the destruction of the floating batteries
the siege was virtually concluded.

In Spain the news was received with consternation and despair. The
thousands who on the preceding day crowded upon the neighboring hills,
and with eager anxiety awaited the anticipated victory, returned to
their homes disappointed and chagrined. They had been taught to believe
that the attack would be crushing and invincible; that the batteries
were indestructible; that the fortress must be annihilated by their
overwhelming fire; but instead of these disasters they had seen every
ship destroyed or sunk, with all their guns, and two thousand men of
their crews either killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. In the first
moment of consternation the inventor of those vast machines, upon the
success of which the whole attack depended, could not restrain his
poignant grief and was led into confessions which he afterward
regretted. Writing to the French ambassador, Montmorin, he said: "I have
burned the Temple of Ephesus; everything is lost, and through my fault.
What comforts me under my misfortune is that the honor of the two kings
remains untarnished."

At Madrid the news of the disaster was received with dismay; and the
King, who was at the palace of Ildefonso, listened to the intelligence
in mute despair. The recovery of Gibraltar had been his unswerving aim,
and with this repulse almost his last hope was extinguished. In Paris
the intelligence was no less unexpected and unwelcome; so certain indeed
had the fall of the fortress been considered that a drama illustrative
of the destruction of Gibraltar by the floating batteries was acted
nightly to applauding thousands.

It has been before remarked that the Duc de Crillon never held that
blindly confident opinion of the inventions of D'Arcon which had turned
the heads of the two Bourbon courts. He had always urged the necessity
of a complete attack by sea, in which the whole fleet should engage, and
of which the floating batteries would form an integral part. The French
engineer ridiculed this idea, and affirmed that the ships would be
destroyed before they could inflict any damage upon the walls.

The result of the attack showed how completely D'Arcon was mistaken.
During the day the assistance of the combined fleet was urgently
required; but when its cooperation might have turned the tide of
victory, an adverse wind arose, and the vessels could not beat up within
range of the Rock.

The distin