The Pickens sentinel-journal. (Pickens, S.C.) 1903-1906, 1904-11-02
Cibraltar's
200 Years
Taken by Rookie in 1904 as an
Al erthOught, Now Bri.
tain's Bride.
Ey Roland McNein In tho Ninteenth Cor
tury and After.

!Ifsl f5,I n August 4, 1TO4 mew
p~GI stylc), the Rock of Gibral-
tar was captured by Great
lE1 o=I Britain. and it has re-
99l-.Ei mained in her possession
trom that day to this. Among the
many possessions scattered all over the
globe that are comprised in the Brit
lSh Empire to-day there is none that
the nation holds with greater tenacity
for reasons both of sentiment and of
material interest and none that II
would lose with more poignant shame
ana sorrow that the redoubtable strong
mold we took from Spain at the BEGIN
nin% of the reign Of Queen Anne.
The fact that throughout the eight
eenth century, when so many CON
quests in both hemiSphcres changed
hands backward and forward in sue.
ceSSive wars and under successive
treaties, Gibraltar remained pcrma-
ncntly in the keeping of England.
might seem to prove that British sentl-
ment with regard to it was from the
hrSt the same as it is to-day. But this
is far from having been the case. For.
our possession of the fortress. at n
time when the imperial instinct OF
EnSliShmen has become more con-
SciouSly developed and more deeply in.
grained than ever before. and at the
same time more intclligently apprecia-
tive of the true meaning of sea power
ana alive to the Stratcgical require
mentS Of its maintenance, the retention
of the key of the Mediterranean has
become an essential article of our DO
litical creed, it was Il considerable
time before the immense value of the
acquisition was fully rallied by Brit
iSh statesmen
IL seems strange enough to us to re-
member that King George |. and his
Ministers were ready to give up Gil
braltar merely to secure Spain's ac.
quicScence in the arrangement by
which the Quadruplc Alliance was
anxious To make some pettifogging
notifications in the Shulllc OF terri
tories effected by the treaty of Utrecht.
but it is still more extraordinary that
so clear-siShted, patriotic and high
spirited an empire builder as Lord
Chatham himself should have made q
similar offer as an induccment to
Spain to help us to recover Minorca-
ana this, moreover, at time when the
iorjreSS has been in our hands for
more than half II century ana it's vital
Importance to Our growing maritime
supremacy had already been album
dainty proved in the naval wars OF the
period. Happily the Spaniurds were
as blind rs ourselves to the supreme
Importance of the position command.
ing the road from the Atlantic to the
Mediterranean.
The truth is. as readers Of Mahan
do not need to be reminded, that the
inportance Of sea power and the ma
turc OF the foundations on which il is
based were very impcrfecty graspcd
even by England in the seventeenth
and the first half of the eighteenth cen
tury and scarcely ut all ny any other
European power. Occasionally at in
trrvals some statesmen like Colbert
in France. or Albcroni in Spain. had
more than an mN!inc OF the truth
bnt no nation except England made
deliberate and sustained efforts with a
view to maritime development. Even
England did SO rather by instinct than
by insight
or this Blindness 30 the true Orin-
cipl"S OF maritime policy thc taking of
Gibraltar and lis history during the
following threc.Cuartcrs of a century
afford 4 striking illustration. Jnst as
. ia. s,..