We think of Gibraltar to-day as one of the most valuable and necessary links in the chain of communication with the East; yet in the eighteenth century, some of the most patriotic and far-seeing among English statesmen were ready and even eager to restore it to Spain. Over and over again it was offered in exchange for some other place, or as a bribe for the Spanish alliance. In 1728, the Cabinet was prepared to surrender it without any return; Lord Townshend, writing to our ambassador, explains why they hesitated. “I am afraid that the bare mention of a proposal which carried the most distant appearance of laying England under an obligation of ever parting with that place would be sufficient to put the whole nation in a flame.” Even in 1783, after the great siege, we proposed to exchange Gibraltar for Porto Rico. The policy of our ministers was not so unreasonable as it seems at first sight. Our trade with the Near East was not increasing, and we had no special interests in the Mediterranean, so that it seemed a waste of strength to maintain a costly fortress there, when all that we could spare was needed for the defence of our distant dominions. In fact, France seemed to be the Power marked out by her history and geographical position as the natural ruler of the inland sea; and it was the sentiment of the English people rather than any practical justification in the conditions of the time which made us cling obstinately to our conquest.
We may realize more clearly the place of Gibraltar in British policy if we turn for a moment to another outpost in this region, which we held for most of the eighteenth century. Minorca was captured soon after Gibraltar, and the two were commonly associated since they both served a like purpose. Gibraltar divided Carthagena from Cadiz, and Toulon from Brest; it was 28 a bar to the union of the Mediterranean and Atlantic fleets of France or Spain. But in the eighteenth century France was the more dangerous enemy, and from the point of view of our relations with France, Minorca was more valuable than Gibraltar. Minorca had no land attack to fear and was better placed than Gibraltar for keeping guard over Toulon, the great arsenal of the French navy in the Mediterranean. The value of both stations lay in their influence on our fights in the Atlantic and the English Channel, since our road to India was round the Cape and we had no thought of the Mediterranean as an alternative. At the end of the century the eyes of British ministers were opened, when Gibraltar became associated not with Minorca but with Malta. It was Napoleon Bonaparte who first directed our policy towards Egypt and drove us to the occupation of Malta.