will come to York to besiege it, and they shall keep them out three dayes and three nights, and a penny loafe shall be within the bar at half-a-crown, and without the bar at a penny; and they will swear if they will not yield to blow up the Town walls. Then they will let them in, and they will hang up the maior, sheriffs, and aldermen, and they will goe into Crouch church, there will three knights goe in, and but one come out againe, and hee will cause proclamation to be made, that any may take house, bower, or tower, for twelve yeares, and while the world endureth ther shall never be warfare againe, nor any more king or queenes; but the kingdom shall be governed by three Lords, and then Yorke shall be London. And after this shall a white harvest of corne be gotten in by women. Then shall he in the north that one woman shall say unto another: Mother, I have seene a man to-day, and for one man there shall be a thousand women. A ship shall come sayling up the Thames till it come against London, and the mr. of the ship shall weepe, and the mariners of the ship shall aske him why he weepeth, being he hath made so good a voyage, and he shall say: Ah what a goodly city this was, none in the world comparable to it, and noW there is left scarce any house that can let us have drinke for our money.” It is of course clear that this master mariner must be Lord Macaulay’s New Zealander.
AN OLD STORY OF OLD GIBRALTAR.
Between Gibraltar and Malaga, on one of the spurs of the mountains which run from the mainland to the sea, is situated the castle of Fuengerola. It is an old Moorish building, with walls of great thickness, cemented with mortar, which has hardened into a substance more durable than the stone. Previously to the French occupation, our engineers attempted to destroy it, but failed. The general feature of the surrounding country is alternate ridge and ravine; all sufficiently rugged; very pretty for skirmishing, but little adapted to the regular movements of a line.
I was quartered at Gibraltar in the year l8—, and for some reason or other—I never could understand exactly why—the Deputy-Governor of Gibraltar appears to have set his heart on the capture of this place. I never saw that it could do us much harm in the hands of an enemy, and I am sure that it would never do us any good in our own. But to reduce it would make a “diversion,” a favourite proceeding in the tactics of the day; in pursuance of which we lost more men in petty operations than would have furnished a powerful army in the field. General Campbell resolved upon having a diversion!—and we had two.
The first expedition was placed under the command of Major-General Bowles, a very disagreeable, but not very effective officer. He failed at Fueugerola—he died gallantly at Albucra. The next trial was confided to the guidance of Major-General Lord Blayney—a very pleasant companion, an excellent judge of cookery, but not destined to become a great general. The only regular troops employed were a very weak battalion of the 89th regiment—of which Lord Blayney himself was the lieut.-colonel—commanded by one major, four or five captains (one of whom was on the staff), and a very insufficient corps of subalterns. The troops were accompanied by two six-pounders; and there were detachments, principally composed of foreign deserters, whose British officers, appointed for the occasion, had joined them a few days before the expedition sailed. These were not probable elements of success; the end turned out worthy of the means.
The troops, having been landed at a short distance from the castle, were marched by their noble commander to the summit of the ridge nearest to it. There they were halted, and in due course the word “Dress” was given; but the rocks did not hear the command. The general called out, “Why do you not dress your battalion, Major Grant?” Major Grant moved to the front, and was immediately picked off by a rifleman from the walls of the fort.
About this time an important event was pending—dinner! The noble commander withdrew his men down the ravine for refreshment—the enemy, who perhaps had already dined, made a sally, and captured our pippin-squeezers; but they did not hold them long. Our men reascended the height, and retook the guns. This point of time is important to my story. The guns were on the right of the line, next to them the Grenadier company; Lord Blayney was on the extreme left; from which position he saw a body of troops approaching his flank.
“Here come the Spaniards,” said the noble commander.
“I think they are French,” said some officers about him.
“I’ll soon show you they are Spaniards,” said the lord, and advancing, he took off his hat, and courteously saluted them. They were French! and Major-General Lord Blayney was a prisoner! He was taken to France, where he remained till the peace, and in the interim greatly improved his knowledge of cookery.
As soon as the general was thus unaccountably taken a panic seized the troops. Commencing on the left of the line, it spread to the right, and the whole body in utter disorder rushed down into the ravine, from which they were rescued and re-embarked by the boats of the men-of-war.
Thus ended the military incidents of the raid of Fuengerola. But the consequences were not yet. In all such cases of failure it becomes necessary to look out for a scapegoat. Lord Blayney (even if it had been permissible in those days to bring a lord to a court-martial) was a prisoner of war. Major Grant was killed. Captain Annesley—who ought to have taken the command, at least of the 89th, but did not—was also in the hands of the enemy. The next officer in regimental succession was Barnes, the Captain of Grenadiers—on him the lot fell. He had come from the 10th Hussars, a bad school under a bad master. He brought with him all the coxcombries and vexations of minutiæ which, even to this day, distinguish the martinets of crack cavalry regiments. He made himself specially unpopular among the non-commissioned officers. Hence it was said that a con-