172 
THE BRITISH ARMY ON THE CONTINENT OP EUROPE. 
THE DUKE OF YOKE, re EXPEDITION TO PORTUGAL, 1826. 
cc On Saturday the decision of the Government was taken. On Sunday we 
obtained the sanction of His Majesty. On Monday we came down to Parliament, 
and at this very hour, while I have now the honour of addressing this blouse, 
British troops are on their way to Portugal ! ” 
EXTRACT FROM “ MEMORIA DE ARTILLERIA,” MADRID, 
OCTOBER 1896.—GIBRALTAR. 
This Rock is to-day a thickly populated and fortified city, on which the English 
have impressed the stamp of their civilisation and progress. 
The features of this cosmopolitan and picturesque city are good hotels, care¬ 
fully-kept gardens, well-supplied shops, theatres, police, comfortable houses and 
a garrison of from 5000 to 6000 troops, who look upon the Spanish people more 
or less as if they were Indians. Its very prosperity makes us blush with shame. 
It possesses two moles: the old mole in shallow water, near to which is the coal 
supply stored in hulks anchored at from 850 to 1100 yards from the town; and 
the new mole, whose length will extend to more than 1100 yards with a depth of 
water from 8 to 10 fathoms, thus permitting any man-of-war to come alongside. 
It provides workshops for repair, abundant stores, two iron foundries, means of 
embarkation and disembarkation and all that is necessary for a place which has 
dealings with all the world. 
The annual sale of coal to ships amount to half-a-million tons; on an average 
6400 vessels, with a tonnage of more Ilian 5^- millions, enter the harbour. 
It has constant communication with Algeciras, Tangier and Malaga, and very 
frequently with the most important parts of the world. 
Situated on the east mouth of the Strait it is for England, the possessor of a 
powerful fleet, the key of the Mediterranean. It forms with Malta an exceptionally 
good base of operations, giving her the predominance in this sea, which is the 
mother of civilisation. If she were to abandon or lose Gibraltar her influence on 
the destinies of Europe would be of less weight; her alliance, in the highest 
estimation to-day, would, in the event of a conflagration, lose its value, and her 
position as a nation of the first class would not hold the eminent place which it 
now occupies in Europe. 
INKERMANN. 
A little after five, Brigadier-General Codrington, while visiting an outlying 
picket, heard the cold, sharp rattle of musketry down the hill, and the Russians, 
whose grey great-coats were wreathed in dense morning mists, were now found 
to be advancing in great force. Still the rain fell, and the fog, thickened by the 
dense smoke of the firing, rendered every object still more imperceptible, but 
trumpet blast and the roll of drums and the booming of artillery now com¬ 
mencing as the men were endeavouring to light their fires, put every one in 
motion, and the gigantic conflict began in earnest, which, being now known by 
role to every reader, we do not presume to detail at second-hand. 
There was a certain redoubt on the hill, however, which it was the object of 
the Russians to take, and of the English to hold, and this was hotly contested for. 
A body of the Fifty-fifth were forced to retreat from the overwhelming odds of 
