England had just gained in Europe a success most important for her policy as well as for her national pride. Twice revictualled, by Rodney and by Admiral Darby, Gibraltar had resisted for two or three years the united efforts of the French and Spaniards. Each morning, on awaking, King Charles III. asked his servants, "Have we Gibraltar?" And, at the negative answer, "We shall soon have it," the monarch would assure them. It was finally resolved to have satisfaction of the obstinate defenders of the place: the Duke de Crillon brought on a body of French troops. He was accompanied by the Count d'Artois, brother of the king, and by the Duke de Bourbon. Their first care, on arriving, was to send to General Eliot the letters addressed to him which had been delayed for some time at Madrid. The Duke de Crillon had added to the correspondence a present of game, fruit, and vegetables, asking at the same time the hostile general's permission to renew this gift. The distress in the besieged town was terrible, but General Eliot responded to the duke with thanks and a refusal. "I have made it a point of honor," said he, "in the matter of plenty and of dearth to make common cause with the last of my brave soldiers: this will be my excuse for begging your Excellency not to overwhelm me with favors in the future." Some floating batteries, cleverly constructed by a French engineer, the Chevalier d'Arcon, threatened the ramparts of the place. On the 13th of September, at nine o'clock in the morning, the Spaniards opened fire; all the artillery of the fort replied: the surrounding mountains echoed the cannonade. The entire army, which covered the coast, anxiously awaited the result of the enterprise. The fortifications were already beginning to give way, and the batteries had been firing for five hours. All at once, the Prince of Nassau, who commanded a detachment, thought he perceived that the flames were reaching his heavy ship. {315} The fire spread rapidly, and one after another the floating batteries were dismantled. "At seven o'clock we had lost all hope," said an Italian officer who had taken part in the assault; "we no longer fired, and our signals of distress remained without effect. The red balls of the besieged rained on us. The crews were threatened on all sides. Timidly and in weak detachments, the boats of the two fleets glided into the shadow of the batteries, in the hope of saving some of the unfortunates who were perishing. The flames which blazed over the ships doomed to perish served to direct the fire of the English as surely as if it were full day. Captain Curtis, at the head of a little flotilla of gunboats, barred the passage of the rescuers up to the moment when, suddenly changing his character, he consecrated all his strength and the courage of his brave sailors to contend with the flames and waves for the life of the unfortunate Spaniards who were on the point of perishing. Four hundred men owed their existence to his generous efforts.