plessly witnessing the destruction of their property.
Consequently, his journal, though quite below the dignity of history,
affords, now and then, a tolerably graphic glimpse of the beleaguered
town.

From the discursive and desultory nature of the old gentleman's style,
as before hinted, it would be vain to look for a continuous narrative in
his journal, even if it contained materials for such. But here and there
a literary Jack Horner might extract a plum or two from the vast
quantity of dough--of reflections, quotations, and all manner of
irrelevant observations, surrounding them. The following incidents,
which occurred at the most interesting period of the long and tedious
siege, appear to me to give a fair idea of some of the characteristics
of the time, and of the personages who figured in it; and accordingly,
after subjecting them to a process analogous to gold-washing, I present
them to the reader.

After a strict blockade of six months, reducing the garrison to great
extremity for want of provisions, Gibraltar was relieved by Sir George
Rodney, who landed a large quantity of stores. But about a year after
his departure, no further relief having reached them except casual
supplies from trading vessels that came at a great risk to the Rock,
their exigencies were even worse than before. The issue of provisions
was limited in quantity, and their price so high, that the families,
even of officers, were frequently in dismal straits. This has given rise
to a wooden joke of my grandfather's, who although he seldom ventures on
any deliberate facetiousness, has entitled the volume of his journal
relating to this period of the siege, _The Straits of Gibraltar_. He
seems to have estimated the worth of his wit by its rarity, for the
words appear at the top of every page.

The 11th of April 1781 being Carlota's birthday, the Major had invited
Owen (now Lieutenant Owen) to dine with them in honour of the occasion.
Owen was once more, for the time, a single man; for Juana, having gone
to visit her friends in Tarifa just before the commencement of the
siege, had been unable to rejoin her husband. In vain had Carlota
requested that the celebration might be postponed till the arrival of
supplies from England should afford them a banquet worthy of the
anniversary--the Major, a great stickler for ancient customs, insisted
on its taking place forthwith. Luckily, a merchant-man from Minorca had
succeeded in landing a cargo of shee