guished part which Captain Curtis had taken in the defence of
the fortress ever since he had joined the command drew from General
Eliot commendations no less merited than sincere. Writing to Lord Howe
on October 15th he says:

"Unknown to Brigadier Curtis, I must entreat your lordship to reflect
upon the unspeakable assistance he has been in the defence of this place
by his advice, and the lead he has taken in every hazardous enterprise.
You know him well, my lord, therefore such conduct on his part is no
more than you expect; but let me beg of you not to leave him unrewarded
for such signal services. You alone can influence his majesty to
consider such an officer for what he has, and what he will in future
deserve wherever employed. If Gibraltar is of the value intimated to me
from office, and to be presumed by the steps adventured to relieve it,
Brigadier Curtis is the man to whom the King will be chiefly indebted
for its security. Believe me, there is nothing affected in this
declaration on my part."

Again, when on his return to England he was created Lord Heathfield, he
expressed his indignation that Curtis only received the honor of
knighthood and a pension of five hundred pounds per annum. "It is a
shame," he said, "that I should be overloaded, and so scanty a pittance
be the lot of him who bore the greatest share of the burthen." Such was
the unaffected modesty of this great man!

When the confusion arising from their disastrous defeat had subsided in
the enemy's camp, a heavy cannonade was again opened from their lines
and advanced works. The firing generally commenced about five or six
o'clock in the morning and continued till noon, then for two hours the
batteries were silent, but again opened till seven o'clock in the
evening, when the mortars took up the fire till daybreak. During the
twenty-four hours six hundred shells and about one thousand shots were
thrown into the garrison.

Notwithstanding the ill-success which had attended the combined attack,
and the signal proof the enemy had received of the impregnable strength
of the fortress, the Spaniards did not entirely despair of eventually
reducing the place by famine, could the arrival of Lord Howe's fleet
with the convoy be prevented.

In August the English Government, being aware of the vast preparations
which had been making in Spain for the siege of Gibraltar, had collected
a fleet of thirty-four sail of the line, six frigates, and three
fire-sh