APPENDIX 12
Memorandum from Mr Anthony J P Lombard,
Gibraltar
I understand you propose to travel to Gibraltar
in July, in connection with your investigation into Gibraltar
and write to appraise you of my utter disgust at the present British
Administration's monumental and abysmal betrayal of the loyal
and long suffering people of Gibraltar, a sentiment which is universal
in Gibraltar.
The injury is compounded by insult, given the
Administration's avowed inflexibility in respect of the military
base, as opposed to the whole of Gibraltar and its people. In
the circumstances, it appears the latter count for nothing and
may be battered as pawns upon a chess board, as if we were still
living in the despotic era of the 18th century! As a result, only
one phrase comes to mind: "Perfidious Albion", first
mentioned, as you know, by Louis XIV of France, when the then
British Government reneged upon an international treaty.
It is often said Gibraltarians have not been
Spanish for 300 years. That is not so, we have never been
Spanish. Whilst Gibraltar may have once been Spanish, the post
1704 Gibraltarians have never been so and since then we have
lived and prospered upon this barren Rock of ours, under the protection
of the British Crown, for far longer than the mighty United States
of North America has been a nation. Accordingly, this is our homeland
and it is neither the United Kingdom's to give away, nor Spain's
to claim.
Lastly, with regard to my own descent and by
way of example, you may be interested to learn my maternal ancestors
arrived in Gibraltar in 1725, from Tetuan where they had settled
in 1560, following their cruel exile from Spain, at the time of
the Jewish expulsion in 1490, notwithstanding they were courtiers
of the Kings of Castille and Leon and one of their ancestors had
been Chancellor of the Exchequer to Sancho the Great, circa
1280. My paternal ancestors fled the French Revolution and
eventually settled in Gibraltar. Most of my ancestors married
Italians or their issue and for good measure my paternal grandmother
was a Carroll, descended from an Irish soldier, who settled in
Gibraltar in the middle of the 19th Century!
Anthony J P Lombard
Gibraltar
May 2002
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