Grand assault on Gibraltar

13–14 September 1782, Bay of Gibraltar, under the walls of the Rock

British victory; the floating batteries destroyed

Gibraltar had been under siege by Spain since 1779. For the great attack the French engineer d'Arçon designed ten floating batteries, old ships cut down and given thick sloping sides of timber, sand and cork, with water pumped through their walls to put out fires. They anchored off the sea wall and opened fire, but the garrison under General Eliott answered with red-hot shot heated in furnaces. By evening the batteries were burning; one by one they blew up or were set on fire by their own crews. Captain Roger Curtis's gunboats rowed among the wrecks under fire and rescued several hundred Spanish sailors. A month later Lord Howe brought a convoy through, and the siege ended with the war.