch boats, sometimes from the enemy at Algezira.’3
Horsbrugh, and doubtless the rest of the military command on Gibraltar, could immediately see the advantages these gunboats gave to the Spaniards. They were small boats fitted with simple sails and banks of oars, each of which carried a 26-pounder cannon in the bow. Even in daytime, they were difficult to hit, but it was their manoeuvrability that made them so dangerous, being able to approach larger warships from directions where it was difficult to fire back, and they could escape by rowing into the wind, where sailing ships could not follow. Worst of all, they could fire on the southern parts of Gibraltar that were previously considered safe, being beyond the reach of the Spanish land batteries.
