Отрывок из книги
Richard Harding Davis
Published by Good Press, 2021
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THE ROCK FROM THE BAY
Gibraltar has been besieged thirteen times; by Moors and by Spaniards, and again by Moors, and again by Spaniards against Spaniards. It was during one of these wars between two factions in Spain, in 1704, that the English, who were helping one of the factions, took the Rock, and were so well pleased with it that they settled there, and have remained there ever since. If possession is nine points of the law, there was never a place in the history of the world held with nine as obvious points. There were three more sieges after the English took Gibraltar, one of them, the last, continuing for four years. The English were fighting America at the time, and rowing in the Nile, and so did not do much towards helping General George Elliot, who was Governor of the Rock at that time. It would appear to be, as well as one can judge from this distance, a case of neglect on the part of the mother-country for her little colony and her six thousand men, very much like her forgetfulness of Gordon, only Elliot succeeded where Gordon failed (if you can associate that word with that name), and so no one blamed the home government for risking what would have been a more serious loss than the loss of Calais, had Elliot surrendered, and "Gib" gone back to its rightful owners, that is, the owners who have the one point. The history of this siege is one of the most interesting of war stories; it is interesting whether you ever expect to visit Gibraltar or not; it is doubly interesting when you walk the pretty streets of the Rock to-day, with its floating population of twenty thousand, and try to imagine the place held by six thousand half-starved, sick, and wounded soldiers, living at times on grass and herbs and handfuls of rice, and yet carrying on an apparently forlorn fight for four years against the entire army and navy of Spain, and, at the last, against the arms of France as well.
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