457 
SIEGE OF GIBRALTAR. 
BY 
BREVET-LIHUTENANT-COLONEL J. ADYE, R.A. 
The great Siege of Gibraltar as related in a manuscript diary kept 
throughout the siege by Captain Spilsbury, 12th Foot, an officer of the 
garrison, and hitherto unpublished. 
THere are few if any military operations in English history in which 
the Royal Artillery has borne a more important or distinguished part 
than the defence of Gibraltar during the great siege of 1779-1783, and 
any records of this defence must possess undoubted interest for officers 
and men of the Regiment. 
Fortunately such records are fairly numerous, and the pages of the 
best known account—that of Drinkwater—contain much detailed infor- 
mation of considerable value. 
In his excellent history of the Regiment the late Colonel Duncan 
devotes a chapter, written with his usual charm of style, to this impor- 
tant struggle, and gives much imformation about the conduct of the 
artillery part of the defence. 
Such information must necessarily have more interest for those who 
have a personal knowledge of the Rock—fortunately a large portion of 
the Regiment—and who may perhaps have carried out practice from 
some of the batteries constructed during the siege and named, as they 
often are, after individuals who have been distinguished in the history 
of Gibraltar. 
A short time ago a most interesting volume dealing entirely with the 
great siege was brought to my notice, and I at once saw that it would 
prove a valuable addition to the already existing chronicles of that 
period, for it purported to be an original manuscript diary kept by an 
officer who was present throughout the siege, and who illustrated his 
written diary by numerous water-colour and pen and ink sketches. 
This diary, which was presented to the Gibraltar Garrison Library not 
long ago by a descendant of the writer of it, has never, I believe, been 
published, but had remained in the custody of the diarist’s family in its 
_ original manuscript form for over a hundred years. 
On reading it through attentively it seemed to me so interesting as 
well as so quaint in its expression and wording as to warrant the repro- 
duction of parts of it. I accordingly communicated most of the more 
interesting portions to the local paper—the Gibraltar Chronicle—in a 
series of twelve short articles which appeared once a week from the 
3rd of September to the 19th of November 1894, with such brief notes 
and comments as I was able to add. 
9. VOL. XXII. 62 
