The leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1895-1905, 1904-09-24
OlRRALTAR's 200 YEARS.
Taken from Spain in 1904 as an After
thought, Now the Pride Of
Great Britain.

On August 4, 1904 (new style), the
Rock Of Gibraltar was captured BY
Great Britain, and 1t has remained IN
her possession from that day to this.
Among the many possessions scatteredI
all over the globe that are comprised III
the British empire to-day there is none
that the nation holds with greater to.
nacity for reasons both of sentiment
and of material interest and none that
1t would lose with more poignant shame
and sorrow than the redoubtable strong
hold we took from Spain at the begin
hing Of the reign Of Queen Anne, writes
Roland McNeill, in the Nineteenth Gen.
tury and After.
The fact that throughout the eight
zenith century, when so many con-
quests in both hemispheres changed
hands backward and forward in success.
sive wars and under successive treaties,
Gibraltar remained permanently in the
keeping of England, might seem to-
prove that British sentiment with re-
gard to it was from the first the same as
1t is to-day But this is far from having
been the case. For, although at the end
of 200 years of our possession of the
fortress, at a time when the imperial
Instinct of Englishmen had become
more consciously developed and more
deply engrained than ever before, and
at the same time more intelligently ap.
preciative of the true meaning Of sea
power and alive to the strategical re-
luirements of its maintenance, the reten-
ton of the key of the Mediterranean has
become an essential article of our pollt-
ical creed, and it was considerable
time before the immense value of the
acquisition was fully realized by British
statesmen.
1t seems strange enough to us to re.
member that King George I. and his
ministers were ready to give up Gibral.
tar merely to secure Spain's acquiescence
in the arrangement by which the quad.
ripple alliance was anxious to make
some pettifogging notifications in the
shuttle to territories affected by the
treaty of Utrecht, but it is still more
extraordinary that so clear-sighted, pa
triotic and high-spirited an empire.
builder as Lord Chatham himself should
have made similar offer as an induce
ment to Spain to help us to recover MI
norca-and this, moreover, at time
when the fortress had been in our
hands for more than half century and
It's vital Importance to our growing
maritime supremacy had already been
abundantly proved in the naval wars OF
the period. Happily the Spaniards were
rs blind as ourselves to the supreme i'm.
portance of the position commanding
the roads from the Atlantic to the Med
| terranean.
The truth is, as readers of Mahan do
not need to be reminded, that the impor-
lance of sea power and the nature OF
the foundations on which it is based
we're very imperfectly grasped even by
England in the seventeenth and the
first half of the eighteenth century and
| scarcely at all by any other European
power. Occasionally at intervals some
statesman like. Colbert in France or AL
beroni in Spain had more than an
lnkling of the truth, but no nation ex-
cept England made deliberate and sus-
!ained efforts with view to maritime
| development. Even England did so
rather by instinct than by insight.
Of this blindness to the true principles
If maritime policy the taking of Glib
altar and its history during the follow
ing three-quarters of century afford a
striking illustration. Just as the vast
importance of its acquisition was at the
time moderated both by England and
Spain so its actual capture by the former
was an afterthought and tit may almost
be said) an accident. 1t became Brit
ish possession in the first instance be-
| cause at time when we happened to be
at war with one of the royal claimants
to the Spanish throne our admiral in the
Mediterranean happened to have nc
particular objective in view, and, hav-
ing failed in his only enterprise of that
year, was unwilling 10 return home with
a fine fleet that had done nothing for the
honor of the flag. So he thought he
might as well make an attack on Gilbral-
tar as do anything else. Nevertheless,
his action has to be reckoned among the
notable "deeds that won the empire
and one that on its bi-centenary de-
serves to be had in remembrance.
~ 10 @hAo-IN @AARaH nae