Throughout the month of March, before further reinforcements began to arrive from England and Minorca, the British troops suffered greatly from fatigue. The guards and piquets were very heavy, absorbing a daily average of 1200 rank and file, and a thousand men were constantly occupied in mounting guns and strengthening the defences. These working parties were commanded by officers of the line, who were struck off all other duty and received half a crown a-day extra pay. The men also drew sixpence a-day extra, and “were assisted by the Jews, who were employed in taking ammunition to the batteries and clearing the ditch of the rubbish beaten down from the upper works by the enemy’s shot; these unfortunate Israelites received no pay, and for some time were utterly useless, being paralysed with terror when under fire.”[70] Some of them, perhaps to revenge themselves for this forced labour, joined in a conspiracy among the “undesirable” element in the civil population to open the gates to the enemy. The plot was discovered, and punished in the rigorous fashion of the day--two Moors, the chief agents of the Spaniards, were put to death, and after their bodies had been flayed the skins were nailed to the gates of the fortress as an object lesson on the penalties of unsuccessful treachery.
The elements during the siege were strongly in favour of the British, for such deluges of rain fell in April that the Spaniards’ trenches again became untenable and their cover was destroyed. Until the damage could be made good the opening of the great bombardment was necessarily postponed, and during the respite two battalions arrived from home on the 7th of April, and a fortnight later four transports, escorted by the _Sole Bay_, brought five hundred troops, detachments from the corps stationed in Minorca. How many men the Royal Irish contributed is not known; but as Cosby, their colonel, was in command of the whole contingent, it is natural to suppose that the regiment was largely represented. England’s command of the sea enabled her to reinforce at will, and in the beginning of May two more battalions reached Gibraltar from home, raising the strength of the garrison to about 5500 non-commissioned officers and men. With them came Lord Portmore, the Governor, who was on leave when the siege began: though quite an old man he had refused to plead his age and infirmities as an excuse for evading his duty, and now returned to take his share in the defence. As soon as the Spaniards had finished their batteries and mounted their guns, they opened a tremendous artillery fire, which was kept up for fourteen days without intermission. During every hour of this time seven hundred projectiles were hurled against our works, and to use the words of an eyewitness, “we seemed to live in flames.... Attempts feeble in comparison to the resistless storm of shot and shell that tore over the walls of the fortress, were made to check this murderous fire in vain, guns were everywhere dismounted, and as quickly as they were replaced were again destroyed. In vain the men with dauntless courage threw themselves upon the ramparts and worked to repair the shattered parapets, the heavy shot tore away whole tons of earth and buried the guns beneath the ruins. Butts filled with sand and bound with fascines were heaped together as some covering from the artillery, but they were no sooner in position than they were swept away.”[71]