Thirteenth Siege of Gibraltar The Siege of Gibraltar of 1727 ( thirteenth siege of Gibraltar , second by Spain ) saw Spanish forces besiege the British garrison of Gibraltar as part of the Anglo - Spanish War . Depending on the sources , Spanish troops numbered between 12 , 000 and 25 , 000 . British defenders were 1 , 500 at the beginning of the siege , increasing up to about 5 , 000 . After a five - month siege with several unsuccessful and costly assaults , Spanish troops gave up and withdrew . Following the failure the war drew to a close , opening the way for the 1728 Treaty of El Pardo and the Treaty of Seville signed in 1729 . Background . On 1 January 1727 ( N . S . ) the Marquis of Pozobueno , Spanish ambassador to the Court of St . James ' s , sent a letter to the Duke of Newcastle explaining why the Spanish Crown believed that Article X of the Treaty of Utrecht ( the Article which granted Britain perpetual control of Gibraltar under certain conditions ) had been nullified by infractions by the British : The letter was tantamount to a declaration of war . Spain , however , was not in a particularly advantageous position to capture Gibraltar in 1727 . At the last attempt to retake Gibraltar in 1704 , Spain had a strong Navy and the additional assistance of French warships . However , following their defeat at the battle of Cape Passaro and the capture of Vigo and Pasajes , the Spanish Navy was severely weakened . The Royal Navy had complete naval supremacy in the Straits , ruling out a Spanish landing in the south , and ensuring that the British garrison would be well supplied through a siege . Also , any attempt to scale the Rock from the east ( as five hundred men under Colonel Figueroa , led by a local goatherd named Susarte , had done in 1704 ) was now impossible as the British had destroyed the path . The only option of attack open to the Spanish was along a narrow funnel ( reduced in width by an inundation ) that ran between the sea and the western side of the North Face of the Rock . This narrow strip of land would come under fire from three sides : Willis ’ s battery to the east , the Grand Battery to the south , and the Devil ’ s Tongue Battery on the Old Mole to the west . A number of Philip V ’ s senior military advisers warned the King that the recapture of Gibraltar was , at the present , near impossible . The Marquis of Villadarias ( who had led the previous attempt to capture Gibraltar in 1704 ) had warned that it would be impossible to take the Rock without naval support . The senior Flemish engineer , George Prosper Verboom , agreed with this opinion , and ‘ gave it as his considered opinion that the only plan with any possibility of success was of a seaborne attack from the south . ' However , the King was impressed by the Count de las Torres de Alcorrín , Viceroy of Navarre , who vowed that he could : ‘ in six weeks deliver Spain from this noxious settlement of foreigners and heretics ’ . The disagreement between Verboom and de las Torres was to continue throughout the siege , indeed , so noticeably that later , when the siege was underway , a diarist within Gibraltar ( the anonymous ‘ S . H . ’ ) wrote that a Spanish deserter had reported : ‘ that a dispute hath happen ’ d betwixt two Generals about storming us , upon which the one . . . is going to Madrid to complain to the King . ” Opposing forces . Despite Veerboom ’ s doubts , the King gave de las Torres leave to attempt an assault on Gibraltar . The count began to muster the besieging troops at San Roque at the start of 1727 , in total thirty infantry battalions , six squadrons of horse , seventy - two mortars and ninety - two guns ( although on occasion some heavier guns were brought from Cadiz ) . Large parts of the army were not themselves Spanish . Of the thirty infantry battalions nineteen were foreign mercenaries : three battalions of Walloons , three French Belgian , four Irish , two Savoyard , two Neapolitan , one Swiss , one Corsican , and one Sicilian . Serving alongside the Jacobite Irish was the infamous Duke of Wharton . A notorious libertine , alcoholic , and founder of the original Hellfire Club , Wharton had fled England ( to escape his creditors following the South Sea Bubble stock market crash ) and joined the cause of the Old Pretender . He attained permission from Philip V to serve as volunteer aide - de - camp to the Count de las Torres , and was something of an embarrassment to both sides . ‘ The Duke of Wharton never comes into the trenches but when he is Drunk , and that then , and only then , he is mightily valiant . ’ He was to be badly injured in the leg during the siege and he was later declared an outlaw by the British Government . Both the Governor of Gibraltar ( the Earl of Portmore ) and the Lieutenant Governor ( Brigadier Jasper Clayton ) were in England when the Spanish began to amass their forces . Colonel Richard Kane , the British commander of Minorca , was in temporary command of the sparsely defended British garrison of approximately 1 , 200 men from the 5th Regiment ( Pearce ’ s , or the Northumberland Fusiliers – later the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers ) , the 13th ( Lord Mark Kerr ’ s , or the Somerset Light Infantry - later the Light Infantry ) , the 20th ( Egerton ’ s , or the Lancashire Fusiliers – later the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers ) and the 30th ( Bisset ’ s , or the East Lancashire Regiment ) . Kane expelled the 400 Spanish residents of Gibraltar and continued to improve the defences until 13 February ( NS ) when Brigadier Clayton arrived with a fleet under Admiral Sir Charles Wager and reinforcements from the 26th Regiment ( Antruther ’ s , or the Cameronians ) , the 29th ( Disney ’ s , or the Worcester Regiment – later known as the Worcester and Foresters Regiment ) and the 39th ( Newton ’ s , or the Dorset Regiment – later the Devon and Dorset Regiment ) . By early February Spanish labourers had moved down from San Roque to the isthmus and started to construct battle lines . On 22 February ( NS ) a warning shot was fired over the heads of the working parties . ‘ The Governor gave them a Gun , at Four O ’ Clock , by way of Challenge , and , in an hour , Canonaded them very warmly . ’ Thus the thirteenth siege began . Gibraltar under siege . The Early Siege . The Count de las Torres ’ s first move was , by cover of night , to move five battalions and 1 , 000 working men forward to take the Devil ’ s Tower and two other abandoned fortifications , and to dig trenches parallel to Gibraltar ’ s walls . Until the invention of the Koehler Gun in the Great Siege ( 1779 – 1783 ) fixed artillery guns could not be depressed below the horizontal , so the Spanish working parties could not be fired upon from the North Face of the Rock . The finished trenches might have proved the attackers with a good foothold from which to assault the town . However , ‘ Admiral Wager moved his squadron out of the bay to the eastern side of the isthmus , and at point - blank range , yet beyond the reach of the Spanish guns , pounded the men with enfilade fire for three days , inflicting on them perhaps more than 1 , 000 casualties . ’ The Spaniards soon built batteries to drive away Wager ’ s ships , but even without naval bombardment the strong winds and heavy rain of February made digging and maintaining the trenches nearly impossible . Willis ’ s battery , on the North Face of the Rock , gave the Spaniards a great deal of trouble . After a natural cave was discovered in the Rock , a plan was hatched to mine under Willis ’ s Battery and ‘ excavate a gallery 1 . 5 metres wide and 1 . 7 high to a depth of about 25 metres , then a further 20 upwards , and to fill the cavity with 400 barrels of powder . ’ This activity was noticed by and alarmed the defenders : However , the limestone under Willis ’ s battery was far too solid to mine easily ‘ in less than the space of eight or ten months and a hazard whether it could be perfected even then or not . ’ First heavy bombardment . Failing to create a strong stepping stone for a land assault , and lacking the means for an assault from the sea , de las Torres ’ s only option now was to pound the British into surrender . On 24 March ( NS ) the Spanish began what they hoped would be a decisive bombardment : Another contemporary account acknowledged that from this point ‘ it might rightly be said that ours was a gunner ’ s war . We could do nothing but receive the enemy ’ s fire and return it . ’ The Spaniards did great damage to the northern part of the town , the affluent Villa Vieja , and ‘ a hundred houses were by that means laid in rubbish . ’ After siege the ruins were removed to create present day Casemates . Despite the structural damage there were few casualties . The greater concern was the number of men the British had available to man the guns , repair the damage to the fortifications and serve on sentry duty . This proved to be a major problem for the garrison . The Spanish bombardment continued for ten days . In his entry for 24 March ( O . S . ) ‘ S . H . ’ noted : ‘ last three Days very heavy rains and some Wind . ’ The terrible weather caused great problems for the besiegers in the trenches beneath the rock , and the Spanish had to ease their bombardment . A Spanish official journal published in Madrid in 1727 highlights the problems the besiegers were suffering and their frustrations : Reinforcements arrive . During this relative lull in the Spanish bombardment , much needed reinforcements arrived in Gibraltar . On 7 April ( N . S . ) the 25th ( Middleton ’ s , or the King ’ s Own Scottish Borderers ) and 34th ( Haye ’ s , or the Border Regiment – later the Royal Border Regiment ) Regiments arrived with a 480 - strong detachment from Minorca . Then on 1 May ( NS ) the Governor , the Earl of Portmore , arrived with ten companies of the First Guards and the 14th Regiment ( Clayton ’ s , or the West Yorkshire Regiment – later the Duke of Wellington ’ s Regiment ) . Room was made for the new reinforcements by moving troops south . ‘ Tents were fix ’ d toward Europa Point and three Regiments encamped to make room in the Town for Middleton and Hayes ’ s who disembarked this day . ’ Camp Bay derives its name from this siege , when a regiment was encamped above it . 1727 also saw the destruction of the trees which grew on the Rock : One of the few sorties of the siege occurred just before the arrival of Lord Portmore . An ingenious plan devised by Clayton , it failed due to the gunners acting too soon : Second heavy bombardment . By 7 May ( N . S . ) de las Torres was ready to launch another heavy bombardment . This caused major damage to the town and batteries , and caused far more British casualties than any earlier point in the siege . S . H . recorded in his journal : The damage done to the fortifications in one day could be immense : The recently arrived British reinforcements , however , allowed the garrison to maintain the batteries , re - mount the guns and return fire . Lord Portmore , in an attempt to boost the morale and productivity of his infantry turned labourers , increased their pay from eight pence to a shilling a day . On 15 May ( N . S . ) , de las Torres , trying to make a point , sent : Nevertheless , the firing from the Spanish guns began to slacken . After several days ' continuous fire the Spanish iron cannon began to burst , whilst the better brass cannon began to drop at the muzzle from overheating . The besiegers were also beginning to suffer from a lack of supplies owing to the poor Andalusian roads . ‘ Another deserter confirms their being in a miserable state of Health , with great want of Water and Provisions . ’ The garrison , on the other hand , had ample supplies of provisions , guns and powder from the sea , and soon began to outgun the Spaniards . The Spanish continued to fire upon Gibraltar , but ‘ S . H . ’ wrote : ‘ We laugh at them for Fools to throw away their Powder Ball and Shells , since they neither fright , kill or hurt us . ’ End of hostilities . Frustrated with the Count de las Torres ’ s obstinacy and inability to take his advice , the Spanish senior engineer , Veerboom , had left for Madrid . His proposed overland attack from the north failing , de las Torres asked his remaining engineers ( Francisco Monteagut and Diego Bordick ) for their opinion . Their response was blunt : On 23 June ( N . S . ) the Spanish offered a truce . The next day a Colonel from the garrison crossed to San Roque , where a truce was agreed . The Spaniards were to remain encamped outside Gibraltar , but hostilities were to cease . An uneasy truce remained until the end of the Anglo - Spanish War in 1729 . Conditions within Gibraltar . In his journal of the siege , the anonymous ‘ S . H . ’ painted an interesting portrait of life during the siege . Although life in the garrison was often dangerous and brutish , ‘ S . H . ’ nevertheless noted how civilised , in some aspects , eighteenth century warfare could be : However , he also chronicled ( if sometimes rather flippantly ) the great dangers facing the defenders during the incessant Spanish bombardment . Discipline amongst the troops was harsh , and infractions such as drunkenness common . ‘ Our Men were put to allowance of a pint of Wine per Day , to prevent their frequent drunkenness . ’ ‘ S . H . ’ also blamed the failure of the sortie on 28 April ( NS ) on the drunkenness of the gunners . Although deserters from the Spanish force were welcomed warmly , attempts at desertion by British soldiers were dealt with harshly . After the siege a Cameronian was caught trying to escape to the Spanish lines : Life was also hard for the civilian population . The 400 Spaniards in Gibraltar had been expelled at the beginning of the siege , leaving around 200 adult male Genoese and 100 adult male Jews to help with the defence . ‘ S . H . ’ recorded that ‘ A body of the Jews desire leave to retire to Barbary , because commanded to work for the common Preservation , but answer ’ d by the Governor that as they had enjoy ’ d safe and plenty during Peace , if they will not assist for their own safety , they shall be turned over to the Spaniard . ’ However , another diarist of the siege indicated that the Gibraltarian Jews earned their salt as much as anyone else : Punishments for non - combatants could also be harsh . Female transgressors of the correct codes were forced to endure the ‘ whirligig ’ . This is far more gruesome than ‘ S . H . ’ makes clear , for whilst he tactfully wrote that it made the victim a little ‘ giddy ’ and ‘ land sick ’ , George Hills has bluntly noted that ‘ In fact the centrifugal action caused the victim to empty through every orifice . ’ Another contemporary source recounted the barbaric way in which two Moorish spies were punished :