Calculating from the commencement of the blockade to the cessation of hostilities, the siege lasted three years, seven months, and twelve days; and throughout that long period the garrison had been kept continually on the watch, enjoying no interval of repose, exposed to the attacks of a powerful enemy, worn with fatigue, and harassed by all the incidents of a protracted blockade. They had sometimes failed in the strict requirements of discipline, and acts of plunder and violence had occasionally tarnished the lustre of their laurels; but in courage and patience and intrepidity they had never been wanting, and their _morale_ improved as the siege advanced. The stir and tumult of the battle-field, with its brilliant episodes of valour, its charges of cavalry, its encounter of bayonets, its individual deeds of heroism, and its exhibition of strategical genius, necessarily lend themselves more readily to the description of the chronicler, and exercise a more powerful influence on the imagination of the reader, than the monotonous incidents of a siege. It is difficult to invest with any attraction the daily record of garrison work; and the reader has no means of forming an idea of its arduous character. He wearies of bastions and batteries; of rounds of shot and shell expended; of labours the issue of which is not apparent; of demonstrations which are seemingly all in vain. Yet it is certain that a campaign in the open field, or a great battle like that of Waterloo, makes less demand on the best qualities of a soldier than a protracted siege. The long roll of victories of the British army is emblazoned with names which will never be forgotten so long as England retains her imperial spirit or her pride in the past, and among those names, if loyalty and true bravery and heroic endurance are to receive their just recompense, conspicuous and thrice-honoured will always shine that of Gibraltar! And the true Englishman, remembering how steadfastly Elliot and his veterans maintained their hold upon the Rock, will sympathize with the generous sentiment of the poet, when he says,-- “Nobly, nobly Cape St. Vincent to the north-west died away; Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay, Bluish ’mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay; In the dimmest north-east distance dawned Gibraltar grand and gray; ‘Here, and here, did England help me; how can I help England?’--say; Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray, While Jove’s planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.”