The New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

BOSTON. November 14.

There has been a report for some days past in town, founded on a letter from New York, dated the 1st of October, that the French and Spanish force consisting of 40,000 men, had been repulsed in an attack on Gibraltar, with the loss of fifteen thousand men, and that two of the floating batteries had been set on fire by hot shot from the place, and blown up, and this account is said to have come by two vessels arrived there from Lisbon: that such a report should come from such a quarter, is not extraordinary: but it may not be improper to show the improbability, to say no more of it: now, by the ships arrived from Bilboa, we have an authentic detail of the operations against the place to the 13th of September: which recites that the English batteries opened on the seventh, with great violence against the floating batteries to prevent their being moored, without other effect than killing three, and wounding thirty seven men, and that the most tremendous fire was begun by the combined Powers against the place, on the 8th, which answered the most sanguine expectations of the besiegers, and was continued with equal good effect for the succeeding days, insomuch that they had little doubt remaining, that without having recourse to so desperate a measure as a general assault, the place must surrender in a few days. This is in all probability the latest account, for as both the Lisbon ships said to be arrived at New York, must have reached that place before the 20th ult. the date of the letter, and the news of such an event would probably be 5 days at least in reaching Lisbon: both those vessels, a most extraordinary thing must have been ready to sail, and have reached New York, in five and thirty days besides that the numbers said to have been killed are rather Rivingtonian, for every man of the besieged, Bobadil like, must in proportion to the numbers of the garrison, have killed three men to his breakfast.

Some accounts of the siege of Gibraltar, received by the Bilboa arrivals, contain a kind of journal of the operations for five days after its commencement: these advices say, that the besiegers had completed 10 floating batteries of a particular construction mounted with cannon of 24 pounds shot, and mortars of the largest size: which had delivered in one day 24,200 balls and shells against that place; that three breaches had been made in the works of that fortification, and there was the highest probability that it would soon yield to the fate of Minorca.

The eyes of all Europe are turned to this remarkable siege, and events of the greatest moment by land and sea, are soon expected in that quarter.