Page:Some Particulars of the Life and Adventures of James Guidney - third edition.pdf/14

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1704, and has remained in their possession ever since. The number and strength of the military works, and the vast galleries opened in the rock, excite general admiration; and the fortress is considered by most engineers absolutely impregnable. The rock, at the foot of which the town is built, forms a promontory about three miles in length, and one in breadth. At certain distances, stations, called guards, have been erected, where sentries are placed for the security of the fortress. The first guard is called the Convent, where the Governor of Gibraltar resides; the next is called Landport; the third Waterport, and so on all round the promontory. The English garrison generally consists of from nine to ten thousand men, of whom nearly one thousand mount guard every day, and about five hundred are employed in what are called the Queen's works, viz., keeping the batteries, fortifications, &c., in order. The population of the town is about twelve thousand, who carry on a very extensive commerce. Men from almost every nation on the globe go there for the purposes of trade, Englishmen, French, Portuguese, Spaniards, Jews, &c. This Promontory is so admirably situated that ten thousand men in the fortress, it is said, could defend it against all the world. There are two signal stations in Gibraltar;