Held Fast for England

Download or read book Held Fast for England written by G. A. Henty and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2017-12-26 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Held Fast for England: A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) The Siege of Gibraltar stands almost alone in the annals of warfare, alike in its duration and in the immense preparations made by the united powers of France and Spain for the capture of the fortress. A greater number of guns Were employed than in any operation up to that time; although in number, and still more in calibre, the artillery then used have in modern times been thrown into the shade by the sieges of Sebastopol and Paris. Gibraltar differs, however, from these sieges, inasmuch as the defence was a successful one, and indeed at no period of the investment was the fortress in any danger of capture save by hunger. At that period England was not, as she afterwards became, invincible by sea; and as we were engaged at the same time in war with France, Spain, Holland, and the United States, it was only occasionally that a fleet could be spared to bring succour and provisions to the beleaguered garrison. Scurvy was the direst enemy of the defenders. The art of preserving meat in tins had not been discovered, and they were forced to subsist almost entirely upon salt meat; during the first. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.