Siege of Gibraltar (1727) - Opposing Forces

Opposing Forces

Despite Veerboom’s doubts, the King gave de las Torres leave to attempt an assault on Gibraltar. The count began to muster the besieging troops at San Roque at the start of 1727, in total thirty infantry battalions, six squadrons of horse, seventy-two mortars and ninety-two guns (although on occasion some heavier guns were brought from Cadiz). Large parts of the army were not themselves Spanish. Of the thirty infantry battalions nineteen were foreign mercenaries: three battalions of Walloons, three French Belgian, four Irish, two Savoyard, two Neapolitan, one Swiss, one Corsican, and one Sicilian. Serving alongside the Jacobite Irish was the infamous Duke of Wharton. A notorious libertine, alcoholic, and founder of the original Hellfire Club, Wharton had fled England (to escape his creditors following the South Sea Bubble stock market crash) and joined the cause of the Old Pretender. He attained permission from Philip V to serve as volunteer aide-de-camp to the Count de las Torres, and was something of an embarrassment to both sides. ‘The Duke of Wharton never comes into the trenches but when he is Drunk, and that then, and only then, he is mightily valiant.’ He was to be badly injured in the leg during the siege and he was later declared an outlaw by the British Government.

Both the Governor of Gibraltar (the Earl of Portmore) and the Lieutenant Governor (Brigadier Jasper Clayton) were in England when the Spanish began to amass their forces. Colonel Richard Kane, the British commander of Minorca, was in temporary command of the sparsely defended British garrison of approximately 1,200 men from the 5th Regiment (Pearce’s, or the Northumberland Fusiliers – later the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers), the 13th (Lord Mark Kerr’s, or the Somerset Light Infantry- later the Light Infantry), the 20th (Egerton’s, or the Lancashire Fusiliers – later the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers) and the 30th (Bisset’s, or the East Lancashire Regiment). Kane expelled the 400 Spanish residents of Gibraltar and continued to improve the defences until 13 February (NS) when Brigadier Clayton arrived with a fleet under Admiral Sir Charles Wager and reinforcements from the 26th Regiment (Antruther’s, or the Cameronians), the 29th (Disney’s, or the Worcester Regiment – later known as the Worcester and Foresters Regiment) and the 39th (Newton’s, or the Dorset Regiment – later the Devon and Dorset Regiment).

By early February Spanish labourers had moved down from San Roque to the isthmus and started to construct battle lines. On 22 February (NS) a warning shot was fired over the heads of the working parties. ‘The Governor gave them a Gun, at Four O’Clock, by way of Challenge, and, in an hour, Canonaded them very warmly.’ Thus the thirteenth siege began.