Although Gibraltar is the greatest fortress in the world, if it were only that, it would not have half the interest which it now has. The supreme interest of the Rock is in the record of centuries that is graven on its rugged front. For nearly eight hundred years it was the prize of war between the Spaniard and the Moor, and its legends are all of battle and of blood. Ten times it was besieged and passed back and forth from conqueror to conqueror, the Cross replacing the Crescent, and the Crescent the Cross. Ten times was the battle lost and won. When, at last, in 1598 the Spaniards drove the Moors out of Spain, they remained masters of Gibraltar, and held it with undisputed sway for a little more than a hundred years. They might have held it still but for a surprise, hardly worthy to be called a siege; for the place was taken by a coup de main, that is one of the strangest incidents of history. It was the War of the Spanish Succession, waged by half Europe to determine which of two incompetents should occupy the throne of Spain. The English sent a squadron into the Mediterranean, under Sir George Rooke, who, after cruising about and accomplishing little, bethought himself, in order not to return in complete failure, to try his hand on Gibraltar. The place was well fortified, with a hundred guns, but inside the walls only a hundred and fifty men (a man and a half to a gun!), so that it could offer but a brief resistance to a bombardment, and thus the Spaniards lost in three days what they spent more than three years to recover, and spent in vain.

Though the place was taken by an English fleet, it was not taken for England, but in the name of an Archduke of Austria, whom England supported as a pretender to the Spanish throne; and had he succeeded in gaining it the place would doubtless have been turned over to him (as on a visit to Gibraltar he was received by the garrison as lawful sovereign of Spain, and proclaimed King by the title of CharlesIII.), but as he was finally defeated, England thought it not a bad thing to keep the place for herself.

Hardly had it slipped from their hands before the Spaniards realized the tremendous blow which had been given to their power and their pride, and made desperate endeavors to recover it. The very same year they attacked it with a large army and fleet. At the beginning an attempt was made which would seem to have been conceived in the heroism of despair. The eastern side of Gibraltar terminates in a tremendous cliff, rising fourteen hundred feet above the sea, which thunders against the rocks below. This side has never been fortified, for the reason that it is so defended by nature that it needs no other defence. One would as soon think of storming El Capitan in the valley of the Yosemite as the eastern side of the Rock of Gibraltar. Yet he who has followed a Swiss guide in the Alps knows that with his cool head and agile step he will climb heights which seemed inaccessible. And so a Spanish shepherd, or goatherd, had found a path from Catalan Bay, up which he offered to lead a party to the top, and five hundred men were daring enough to follow him. They knew that the attempt was desperate, but braced up their courage by religious enthusiasm, devoting themselves to the sacrifice by taking the sacrament, and binding themselves to capture Gibraltar or perish in the attempt. In the darkness and silence of the night they crept slowly upward till a part had reached the top, and concealed themselves in St.Michael's Cave until the break of day; when with the earliest dawn they attacked the Signal Station, killing the guard, and then by ropes and ladders brought up the rest of the party. Following up the momentary success, they stormed the wall of CharlesV., so called because constructed by him. But by this time the garrison had been awakened to the fact that there was an enemy within the walls. The roll of drums from below summoned the troops to arms, and soon the grenadiers came rushing up the hill. Exposed to the fire from above, many fell, but nothing could check their advance, and reaching the top they charged with such fury that half of the party that had scaled the heights soon fell, some of whom were driven over the cliff into the sea. An officer who was present during the whole of the siege tells how they made short work of it. "Five hundred Spaniards attacked the Middle Hill but were soon repulsed, and two hundred men with their commanding officer taken. The rest were killed by our shot, or in making their escape broke their necks over the rocks and precipices, which in that place are many and prodigiously high."

So ended the first and last attempt to take Gibraltar in the rear. But still the Spanish army lay encamped before the town, and the siege was kept up for six months with a loss of ten thousand men. No other attack was made during that war, though the war itself raged elsewhere for seven years more, till it was closed by the treaty of Utrecht, in which Gibraltar was finally ceded to Great Britain.

But the Spaniards did not give it up yet. In 1727 they renewed the struggle, and besieged the place for five months with nearly twenty thousand men, but with the same result as before, after which it had rest and quiet for half a century, till the time of the Great Siege, which I am now to describe.

It seems beginning a long way off to find any connection between the siege of Gibraltar and the battle of Saratoga; but one followed from the other. The surrender of General Burgoyne (who had marched from Canada with a large army to crush the Rebellion in the Colonies) was the first great event that gave hope, in the eyes of Europe, to the cause of American independence, and led France to join it openly, as she had before favored it secretly. Spain followed France, having a common hatred of England, with the special grievance of the loss of Gibraltar, which she hoped, with the help of her powerful ally, to recover.

In such a contest the chances were more evenly balanced than might be at first supposed. True, England had the advantage of possession, and if possession is nine points of the law, it is more than nine points in war, especially when the possessor is intrenched in the strongest fortress in the world. But as an offset to this, she had to hold it in an enemy's country. Gibraltar was a part of the territory of Spain, in which the English had not a foot of ground but the Rock on which they stood; while it was much nearer to France than to England. Thus the allied powers had facilities for attacking it both by land and sea, and brought against it such tremendous forces that it could not have held out for nearly four years, had it not been for the British power of resistance, animated by one of the bravest of soldiers.

To begin with, England did not commit the folly by which Spain had lost Gibraltar—in leaving it with an insufficient garrison. It had over five thousand troops in the fortress—a force by which it was thoroughly manned.

But its power for defence was doubled by having a commander, who was fitted by nature and by training for the responsibilities that were to be laid upon him. George Augustus Eliott was the son of Sir Gilbert Eliott, of Roxburghshire, where he was born in 1718. Scotch families in those days, like those of our New England fathers, were apt to be large, and the future defender of Gibraltar was one of eleven children, of whom but two were daughters, and of the nine sons George was the youngest. After such education as he could receive at home, he was sent to the continent, and entered the University of Leyden, where, with his other studies, he acquired a knowledge of German, which was to be of practical use to him afterward, as he was to serve for a year in a German army. But France was the country that then took the lead in the art of war; and from Holland he was sent to a famous military school in Picardy, founded by Vauban, the constructor of the French fortresses, where he learned the principles which he was to apply to the defence of a greater fortress than any in France. He gave particular attention also to the practice of gunnery. As Napoleon learned the art of war in the artillery school of Brienne, so did Eliott in the school of La FÈre. An incidental advantage of this French education was that he acquired the language so that he could speak it fluently, a knowledge which was of service to him afterward when he had so much to do with the French, even though it were as enemies.

From France Eliott travelled into other countries on a tour of military observation, and then enlisted for a year in the Prussian army, which was considered the model in the way of discipline. Thus equipped for the life of a soldier, he returned to Scotland, where (as his father wished that he should be further inured to the practice of arms), he entered a Welsh regiment then in Edinburgh as a volunteer, and served with it for a year, from which he went into the engineer corps at Woolwich, and then into a troop of "horse grenadiers," that, under his vigorous training, became famous as a corps of heavy cavalry. When it was ordered to the Continent, he went with it, and served in Germany and the Netherlands, where he took part in several engagements and was wounded at the battle of Dettingen.

In this varied service Eliott had gained the reputation of being a brave and capable officer, but had as yet no opportunity to show the extraordinary ability which he was afterward to display. He had, however, acquired such a mastery of the art of war, that he was fitted for any position. In those days, however, promotion was slow, and he had served in the army (which he entered at the age of seventeen,) forty years, and was fifty-seven years old, and had yet reached only the grade of a Lieutenant-General, when, in 1775, he was placed in command of the fortress of Gibraltar. This was four years before the siege began, by which time he was a little turned of sixty, so that he was familiarly called "Old Eliott." But his good Scotch frame did him service now, for he was hale and strong, with a heart of oak and a frame of iron; asking no indulgence on account of his years, but ready to endure every fatigue and share every danger. Such was the man who was to conduct the defence of Gibraltar, and to be, from the beginning to the end, its very heart and soul.[4]

It was in the year 1779, and on the very longest day of the year, the 21st of June, that Spain, by order of the King, severed all communication with Gibraltar. But this was not war; it was simply non-intercourse, and not a hostile gun was fired for months. It is an awkward thing to strike the first blow where relations have been friendly. It had long been the custom of the Spaniards to keep a regiment of cavalry at San Roque, and one of infantry at Algeciras, across the bay, between which and the garrison there was a frequent exchange of military courtesies. Two days before this abrupt termination of intercourse, the Governor had been to pay his respects to General Mendoza, and found him very much embarrassed by the visit, so that he suspected something was wrong, and was not surprised when the order came down from Madrid to cut off all friendly communication. The Spaniards had resolved to make a fresh attempt to recapture Gibraltar, thinking at first that it might be done by a blockade, without a bombardment. There are two ways to take a fortress—by shot and shell, or by starvation. The latter may be slower and not so striking to the imagination as carrying a walled city by storm, but it is even more certain of success if only the operation can be completely done. But to this end the place must be sealed up so tightly that there shall be no going out nor coming in. This seems a very simple process, but in execution is not so easy, especially if the fortress be of large extent, and has approaches by land and sea. The Spaniards began with a vigor that seemed to promise success, by constructing a parallel across the isthmus which connects the Rock with the mainland. This was itself a formidable undertaking, but they seemed not to care for cost or labor. Putting ten thousand men at work, they had in a few weeks drawn a line across the Neutral Ground, which rendered access to the garrison impossible by land. Any supplies must come by sea.

To prevent this, the Spaniards had a large fleet in the Bay and cruising in the Straits. But with all their vigilance, they found it hard to keep a blockade of a Rock, with a circuit of seven miles, when there were hundreds of eyes looking out from the land, answered by hundreds of watchers from the sea. In dark nights boats with muffled oars glided between the blockading ships, and stole up to some sheltered nook, bringing news from the outside world. And there were always daring cruisers ready to attempt to run the blockade, taking any risk for the sake of the large reward in case of success. Sometimes the weather would favor them. A fierce "Levanter" blowing from the east, would drive off the fleet, and fill the Straits with fog and mist, under cover of which they could run in undiscovered. At another time a bold privateer would come in, in face of the fleet, and if sighted and pursued, would set all sail, and rush to destruction or to victory. Once under the guns of the fortress she was safe. Thus for a time the garrison received irregular supplies.[5]

But in spite of all it was often in sore and pressing need. The soldiers required to be well fed to be fit for duty, and yet not infrequently they were half starved. Six thousand capacious mouths made havoc of provisions, and a brig-load was quickly consumed. As if this was not enough, the hucksters of the town, who had got hold of the necessaries of life, secreted them to create an appearance of greater scarcity, that they might extort still larger prices from the famine-stricken inhabitants. Drinkwater, in his "History of the Siege," gives a list of prices actually paid.

But it was not only meat that was wanted: bread was so scarce that even biscuit-crumbs sold for a shilling a pound! The economy of flour was carried to the most minute details. It was an old custom that the soldiers who were to mount guard should powder their hair, like the servants in the royal household; but even this had to be denied them. The Governor would not waste a thimbleful of the precious article, which he had rather see going into the stomachs of his brave soldiers than plastered on their hair.

A brief entry in a soldier's diary, tells how the pinch came closer and closer: "Another bakery shut up to-day. No more flour. Even salt meat scarce, and no vegetables."

Shortly after this an examination of supplies revealed the fact that no fresh meat remained, with the exception of an old cow, which was reserved for the sick. A goose was sold for two pounds, and a turkey for four.

In such a condition—so near to the starvation point—there was but one thing to do. It was a hard necessity, but there was no help for it, and an order was issued for the immediate reduction of the soldiers' rations, already barely sufficient to sustain life.

The effect of this continued privation upon the morale of the garrison was very depressing. Hunger, like disease, weakens the vital forces, and when both come together they weigh upon the spirit until the manliest give way to discouragement. That this feeling did not become general was owing chiefly to the personal influence of the Governor, whose presence was medicine to the sick, and a new force to the well, making the brave braver and the strong stronger. When famine stared them in the face he made light of it, and taught others to make light of it by sharing their privations. At the beginning of the siege he had formed a resolution to share all the hardships of his men, even to limiting himself to the fare of a common soldier. His food was of the plainest and coarsest. As a Scotch boy he had perhaps been brought up on oatmeal porridge, and it was good enough for him still. If a blockade-runner came in with a cargo of fresh provisions, he did not reserve the best for himself, but all was sold in the open market. If it be said that he had the means to buy which others had not, yet his tastes were so simple that he preferred to share the soldier's mess rather than to partake of the richest food. Besides, he had a principle about it. To such extent did he carry this, that, on one occasion, when the enemy's commander, as a courtesy not unusual in war, sent him a present of fruit, vegetables, and game, the Governor, while returning a polite acknowledgment, begged that the act might not be repeated, for that he had a fixed resolution "never to receive or procure, by any means whatever, any provisions or other commodity for his own private use;" adding, "I make it a point of honor to partake both of plenty and scarcity in common with the lowest of my brave fellow-soldiers." Once indeed when the stress was the sharpest, he showed his men how close they could come to starvation and not die, by living eight days on four ounces of rice a day! The old hero had been preparing for just such a crisis as this by his previous life, for he had trained himself from boyhood to bear every sort of hardship and privation. The argument for total abstinence needs no stronger fact to support it than that the defence of Gibraltar was conducted by a man who needed no artificial stimulus to keep up his courage or brace his nerves against the shock of battle. "Old Eliott," the brave Scotchman and magnificent soldier, was able to stand to his guns with nothing stronger to fire his blood than cold water. Chalmers' Biographical Dictionary says:

Thus the old Governor, by starving himself, taught his men how to bear starvation. After that a soldier, however pinched, would hardly dare to complain.

He might not indeed care for himself, but he could not help caring for those dependent on him. The cruel hardship of it was that the suffering fell not on the soldiers alone, but on women and children. The Governor had tried, as far as possible, to send away all non-combatants. But it was not always easy to separate families. There were soldiers' wives, who clung to their husbands all the more because of their danger. If a Scotch grenadier were to have his legs carried off by a cannon-ball, or frightfully torn by a shell, who could nurse him so well as his faithful wife, who had followed him in the camp and in the field? And so, for better, for worse, many a wife, with the courage of womanhood, determined to share her husband's fate. It was a brave resolution, but it only involved them in the common distress. There were so many more mouths to feed, when the supply even for the soldiers was all too little. The captain who has recorded so faithfully the heroisms and the privations of the siege, says:

Another account tells the same pitiful tale, with additional horrors:

"Ancell's Journal," kept during the siege, thus records the impressions of the day:

While this slow and wasting process of starvation was going on, the garrison were in a fearful state of suspense. Sometimes it seemed as if England had forgotten them, but again came tidings that the nation was watching their defence with the utmost anxiety, and would speedily send relief. The time of waiting seemed long as the months passed—summer and autumn and part of winter, and no help appeared. The blockade began in June, 1779, and it was January, 1780, before the fleet of Admiral Rodney, after gaining a battle over the Spanish fleet off the coast of Portugal, bore away to the south. To those who were watching from the top of the Rock, probably no event of their lives ever moved them so much as when they first caught sight of the English ships entering the Straits of Gibraltar. Men, women, and children, wept aloud for joy, for the coming fleet brought them life from the dead. And when it anchored in the bay, and the ships began to unload, they brought forth not only guns and ammunition, but more priceless treasures—beef, pork, butter, flour, peas, oatmeal, raisins, and biscuits, as well as coals, iron hoops, and candles! Revelling in such abundance, could they ever want again? It was indeed a timely relief, and if the fleet could have remained, it might have put an end to the siege. But England was then carrying on wars in two hemispheres; and while the French fleet was crossing the Atlantic to aid the American colonies in gaining their independence, she could not afford that her largest fleet should lie idle in the Bay of Gibraltar. As soon, therefore, as the stores could be landed, Admiral Rodney returned to England. The Governor seized the opportunity to send home great numbers of invalids and women. It was necessary that the garrison should "strip for the fight," as there were darker days to come.

Gibraltar had been saved from the jaws of famine by the arrival of the English fleet. But as soon as it left, the Spanish ships remained masters of the bay, and the blockade was closer than ever. The garrison had had a narrow escape. That it might not be caught so again, the Governor, with his Scotch thrift, put his men upon a new kind of service, quite apart from military duty. The Rock is not wholly barren. There are many nooks and corners that are bright with flowers, and anything that the earth can yield will ripen under that warm southern sky. Accordingly the soldiers, in the intervals of firing the big guns, were put to do a little gardening; and turned patches of ground here and there to cultivation; and where the hillside was too steep, the earth was raised into terraces and banked up with walls, on which they raised small quantities of lettuce or cabbages; so that afterward, although they still suffered for many of the comforts, if not the necessaries, of life, they never came quite so near absolute starvation. This "home produce" was the more important as the garrison was now to be cut off from its principal resource outside. For a time it had been able to obtain supplies from the Barbary Coast. At first the Moors were all on the side of England, for the Spaniards were their hereditary enemies, who had fought them for hundreds of years, and finally driven them out of Spain, for which the Moors took a pious revenge by thronging the mosques of Tangier to pray that Allah would give the victory to the arms of England! But after a time they saw things in a new light. It could not be Christian charity that softened their hearts toward their old enemies, for they hated the very name of Christian, but some secret influence (was it Spanish gold?) so worked on the mind of the Sultan of Morocco that he became convinced that Allah was on the side of the besiegers—a discovery which he announced in a manner that was not quite in the usual style of diplomatic intercourse. Thus, without any warning,

Fortunately he escaped with nothing worse than this gross outrage; but the serious part of the business was that it cut off all communication of Gibraltar with the Barbary Coast; for the Sultan prohibited the export of provisions, and as the supplies brought by the convoy were exhausted in a few months, the garrison was again, not indeed at the starvation point, but in sore need of what was for its health and vigor. The meagre diet threatened to produce a pestilence. At one time there were seven hundred men in the hospitals; at another the small-pox broke out; and at another the garrison was so reduced by the scurvy, caused by the use of salt meats, that strong men became weak as children, and hobbled about on crutches. This threatened a great disaster, which was averted only by lemons! In the moment of extremity a Dutch "dogger" coming from Malaga was captured, and found to be laden with oranges and lemons, "a freight which, at such a crisis, was of more value to the garrison than tons of powder or magazines of ammunition." The lemons were instantly distributed in the hospitals. The men seized them and devoured them ravenously, and the restoration was so speedy as to seem almost miraculous.

And yet this relief was only temporary. Soon we have this picture of the condition of the garrison:

But with all their efforts, it was more than a year before the second fleet arrived. When it came, it was loaded with all conceivable supplies, which took ten days to unload. The joy of the beleaguered garrison knew no bounds. And yet this new relief only precipitated a calamity which had been long impending. The scene of the arrival is thus described by an eye-witness:

What this blow was, at once appeared. The arrival of the second fleet from England convinced the Spaniards that it would be impossible to reduce Gibraltar by blockade, and determined them to try the other alternative of bombardment. Enormous batteries, mounting 170 guns and 80 mortars, had been planted along the shore; and now (before even the English ships could be unladen of their stores) was opened all round the bay a feu d'enfer, which was kept up for six weeks! Only two hours out of the twenty-four was there any cessation, and that for a singular reason. National customs must rule in war as in peace. The Spaniards began their fire at daybreak, and continued it without intermission till noon. Then suddenly it ceased, and the camp of the besiegers relapsed into silence: for that the officers, if not the men, were asleep! What Spanish gentleman could be deprived of his siesta? At two o'clock precisely they woke up and went to fighting again. At nightfall the cannon ceased, but only that the mortars (which did not need to be aimed with precision, and therefore could be fired in darkness as well as in daylight) opened their larger throats, and kept up the roar till daybreak. Thus, with only the time of the siesta, there was not an hour of day or night that the Rock did not echo with tremendous reverberations. The town was soon set on fire, and completely destroyed. There was no safety anywhere, not even in the casemates. If a bomb-proof withstood a falling shell, it would sometimes explode at the open door, wounding those within. Men were killed sleeping in their beds. The scene at night was more terrible than by day, as the shells were more clearly seen in their deadly track. Sometimes a dozen would be wheeling in the air at the same moment, keeping every eye strained to see where the bolts would fall, and the bravest held their breath when (as was several times the case) they fell near the powder magazines!

Again, the soldiers were not the only ones to suffer: their wives and children were their partners in misery. When the town was on fire, the people fled from it, and at a distance watched the flames that rose from their burning dwellings, in which all their little property was consumed—the roofs that sheltered them, and even the food that fed them. For six weeks they had not a moment's rest, day nor night. Although they had fled to the southern end of the Rock, destruction pursued them there. The Spanish ships had a custom of sailing round Europa Point, and firing indiscriminately on shore. This was generally at night, so that the poor creatures who had lain down to snatch a moment of forgetfulness, were roused at midnight and fled almost naked to seek for shelter behind rocks and in holes in the ground, in which they cowered like hunted beasts, till the storm of fire had passed over them.

The troops were not quite so badly off, for though they were shelled out of their old quarters, and had not a roof to cover them, yet English soldiers and sailors are ingenious, and getting hold of some old ship canvas they rigged up a few forlorn tents, which they pitched on the hillside. But again they were discomfited. Gibraltar is subject at certain seasons to terrific storms of thunder and lightning, and now the rains poured down the side of the Rock in such floods as to sweep away the tents, and leave the men exposed to the fury of the elements. It seemed as if the stars in their courses fought against them. But they were to find that the stars in their courses fight for those who fight for themselves.

Sometimes the storms, so terrible in one way, brought relief in another. There had been a scarcity of fuel as well as of food. A soldier could hardly pick up sticks to make his pot boil, and cook his scanty meal; so that when a furious gale wrecked a ship in the bay, and cast its fragments on the shore, which furnished fuel for their camp-fires for some weeks, they counted it a providential interposition for their deliverance; and as the firelight cast its ruddy glow in their faces, they thanked God and took courage.

But with all their courage, kept up by such occasional good fortune, it was a life-and-death struggle, as they fought not only with the enemy, but with hunger and cold, and every form of privation.

During all this dreadful time the old Governor was magnificent. Going among the families that were houseless and homeless, for whom he felt the utmost sympathy (for with all his rugged strength he had a very tender heart), he allayed their fears; terrified and miserable as they were, it was impossible to resist the sunshine of that kindly Scotch face.[9]

Then he turned to his soldiers, who may well have been appalled by the tremendous fire, which wrought such wreck and ruin. If they were troubled and anxious, he was calm. He shunned no danger, as he had shunned no privation. Indeed danger did not affect him as it did other men, but only roused the lion in his breast. The more the danger grew, the higher rose his unconquerable spirit. He was constantly under fire, and his perfect coolness tended to produce the same composure in others equally exposed. Terrible as the bombardment was, not for one moment did he admit the possibility of surrender.

But now came a new danger, not from without, but from within. The fire which swept the town uncovered cellars and other hiding-places in which the hucksters had concealed provisions and other stores to double their price, and extort the last penny from the half-fed population. When their storehouses were destroyed little sympathy was felt for them. Indeed, there was a general feeling of savage exultation; and as here and there supplies of food were found, they were seized without scruple and appropriated to the common use. Men who have been living on short allowance are apt to be led into excesses by sudden plenty, and the soldiers could hardly be blamed if for once they gave themselves a generous supply. From the extreme of want they went to the extreme of waste. In some cases incredible profusion prevailed. Drinkwater says: "Among other instances of caprice and extravagance, I recollect seeing a party of soldiers roast a pig by a fire made of cinnamon!" If this had been all, there would not have been so much to regret. But in the stores were casks of wine and barrels of spirits, which were now knocked on the head, and the contents distributed with no restraint, till soon a large part of the garrison was in such a state of intoxication as to be utterly unfit for duty. "As the enemy's shells forced open the secret recesses of the merchants, the soldiers instantly availed themselves of the opportunity to seize upon the liquors, which they conveyed to haunts of their own. Here in parties they barricaded their quarters against all opposers, and insensible of their danger, regaled themselves with the spoils." For a time this sudden madness ran riot in the streets, threatening the overthrow of all order and discipline.

It can hardly be matter of surprise that the reaction from this long tension of feeling, with the sudden temptation to drunkenness, should show itself in wild extravagances. An incident related in "Ancell's Journal," shows the soldier in the mood of making sport of his dangers:

"April15, 1781.—Yesterday I met a soldier singing in the street with uncommon glee, notwithstanding the enemy were firing with prodigious warmth,

He ran to me with eagerness, and presenting his bottle, cried: 'D——n me if I don't like fighting, with plenty of good liquor for carrying away. 'Why, Jack,' says I, 'what have you been about?' 'Faith,' says he, 'I scarce know myself. I have been constantly, on foot and watch, half-starved and without money, facing a parcel of pitiful Spaniards. I have been fighting, wheeling, marching, counter-marching, sometimes with a firelock, sometimes with a handspike, and now with my bottle.'

"A shell that instant burst, a piece of which knocked the bottle out of his hand. 'Jack,' says I, 'are you not thankful to God for your preservation?' 'How do you mean?' says he; 'fine talking of God with a soldier whose trade and occupation is cutting throats. Divinity and slaughter sound very well together; they jingle like a cracked bell in the hands of a noisy crier. My religion is a firelock, open touch-hole, good flint, well-rammed charge, and seventy rounds: this is military creed. Come, comrade, drink!'"