More than a year after Rodney's convoy, Darby arrives with 29 ships of the line and about a hundred store ships despite the Spanish fleet. The supplies unload beyond effective Spanish fire, while roughly a thousand civilians and wounded people leave with the convoy, reducing both consumption and disease risk inside the fortress. Gibraltar gains food, ammunition, powder, guns, and reinforcements; the failed bombardment and later magazine explosion then delay the Spanish batteries further. The sequence shows how naval access repeatedly reset the siege's logistical clock.
Chapter · 1:37:00-1:42:32
Darby's second relief defeats the starvation strategy
Vice Admiral George Darby escorts a hundred store ships into Gibraltar, removes vulnerable civilians, and proves that the Franco-Spanish blockade cannot starve the fortress.