4. But success was due still more to the help the colonists received from France and Spain. These two powers had been brought to their knees in the Seven Years' War, and now they resolved to take advantage of the family quarrel between Britain and her colonies to pay off old scores: "to avenge," as they said, "old injuries, and to put an end to that tyrannical empire which England has usurped, and claims to maintain, upon the ocean." The main object the French had in view was not, as we might suppose, the reconquest of Canada, but the transfer to herself of the British possessions in the West Indies. Spain's heart was set on the recovery of Gibraltar. Both nations made a solemn vow to grant neither peace nor truce until Gibraltar had fallen. 5. Spain set about the siege of Gibraltar the moment she had declared war (1779). The difficulty on our side was not to keep the enemy from landing, but to keep the garrison supplied with provisions and ammunition. Our fleets, however, proved equal to the task. They were led to victory by Admiral Rodney, one of the greatest of English seamen. He not only escorted his own provision ships into the harbour of Gibraltar, but on the way captured a Spanish squadron of seven ships-of-war and sixteen supply ships, which were added to his own for the victualling of Gibraltar. A week later, when off Cape St. Vincent, Rodney espied a Spanish fleet of eleven sail-of-the-line, gave chase, and cutting in between the enemy and his port, captured the Commander-in-chief, with six of his battle-ships, whilst a seventh was blown up. 6. The siege went on for three years. At last the allies, in September, 1782, resolved to bend all their energies to finish off the work. On the isthmus, joining the rock to the mainland, they planted 300 pieces of artillery, and in front of the rock ten floating batteries, which were supposed to be both shot and fire proof. War-ships, gun-boats, and bomb-vessels were to lend their aid. Thousands of French soldiers were brought to reinforce the Spaniards, all held in readiness for a grand assault as soon as the guns had made a breach large enough for troops to enter. 7. For four days the guns on the isthmus bombarded the fortress in vain. Then the floating-batteries were brought into action. A furious cannonade raged for hours between the batteries afloat and the batteries on the rock. General Eliott, who was in command of the fortress, served his guns with red-hot balls, and at last, in spite of the enemy's frantic efforts to extinguish the fire, one of the batteries was well ablaze, and soon the same fate overtook the others. In the end, nine of the ten blew up, and about two thousand poor fellows were blown into the sea. Our commander then showed that he was as humane as he was brave. The British guns ceased firing, and boats, rowed by willing British hands, rescued four hundred from death. Thus ended the last attempt to take Gibraltar by storm.