GIBRALTAR: ITS ADVANTAGES TO ENGLAND. 311 



honour of commanding the Mediterranean, we needlessly maintain this 

 hot abode of sterility and the plague. Foreign conquests are alone jus- 

 tifiable in an enlightened age, by the advantages conferred upon the 

 conquered; for our laws, arts, and civilization, follow in the rear of 

 our victorious armies, to free the enslaved and benighted nations of the 

 world ; but Gibraltar is peopled by our own centinels alone, and the 

 fruits of victory are sown upon a rock. In times of the most profound 

 peace, the garrison is never maintained at less than five thousand men ; 

 the entire cost of supporting the troops, dock-yards, and civil establish- 

 ments, is estimated at more than a million per annum ; and since our 

 first possession of Gibraltar, this useless fortress has added above a hun- 

 dred millions to the national debt! For this immense expenditure, no 

 return whatever appears commerce or revenue there being none, -from 

 a place, jealously guarded from connexion with the interior of the 

 country, and possessing no intercourse with Spain, beyond the draw- 

 bridge of the moat. Since the opening of the free port of Cadiz, even 

 the trifling trade formerly forced into Gibraltar, by the senseless com- 

 mercial policy of Spain, has almost entirely disappeared ; and the Medi- 

 terranean passes, always an unjust impost, levied at Gibraltar since the 

 accession of his present Majesty, have been abolished altogether. There- 

 fore, to a commercial nation, depending upon fertile and productive 

 colonial possession for its revenue, commerce, and prosperity, there is 

 nothing beyond the empty prejudices of military glory to justify our 

 retention of the expensive fortress of Gibraltar. 



It is also well to be considered that we are now at peace with Spain, 

 and, however contemptible the government of that country, our retention 

 of Gibraltar has long been considered a most galling insult by that proud 

 people; and considerations of national honour alone have prompted 

 their stupendous efforts to regain it. It would, therefore, be now in the 

 highest degree conciliatory and productive of great commercial advan- 

 tages to England, to yield up possession of a fortress, the retention of 

 which is useless and injurious to ourselves, and productive of feelings 

 of humiliation and enmity to all true Spaniards, at the sight of a foreign 

 flag floating in victory over a soil where nature never meant us to 

 encroach. It is unworthy of a magnanimous nation, needlessly to con- 

 tinue our insulting possession of this strong hold in a foreign country- 

 and that the evil consequences of the retention of the fortress of 

 Gibraltar by the government of this country are not exaggered here, 

 we turn to the opinion upon this subject of the author of the Wealth of 

 Nations. Speaking of the then recent conquests of Gibraltar and 

 Minorca, that illustrious writer thus expresses himself. " There never 

 was the slightest pretext for the occupation of those two most expensive 

 garrisons, the retention of which, has served more than all other causes, 

 to cement the friendship and alliance against this country of the Kings of 

 France and Spain." This opinion, though opposed to the prejudices of 

 the day, appears, indeed, to be founded in very clear truth. Would the 

 people of England ever rest, whilst the Spaniards, having by surprise 

 obtained possession of Dover Castle for a century, should persist in hold- 

 ing it from motives of mere insulting defiance ? 



By the abandonment of this unprofitable fortress, not only should we 

 thus effect a reduction of five thousand men in our standing army, but a 

 valuable indemnification may undoubtedly be obtained from Spain. 



