"Seeing that we possess no historical account of one of the most remarkable dependencies ever held by the British Crown, I have endeavoured (however unworthily) to fill what appeared to me to be a vacancy upon the book-shelf of our colonial histories. It has been my object to chronicle faithfully the events with which Gibraltar has been connected since its first occupation by the Moors in 711, and to sketch the influence which this coveted stronghold has exercised over the political state of Europe, more especially during the last two centuries. The records of its early history under Mohammedan rule, which I have collected from the works of Gayangos, Conde, Ayala, Montero, and others, are necessarily but crude and disjointed chronicles, almost impossible to connect in the form of a continuous narrative"--Preface (p. [v]).