| Show WOULD HAVE MEANT MUCH england offered to trade gibraltar for florida but the deal was not made 40 you know that for everlasting stability and stubborn resistance there Is nothing in the world like gibraltar dirt 1110 you ever hear of a curious little bargain which was never con consummated ummat hut but in which that great rod at ali the month of the mediterranean figured as part of the price it had to do with tin an important part of our country and yet it la Is seldom mentioned in fix any 0 of our histories says a writer in the st louis post dispatch the impregnable fortress was fought over by the spaniards and the moors for two centuries and it came la in for the keen interest of oliver cromwell who thundered at the british the tact fact that if they ever hoped to become the dominating sea power of the world they must control the mediterranean from gibraltar tills this great necessity nece sIty was never lost sight of but a suitable pretext did not arise until the war of the spanish SlI anish succession ion when england and france were it at each cadi others throat for the mastery s of europe under admiral sir george brooks the british fleet made an unexpected attick on the spanish defenses ant and captured gibraltar in 1701 presently the english sickened of their bargain that was long ion before the digging of the suez canal by the fronc fren c and the egyptians find and the cost of maintaining in the hie rocky fortress appeared to be out of nil proportion to its worth when spain was approached by napoleon fur for the purchase of florida as a low blow at ingland from the western theater of the anglo french war england offered to trade gibraltar for florida had the trade taken place bugland would not have become the mistress ress of the sea |
