One of the days I spent at Gibraltar was a Sunday. This day is there observed with great strictness: prayers are read to the troops on parade, and also in the government house. But it is a most unaccountable fact, that there should be no place of public worship for the large Protestant English population of this British possession: this is bitterly complained of. Hundreds among the troops would gladly attend church, if there was a church to attend; and many, rather than go to no temple at all, frequent the Catholic chapel. A Protestant church was begun some time ago, but want of funds has prevented its completion. All this reflects little credit upon those who have the management of such matters. Gibraltar is a fallen and falling place, as a place of commerce; and there is no prospect of any revival. In speaking of Cadiz, I have already said that the whole, or almost the whole licit and illicit trade of Gibraltar, has been transferred to that city. The loss of the Cadiz market alone, which took up extensively the articles which were received into the free port of Gibraltar, might easily account for its decline. But there is still another cause for the decline of Gibraltar; a cause that might probably have been of itself sufficient to determine the ruin of this settlement, and which has, at all events, materially hastened it: I allude to the epidemic. Since the last terrible visitation of this kind, there has been a general feeling of insecurity: many, soon afterwards, removed their establishments elsewhere; and others are ready, upon the first rumour of disease, to quit a spot where life is held by so precarious a tenure. Every one knows the history of Gibraltar. Before the establishment of the Moorish empire in Spain, Gibraltar was called Calpe; under the Moors it bore the name of Gibel-Tarif, and subsequently of Gibraltar. The importance attached to Gibraltar during the last years of the Moorish empire, has lately been made better known to us by that delightful work, the Chronicles of the Conquest of Granada. In the year 1704, Gibraltar was taken by the combined English and Dutch fleets under Sir George Rooke; and in 1713 it was confirmed to England by the peace of Utrecht. The only important attempt to wrest Gibraltar from the English was made in 1782, by the combined fleets of France and Spain; but the attempt proved abortive, and the rock of Gibraltar may now be considered inseparably united to the British empire[B].