Chapter LII: Section 3: Conduct of colonel Skerrett

A.

“It is necessary to advert to the 18-pounder mounted on the Gusmans’ tower, as Southey’s History contains some strange misrepresentation on the subject.” “The French made the 18-pounder an early object of attack, but they did not succeed in crushing it. Unfortunately one of the spherical case shot, not precisely fitting its old and worn calibre, burst in passing over the town, and killed or wounded a person in the street. This produced some alarm and complaint amongst the inhabitants for a moment, and in the first feeling of that moment, Skerrett, with characteristic impetuosity, directed the gun to be placed ‘_hors de service_.’ There was no ambiguity in his command, ‘_Let it be spiked_.’” “Had he referred the case to the commanding officer of artillery, the order would not have been executed, means would have been found to remove the first impression and tranquillize the people, without the sacrifice of the gun which might have added materially to the offensive powers of the garrison, particularly if the siege had been prolonged.”

B.

“On the 29th of December, colonel Skerrett with a rare activity, dismounted a 32-pound carronade, that looked into the enemy’s batteries at the distance of about four hundred yards, and he succeeded in spiking and knocking off the trunnion of an 18-pounder, borrowed from the Stately. This gun was mounted on the tower of the Gusmans.”

_General Campbell to lord Liverpool._

“_January 3, 1812._

“Annexed is a letter received last night from colonel Skerrett; and, notwithstanding the despondency therein expressed, which has been equally so in other letters that I have received from him, my opinion remains the same as formerly.”

A.

“At the crisis produced by Skerrett’s desire to retire from the town, and desire to leave the island also, general Campbell sent express instructions that the town should not be abandoned without the concurrence of the commanding officers of artillery and engineers; and accompanied these instructions with a positive command that every officer and soldier belonging to Gibraltar should, in future, be stationed in the island, to insure at all events the preservation of that port.”