Chapter V: The Seven Years’ War Till 1758 (1)

AUTHORITIES.—See Chapter IV.; Mr. J. Corbett, _Seven Years’ War_;
Barrow, _Anson_ and _Howe_.

It may appear that I have given undue prominence to the corruption and bad spirit of the navy in these years. But the insistence has been deliberate, for the great work which had to be done from 1744 onwards, for a generation, was to raise the standard of conduct expected from officers, not only by public opinion working from without, but by their own code of honour working within the ranks of the service. This would only be effected by bringing forward new men. If rules and regulations could have saved the navy from discredit and mismanagement, it had all it needed in the code of the Duke of York. The evil lay not in the laws but the men. Till they were better there was no real hope of reform. That one was wanted was beyond all question. In 1749 Sandwich, now First Lord, acting perhaps at the instigation, and certainly with the hearty approval, of Anson, made an Admiralty visitation of the dockyards. It was the first ever held by the Lords of the Admiralty or even by the administrative officers of the Navy Board. According to Sir John Barrow, who condensed the report in his life of Anson, they, _i.e._ the Lords of the Admiralty, “found the men generally idle, the officers ignorant, the stores ill-arranged, abuses of all kinds overlooked, the timber ill-assorted, that which was longest in store being undermost, the Standing Orders neglected, the ships in ordinary in a very dirty and bad condition, filled with women and children, and that the officers of the yard had not visited them, which it was their duty to do; that men were found borne and paid as officers who had never done duty as such, for which their Lordships reprimanded the Navy Board through the comptroller; that the store-keepers’ accounts were many years in arrear, and, what was most extraordinary, that the Navy Board had never required them;—in short, gross negligence, irregularities, waste, and embezzlement were so palpable, that their Lordships ordered an advertisement to be set in the various parts of the yards, offering encouragement and protection to such as should discover any misdemeanours, committed either by the officers or workmen, particularly in employing workmen or labourers, on their private affairs, or in any other abuse whatever.”

The abuses noted, and for a time amended by the Commission of James I. and by James II., had sprung up again to their old height under the favour of negligence and self-seeking at headquarters. It was idle to hope to deal with these evils by sporadic visitations and encouragement to the common informer. What was wanted was constant watching, and it was long before this was supplied. Lord Sandwich’s visitation was not repeated, and it was not till 1770 that Sir Edward Hawke ordered one to be held every two years. Even this measure proved of little effect, and the first years of the nineteenth century were reached before the old element of slovenly corruption had become intolerable and Lord St. Vincent was able to begin a thorough reform.

The preliminary to cleaning out the dockyards was the bringing of the navy’s combatant branches up to the due level. It was a matter of life and death for England that this should be done. The great weakness of France at sea and the decadence of Spain, allowed us to escape disaster in the War of the Austrian Succession. The same conditions were repeated in the war which began in 1755. But if we had met the great American War in 1778 with the navy in the condition in which it was in 1739, and then had been called upon to face the revived naval power of France, the somewhat improved navy of Spain and the Dutch, irreparable disaster must have followed. We could not have endured that strain with Mathews, Lestock, Vernon, Knowles, Griffin, Peyton, Cornelius Mitchell, Watson, and Elton.

In 1746 the Government took steps to regulate promotion to flag rank. It had hitherto been the custom to select the officers for the higher commands from any place in the list of captains, though they were naturally taken from towards the top. The captains passed over were left in the same rank and on their scanty half pay of ten or eight shillings a day. Though the state was undoubtedly entitled to take competent men where it could find them, it was felt that this practice of passing over old officers who might have to serve under juniors, or were left in poverty, inflicted a hardship. It also had the obvious drawback that it left the list of captains crowded with men who were beyond work. An Order in Council, issued on the 3rd June 1747, decided that when old officers in the rank of captain were passed over by the promotion of the younger men to flag rank, they were to “be appointed by commissions from the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to be rear-admirals in general terms.” The effect of the order was this. The active list of admirals consisted of those who belonged to one of the squadrons—Red, White, or Blue. When then a captain was meant to serve at sea he was promoted Rear-Admiral of the Blue. The captains senior to him were named merely rear-admirals. This gave them no right to command. They were superannuated with a rear-admiral’s pension, in order that they might “retire with honour and have a competent subsistence in their old age.” It was the introduction of the modern system of allowing men to retire with a rank above that which they hold when their active service ends. The benefits of the order were limited to old officers who had served at sea since the beginning of the war with Spain in 1739, but the hardship inflicted on those not so qualified was confined to one generation. In future the old officer who was passed over because of his “great age and other infirmities” knew that he would “retire with honour.” The disadvantage of the system was that when the state wished to reach some capable officer well down on the list it had to make a great addition to what is now called the non-effective vote, that is to the pensioned men who are doing no work. But the advantages of putting a stop to an old grievance, of giving security and content to the officers, and of enabling the Admiralty to bring on younger men, were cheaply bought at this price.

Another piece of work taken in hand was the improvement of the quality of the ships. The inferiority of our vessels was seen so soon as they came to be compared with the Spanish and French. Inquiry showed that though schemes had been drawn up in 1706 and 1719, and attempts had been made to improve the ships later, they had all been habitually neglected. Our vessels had been built, not only on bad principles, but not on any regular scale, so that vessels of the same rate were of different sizes, and the fittings of one could not be used for another. Here as elsewhere there was waste. A new scheme was made in 1746 and modified in 1751 without bringing complete amendment.

The scandals of the navy had also shown the necessity for a revision of the laws regulating the discipline of the service. Hitherto the Navy Discipline Act had been that passed in the thirteenth year of Charles II. (1661). It conferred the right of holding courts martial, but under inconvenient limitations. The jurisdiction of the court was confined to offences committed on the high seas, and in the main rivers of His Majesty’s possessions below bridges. There was thus no power to punish offences committed ashore or in foreign countries. This was conferred in 1720, and some further amendments were made in 1745 and 1748. The worst defects of the old system remained and they were serious. The power to hold a court martial was given only to the commander-in-chief, that is the admiral or captain acting as commodore, with a separate command. If he died, or was compelled to come home by bad health, another commission had to be sent out to his successor. When Vernon came home from the West Indies, his successor, Sir Chaloner Ogle, was left for a whole year without power to hold a court martial, as the first vessel sent out with his commission was captured. Neither could the power be delegated by the commander-in-chief to any officer whom he detached. It was alleged in the course of the debates in Parliament in 1749 that, during the late war, a captain serving on the coast of Portugal had put his first lieutenant in irons. He went into Lisbon where there were several other warships, and the imprisoned officer applied for a court martial, but as the commander-in-chief was not present none could be held. The vessel left for England with the first lieutenant still in irons. On her way a French man-of-war was met. The captain then gave such visible proofs of derangement of mind, that the other officers shut him in his cabin and released the first lieutenant who took command of the ship. When she reached home an inquiry was made, and it was found that the captain was insane.

In another respect there was room for amendment. The commander-in-chief was himself president of the court, which consisted of all the post-captains in sight when the court-martial flag was hoisted. The want of a limitation in the number made the tribunal often of a most unwieldy size. It was also obviously in the power of a commander-in-chief to pack a court, by sending away all the captains whom he could not trust to acquit or condemn “by order.” As he was the only authorised president he was there to give the order himself. When it is remembered that every admiral had then, and afterwards, a number of “followers,” officers who had served under him, and whom he always made interest to have with him, and who for their part looked to him to push their fortunes, when too we remember the brutal temper of such men as Mathews, Lestock, and Griffin, it will be seen that this was no imaginary danger, indeed bitter complaints were made of the partiality of the courts martial.

The new act of 1749—the 22nd George II.—corrected these defects. It provided that the right to hold courts martial should go with the command, thereby removing the risk of such a break as occurred in the case of Vernon and Ogle, and that it could be delegated to officers commanding detachments. Further, it took away the right to act as president from the commander-in-chief and gave it to the second in command. It limited the number of officers sitting in the court to not less than five, or more than thirteen. It also limited the court’s power of inflicting imprisonment for any offence to two years, and for contempt to a month. The cases of the master of the =Northumberland= and of Lieutenant Frye of the Marines had no doubt their share in bringing about this change.

The most famous of the alterations made in 1749 was that inserted in the 12th and 13th articles of the Articles of War which were incorporated in the Act. The 12th article provides the punishment to be inflicted “on Every Person in the Fleet who through Cowardice, Negligence, or Disaffection, shall in Time of Action withdraw or hold back, or not come into the fight or Engagement, or shall not do his utmost to take or destroy every ship which it shall be his Duty to engage, and to assist and relieve all and every of his Majesty’s Ships or those of his Allies which it shall be his duty to assist and relieve.” The 13th Article deals with him who hangs back in chase or does not “relieve or assist a known Friend in View to the utmost of his Power.” Originally the court had a discretion, but by the terms of the new Act the only punishment a court martial could inflict was death. At a later period the severity of this penalty was considered excessive, and in 1779 the power to inflict a lesser penalty was restored to the court martial, but in 1749 Parliament had just heard from the mouth of Vernon that the savage punishment of poor young Baker Philipps was just, and it knew how austere the court had been with humble James Dixon, the master of the =Northumberland=. It also knew what bowels of compassion had been found for the captains of Toulon and for Lestock and Mitchell. If Parliament was resolved that what was law for obscure and friendless men should also be law for the chiefs of the navy, it may have been stern but it was not unjust. The Bill was introduced by ministers who had the advice of Anson, and we may fairly conclude that he did not disapprove of the change.

From 1748 to 1756 the country remained at peace, but it was of the kind compatible with continuous “military operations.” Both in the East Indies and on the continent of North America and among the islands of the West Indies, the British Government of that time had to deal with a more violent version of what we have seen happen in our day in the valleys of the Nile and the Congo. The main outlines of the struggle were given at the beginning of the last chapter. On the frontier of Nova Scotia the two states were in peculiar contact of irritation. The frontier had never been clearly marked, and the French strove to delimit it in their own favour by a characteristic mixture of pertinacious diplomatic pettifogging and violence. In the East the intrigues of Dupleix with the native princes of the Carnatic aimed at ruining the commerce of the English company by cutting off the establishments on the coast of Coromandel from access to the interior. On the continent of America the seventy thousand or so French in Canada and Louisiana were incessantly endeavouring, not only to recover the greater part of Nova Scotia, but to bar the million and a half of English settlers from access to the valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi. Resolute action on the part of the British Government would probably have averted war, but the Duke of Newcastle, who was the prevailing politician of the day, was intent on Parliamentary management. The king too was rendered nervous by fears for his hereditary dominions in Hanover. From sheer want of vigorous direction on our own part we drifted, through a succession of small conflicts, into open though unavowed war in 1755, and into formally declared war in 1756. The situation was that of 1739, with differences. Then we had begun with the Spaniards, and had only come into collision with the French later on. Spain, in this case, did not intervene till the very close, and in an hour of folly. Once again, too, France became entangled in a great European land war, and was unable to devote her whole attention to the sea. We engaged in the land war as allies of Frederick of Prussia and in defence of Hanover, but our main attention was devoted to the sea and to our colonies.

The first serious hostile movement made by the British Government was directed towards the East. The India Company had soon occasion to regret that it had parted so easily with Boscawen’s squadron. In 1753 it was calling on the Government for naval help, and in February 1755 a squadron was despatched under the command of Rear-Admiral Charles Watson. It was delayed at Kinsale by a storm, and two vessels were seriously damaged. They were replaced, and Watson reached Bombay in November with four sail of the line, and two small vessels. He brought a reinforcement of troops and Colonel Clive. His first piece of service was not against the French. The Royal Navy was now beginning to take permanent hold on the Eastern seas. No more pressing duty awaited it than to put a stop to piracy. This had always flourished on the western or Malabar coast of India, and had never been effectually checked by the Portuguese, the Dutch, or by ourselves. By far the most formidable of these pirates belonged to a branch of the Mahrattas, which had gained possession of the island of Geriah, had become independent, and had transferred its native practice of robbery from the land to the sea. These pirate Mahrattas infested the coast in vessels called “grabs” and “gallivats”—the first a species of magnified lighter armed with guns, the second light rowing and sailing galleys. Sporadic attacks had been made on them by the company, and by occasional ships of the Royal Navy. Mathews had served against them. But hitherto nothing effectual had been done. In 1755 the presence of a well-appointed squadron and of a disposable body of troops encouraged the company’s agents at Bombay to make an effort to root out the pirates of Geriah. On the 7th of February 1756 Watson sailed from Bombay, carrying the soldiers under command of Clive with him, and in co-operation with a body of Mahratta troops supplied by one of the princes of that nation, who wished to reduce Angria, the chief of the pirate state, to obedience. They proved to be of little value, for they were chiefly intent on plunder, and had secretly more sympathy with their piratical kinsmen than with their allies. Angria showed little spirit. The vigour of Admiral Watson who battered down the fortifications of Geriah on the 12th February, and the firmness of Clive who took possession of the place, disappointed the Mahrattas. Our squadron and the troops divided £150,000 of prize money.

On the 30th April Watson and Clive went on from the coast of Malabar to that of Coromandel on the east. By the 20th June they reached Madras. The French Government, not being as yet ready for war, had recalled Dupleix and had brought a pause in the conflict of the companies. Watson’s next service was to carry Clive to Bengal to revenge the Black Hole of Calcutta, and to begin the conquest of India. But as this service became rapidly connected with the war against France, and as the operations in the eastern seas lay very much apart, I shall turn from them till they can be taken up again, and connected with the general movements of the world-wide conflict.

While Admiral Watson’s squadron was recruiting from its long voyage at Bombay, warlike operations, the forerunners of open war, were beginning on the Atlantic. The appeals of the colonists who found themselves unable to expel the French from the post they had established on the Ohio—Fort Duquesne on the site of what is now Pittsburg—had at last induced the British Government to take action. In December 1754 Commodore Keppel, a gentleman of the Albemarle family, who had sailed as midshipman with Anson and was destined to play a prominent part in coming years, left the Downs with a body of troops under command of Braddock. The expedition reached Hampton Roads by the 20th February 1755. Its disastrous end, in an ill-planned and worse-directed attack on Fort Duquesne in July of this year, is a well-known episode of our colonial history. The sending of Braddock stimulated the French Government to reinforce its garrisons in Canada. On the 3rd May of 1755 the Lieutenant-General Count de Macnémara sailed from Brest with nine sail of the line fully armed and seven frigates. He had under his protection eleven sail of the line fitted as transports and full of troops. These vessels were armed with 24 or 22 guns only, or as the French expression has it, _en flûte_. To be armed _en flûte_ was to be armed like a flyboat with guns only on the upper deck. Macnémara saw his charge well out into the ocean, and then returned to Brest with six of the liners and three of the frigates. The other warships and the transports held on to Canada under the command of Dubois de Lamotte.

Meanwhile the news that the French were in motion stirred the British Government to counter action. Boscawen was ordered to sail for America with instructions to intercept the French by force. He left on the 27th April, with eleven sail of the line, and two small vessels. After he had gone the cabinet received further reports which gave them an exaggerated idea of the French strength. Admiral Holburne was ordered to follow Boscawen with six sail of the line, and a frigate. He left on the 11th May, and joined his chief on the banks of Newfoundland on the 20th June. But Boscawen had already failed to stop the French. When Dubois de Lamotte approached Newfoundland he divided his squadron and convoy into two. One division was steered to enter St. Lawrence by the Straits of Belleisle, on the north of Newfoundland. The other took the commonly used route to the south between Cape Ray and Cape Breton. Boscawen had stationed himself off Cape Ray. On the 9th June the French were sighted, but the weather was foggy and covered them soon from view. Next day the fog lifted for a space, and three of the French ships were seen. They were the _Alcide_, 64, the _Lys_, armed _en flûte_ with 22 guns, and the _Dauphin Royal_, another of the man-of-war transports. The _Alcide_ was commanded by M. d’Hocquart who had already been twice prisoner of war to Boscawen. In 1744, when he was captain of the _Medée_, 26, he had been taken by the =Dreadnought=. This was Boscawen’s first ship, and from it he got his name of “Old Dreadnought” among the sailors. Again M. d’Hocquart had struck to Boscawen in Anson’s battle of 3rd May 1747. When the English officer commanded the =Namur= and he himself the _Diamant_, M. d’Hocquart’s ill fortune pursued him. The _Alcide_ was overhauled, hailed by Howe in the =Dunkirk=, 60, and told to stop. The French captain asked whether it was peace or war, and was told that he had better prepare for war. D’Hocquart made all the defence he could, but the =Dunkirk= was reinforced by Boscawen’s ship, the =Torbay=, 74, and he became a prisoner for the third time. The _Lys_ was taken by the =Defiance=, and the =Fougueux=. The _Dauphin Royal_ escaped in the fog. No other prizes were taken, so that Dubois de Lamotte carried two fully armed liners, three frigates, and ten transports with their men and stores safe into the French American ports. Boscawen’s expedition was therefore, in the main, a failure. The jail fever was raging in his squadron. It had been manned, according to old custom, in haste on the approach of war, by the press, from the slums and the prisons. Boscawen took his ships to Halifax in the hope of restoring the health of his crews, but with the result that he infected the town. Meanwhile the French commanders, finding the coast clear, sailed for home on the 15th August and reached Brest on the 21st September. Boscawen returned in the autumn, reaching England in November.

While fighting had begun in America we were at home in a state of war which was no war. The Duke of Newcastle was driven by dread of unpopularity to appear to do something. The country, thoroughly persuaded that the time had come when it must make the decisive fight for its trade and colonies, was burning for war. But continental complications, and above all his own vacillating timid character, made Newcastle shrink from vigorous action. There was indeed an immense bustle of preparation. Ships were ordered into commission by the score from the beginning of the year, and the work of putting the fleet on a war footing was accompanied by the inseparable offers of bounty and press-warrants. On the 23rd January 1755 there came out one proclamation offering a bounty of thirty shillings to every able seaman between twenty and fifty years of age who would volunteer, and twenty shillings to every ordinary seaman. On the 8th February another followed recalling all seamen serving abroad, and raising the bounties to £3 and £2, while the common informer was stimulated by rewards of £2 to whomsoever would tell where an able seaman was in hiding, and of £1, 10s. to the betrayer of an ordinary. A hot press went on in all the ports. The war was a merchants’ war, and the traders of London and the outports offered bounties in addition to those given by the state. By this combination of persuasion and force the fleet was manned after a fashion. Yet the mere fact that the competition for men sent up the wages of merchant seamen by leaps and bounds made the work of filling up the warships very difficult. It was necessary to have recourse to the prisoners in the jails, who were allowed to volunteer into the navy, or were sent there as punishment. Parliament suspended the provisions of the Navigation Laws, which limited the number of foreigners who could serve in a British ship to one-fourth. It even tempted them to serve under our flag by allowing them to obtain letters of naturalisation at the end of two years, instead of the usual limit of eight. By this act the Crown was empowered to suspend the manning clauses of the Navigation Laws whenever war should break out in future.

The dire need for men led to the adoption of two measures, one of private enterprise, which did good work in its time, one administrative of which we feel the benefit to this day. In 1756 was founded the Marine Society. This body was formed to take charge of destitute boys, whom it fed, clothed, and sent into the navy, where they were trained as seamen. The spring of 1755 is a notable epoch in the history of the Royal Navy, for it saw the foundation of the present corps of Marines. The regiments raised hitherto had always been “disbanded” or “broken” at the end of the wars. They had never held a properly settled position, and there had been a constant tendency to rob the force of its best men by rating them as able seamen so soon as they had been long enough at sea to learn the business. At the end of the War of the Austrian Succession the Duke of Cumberland had recommended the formation of a permanent military corps to be placed entirely under the authority of the Admiralty. Nothing, however, was done till the 3rd April 1755, when the Lords Justices, who governed during the absence of the king in Hanover, issued a warrant authorising the formation of fifty companies of one hundred men each, which were to have their headquarters at Chatham, Portsmouth, and Plymouth. The value of the Marines (the title Royal was not granted till 1802) was rapidly demonstrated, and their numbers were increased. Thirty companies were added before the end of 1755. Twenty more were ordered to be raised in July 1756, and another thirty in March 1757. Two years later, on 3rd March 1759, one lieutenant, one corporal, one drummer, and twenty-three privates were added to every company. By the end of the war the total strength of the force was 18,000.

All this stress of preparation was presided over by mere infirmity of will. In July the Ministry, still guided by Newcastle, sent Sir Edward Hawke to sea with twenty-one sail of the line, but with no definite orders to begin hostilities. He was told to intercept a French squadron from the West Indies and to capture French merchant ships. The squadron put into Cadiz, got warning which enabled it to avoid the English fleet, and reached Brest safely. But 300 merchant ships manned by 8000 men were taken, and carried into our ports. This seizure of trading ships in a time of nominal peace gave the French Government an opportunity to denounce us to Europe as pirates. Many Englishmen thought it would have been more for our honour to make war openly, since we were about making it at all. Yet the French had little right to complain after the example they had set in India and America. The vessels were not condemned as prize, and as they were largely loaded with fish their cargoes rotted, so that it was necessary to tow them out to sea and sink them. Hawke returned to port, ill pleased with the work he had been set to do, and was replaced in the Channel command by Admiral Byng. Then Byng was sent out to convince the country that something was being done. He took a French line-of-battle ship, the _Esperance_, but still war was not proclaimed. The French Government professed a wish to keep the peace. Yet at the end of 1755 and the beginning of 1756 it marched troops down to the Channel. As the Duke of Newcastle had succeeded for a time in infecting the nation with his own cowardice, we were thrown into an unutterably shameful panic by fear of invasion, though we had a powerful fleet in commission at home, and the French had not the means of fitting out a dozen ships at Brest. Under cover of this diversion the French invaded Minorca in April. Then at last the Government was brought to confess that war was war. Our proclamation appeared on the 17th May, and was answered by the French on the 9th of June.

The panic of the country in the early months of 1756 was to some extent justified. Yet its underlying belief, that if it could only find a man to rule it had the strength to assert its maritime and colonial supremacy, was well founded. In point of mere material force the navy was far superior to the French. At the beginning of 1756 we had, including the 50-gun ships which were still counted as fit to lie in a line of battle, 142 liners. The smaller vessels were 125, taking frigates and sloops together. When the bombs, fireships, and other craft such as hospital ships were included, the total was 320. The quality of our vessels, though still not all it ought to have been, had improved greatly under the new establishment of 1745. The discipline of the navy had bettered with the vessels. Some of the old leaven still remained, and in one respect much was left to be done. We had yet to learn how shameful it was that a fine squadron should be paralysed by disease as Boscawen’s had been. But we were on the right path. The intellect of the navy was awake, and was beginning to apply itself to improving its armament and its discipline. There was as yet no revolt against the Fighting Orders.

Want of numbers was the least of the evils which weighed on our enemy. In 1754 the navy of France included only 60 line-of-battle ships. Of these, 8 were in need of thorough repair, and 4 were still in the stocks. During the brief administration of M. de Rouille efforts were made to reinforce this list. Fifteen new line-of-battle ships were launched by 1756. We may suppose that they included the vessels building in 1754. If the eight in need of repair were thoroughly overhauled by the same date, this would give France 71 line-of-battle ships. But the French did not include the 50-gun ships, of which they had 10, in the list, and they had therefore about 81 vessels to oppose to our 142. Of ships of 20 to 44 guns they had only some 40 to oppose to our 83. Their navy was therefore about one-half as numerous as ours. It must be remembered that at this time France still held Canada and important stations on the coast of Coromandel. She was under the same obligations as ourselves to scatter her forces all over the world, and that with the prospect of being everywhere outnumbered. With such a task to overcome, the French had need of the very highest efficiency in every branch of the naval service. But their navy had as much to seek in quality as in quantity. The corrupt and careless government of Louis XV. had allowed the storehouses to become nearly empty. During the years of peace no attempt had been made to give the officers practice. In 1756 it was calculated that of 914 officers 700 had nothing to do except mount guard for twenty-four hours in the dockyards eight or ten times a year. The old feud between the Pen and the Sword—that is, the civil and military branches of the navy—raged furiously. On the ships there was mutual hostility between the officers of the regular corps and the supplementary officers taken in on the outbreak of war, and known as _officiers bleus_. None of the corporations of the old French monarchy was more aristocratic or more jealous than the _Corps de la marine_. The so-called despotic King of France had far less power of choosing his officers than the constitutional King of Great Britain. M. de Rouille endeavoured to revive the professional spirit of the officers, dulled by years of dawdling about the dockyards, by establishing the Académie de la marine, with the well-known writer on tactics, Bigot de Morogue, as its first head. But it was years before this could bear fruit, and France began the Seven Years’ War with all the conditions internal and external against her. How came it, then, that her navy was not mewed up in port at once? The answer is easy. Because the British Navy had its arms tied behind its back by the incapacity of the men who ruled, till Pitt freed it.

The first great operation of the war was conducted under a fatal combination of administrative stupidity in London and of the old leaven in the fleet. Reports that the French were preparing a powerful squadron at Toulon began to reach England before the end of 1755. The orders to prepare had been given in August, but in the destitution of the French dockyards eight months passed before it was ready. The boasted _classes_ failed to produce men, and the French were driven to offers of bounty, and to attempts to recruit Italian sailors at Genoa. It was long before the urgent representations of our Consul at Genoa, and of General Blakeney at Minorca, could make the Ministry see that the island was in danger. Blakeney was a gallant old Anglo-Irishman born in 1672, who had fought against the Rapparees in 1690, and served under King William and Marlborough, had been at Carthagena with Vernon, and had defended Stirling Castle against the Jacobites in the ’45. He commanded the place, though bedridden with gout, in the absence of Lord Tyrawley the Governor, who according to the easy practice of the day drew his salary at home. It was not less characteristic of the time that many officers of this threatened garrison were absent on leave when the French invaded the island.

Richelieu landed with 14,000 men at Ciudadela on the 19th April. After many delays and much confusion, the Ministry had at last been brought to see that Minorca was in danger, and a squadron of ten ships had sailed to relieve it on the 6th April. The command of the squadron was given to an officer whose name has a tragic interest unique in the long list of British admirals. John Byng was the fourth son of that George Byng, Viscount Torrington, whose active subordinate share in the Revolution of 1688, and command in the Mediterranean in 1718, have been already mentioned. The son was born in 1704, and had gone to sea at the age of thirteen. He served under his father at the battle of Cape Passaro, and became post-captain at the age of twenty-three. He had gained no distinction, nor had he sought any, on those remote unhealthy stations where the most arduous work of the navy was being done. His portrait is that of a handsome, refined, but plump and easy-going young man, and compares ill with his father’s. George Byng has the lean, eager face of one who though of gentle birth had to climb by his own efforts. John Byng has the air of one whose father was born before him, and who did not rise, but was carried up with no effort of his own by the fortune another had made. He had sat in Parliament, and had not escaped the corrupting influence of the factious, selfish, jobbing spirit of the political world of his generation.

Byng was selected to carry the reliefs to Minorca on the 11th March, but nearly a month passed before he sailed. Though we had a great fleet commissioned and commissioning, much difficulty was found in manning the ten ships assigned him for the service. The Admiralty refused to draft men from well-manned vessels on the ground that they were needed at home. Some part of the blame for this must be put on Anson and Boscawen, who were on the Board. The great responsibility lay on the mere politicians and borough-mongers whose folly was paralysing the strength of England, but it must be confessed that Anson in dealing with political chiefs and colleagues did not show the courage he had never failed to display in fighting the storm or the broadsides of the enemy. As Byng was to reinforce the garrison of Minorca, he carried with him both the officers who were at home on leave and Lord Robert Bertie’s regiment of foot. By a piece of blundering, for which Anson cannot be held blameless, the marines were landed to make room for the soldiers. If now they were landed in Minorca, the squadron, already ill manned, would have been dangerously weakened. As the French were known to have a fleet at sea, Byng was thus put at a serious disadvantage, and an angry sense of ill-treatment rankled in his mind, not unnaturally, but fatally, for it had a share in causing him to adopt a line of conduct which brought discredit to his country and a shameful death to himself. It never occurred to him that if he beat the enemy’s fleet soundly he could safely land the soldiers who had taken the place of his marines.

His orders were dated the 1st April. He was told to sail to the Straits of Gibraltar. If on arriving there he heard that the French had sent vessels into the Atlantic bound for America, he was to detach part of his squadron under his second in command, Rear-Admiral Temple West, to follow them, and proceed with the remainder to Minorca. If he found that the island was being attacked, he was to render what help he could, and if not, then to blockade Toulon. There is a certain futility in these orders, for they take no notice of the contingency that even if Byng was able to beat off the French warships, or found none to fight, the relief he brought might not be sufficient to enable Blakeney to resist the troops already landed under Richelieu. But he would do much if he could cut the French off from Toulon, and however feeble the measures of ministers may have been, it was not the less his duty to do his utmost. Byng, unhappily for himself, and for us, drew the strange deduction, that since he was not supplied with the means of relieving the garrison altogether, he was justified in making a feeble use of his ships. Orders were also sent to General Fowke, who was in command at Gibraltar, to spare a part of his garrison for Minorca if he felt that he could part with them safely.

The voyage out to Gibraltar was tedious. It was not till the 2nd May that Byng reached the Rock, where he was joined by Commodore Edgcumbe with the =Princess Louisa=, 60, and the =Fortune= sloop, part of a small squadron which had been cruising in the neighbourhood of Minorca when it was invaded. The =Deptford=, 50, and the =Portland=, 50, joined shortly afterwards. At Gibraltar Byng also heard of the landing of the French, of their strength, and of the distressed position of the English garrison shut up in Fort St. Philip, at the mouth of Mahon Harbour. On the 4th May he sent off a dispatch which is of extreme importance as illustrating the state of mind he was in, and as explaining his conduct. In it he says:—

“If I had been so happy as to have arrived at Mahon before the French had landed, I flatter myself I would have been able to have prevented their setting foot on that island; but, as it has so unfortunately turned out, I am firmly of opinion, from the great force they have landed, and the quantity of provisions, stores and ammunition of all kinds they have brought with them, that the throwing men into the castle, will only enable it to hold out a little longer time, and add to the number that must fall into the enemy’s hands; for the garrison in time will be obliged to surrender, unless a sufficient number of men could be landed to dislodge the French or raise the siege.”

After thus declaring that all efforts must be useless, he promised to go on to Minorca to do what he could, and in case it should turn out to be nothing, then he would return to Gibraltar to cover that place. This letter, which was sent home overland, gives the measure of the man. It may be compared with the letter which Herbert had sent up to London on first sighting Tourville’s fleet off the Isle of Wight in 1690. Both men were plainly under the influence of a mischievous delight on contemplating the embarrassment which a national disaster would be likely to bring on the ministers who had sent them out with insufficient fleets. Herbert had the excuse that he was in the presence of a much superior force. Byng makes no mention of inability to fight the French fleet. He was prepared to retire without a battle if he could not get security that the French troops would also be driven off by the reinforcement he had brought, and this he had already declared to be impossible. In the same letter he speaks of the chance that the French would come on to Gibraltar when they had got all the vessels ready they possibly could. He neither contemplated the possibility of attempting to beat them in detail before they were all ready, nor the effect likely to be produced on Richelieu if his communications with France were cut. Yet a strong fort open to relief from the sea might have made a prolonged defence, and could have given time for further reinforcements from England. When they arrived, the total surrender of the French would be inevitable. It was natural that when this letter reached England the Ministry concluded that Byng did not mean to exert himself to relieve Minorca, and that foreseeing a disaster, they took measures to turn popular rage against the admiral. They would have been more than human if they had not, and Byng was a foolish man indeed if he did not know that they were very basely human.

The squadron, now increased from ten to thirteen sail, left Gibraltar on the 8th May. General Fowke, with a weakness equal to Byng’s, declined to part with more than 250 men. There had been councils and confabulations of weak men, all ending in agreement that the enterprise was hopeless. So Byng reluctantly approached “the post of the foe.” On the 19th he was in sight of Minorca at the south-easterly point where St. Philip stands at the mouth of the long land-locked harbour of Mahon. The French fleet was not then in sight. The =Phœnix= frigate commanded by Captain Hervey, with the =Chesterfield= and =Dolphin=, were sent on ahead with the officers belonging to the garrison, and orders to communicate with General Blakeney. Before they could reach the harbour mouth the French fleet was sighted to the south-east, and Byng recalled the frigates. It was an unnecessary measure, due to excess of caution, for the frigates were not indispensable to the fighting power of the fleet, and the military officers they carried would have been of great value to the garrison.

The rest of the day passed in manœuvres, and without a battle. Byng’s squadron was outsailed, but he showed no zeal to force on an action, and confined himself to endeavouring to remain to windward. During the night the fleets parted, and at daybreak were not in sight of one another. They were from 30 to 40 miles off the island. It was hazy, but cleared up about ten, when the enemy was seen a long way off to the south-east. The wind was from the south-west. By midday the two fleets were approaching one another, both close hauled, the French on the port, the English on the starboard tack, in two lines forming an obtuse angle. About one we weathered the head of the French line, and Byng afterwards boasted of having gained the weather-gage. If he did it by fair sailing, his ships cannot have been so inferior in quality to the enemy as he pleaded they were when he had to excuse himself. As the French habitually preferred to engage to leeward, which left their line of retreat open, it is probable that he attributed to his own skill what was the deliberate act of the enemy. About two o’clock the English had passed to windward, and to the south of La Galissonière, our last vessel being nearly abreast of his first. We were thirteen of the line, and the French twelve. Being now in the position to force on a battle, Byng brought his fleet round, all ships turning together, so that we headed in the same general direction as the French, and ordered the =Deptford= to leave the line so that we might be ship to ship with the enemy. It was a strange action in an admiral who complained bitterly of the inferiority of his fleet, but was doubtless due to mere pedantry. Byng, who was a martinet in the fopperies of his profession, had no idea of fighting a battle except by the orthodox pattern, van to van, centre to centre, rear to rear, and having one ship more than his opponent, did not know what to do with her. Here are the two fleets in the order in which they engaged:—

ENGLISH

=Defiance= 60 Capt. Andrews. =Portland= 50 " Baird. =Lancaster= 60 " Edgcumbe.

=Buckingham= } (flagship of } 68 " Everitt. Admiral West) } =Captain= 64 " Catford. =Intrepid= 64 " Young.

=Revenge= 64 " Cornwall.

=Princess Louisa= 60 " Noel. =Trident= 64 " Durell. =Ramillies= (flagship} 90 " Gardiner. of Byng) } =Culloden= 74 " Ward.

=Kingston= 60 " Parry.

FRENCH

_Lion_ 64 Capt. de Saint-Aignan. _Triton_ 64 " de Mercier. _Redoutable_ } (flagship of } Commodore } 74 " de Vilarzel. de Glandèvez)} _Orphée_ 64 " de Raymondis.

_Fier_ 50 " d’Herville.
_Guerrier_ 74 " Villars de
Labrosse.
_Foudroyant_ }
(flagship of } 80 " Froger de
La Galissonière) } l’Eguille.
_Téméraire_ 74 " de Beaumont
Lemaître.
_Hippopotame_ 50 " Rochemore.
_Content_ 64 " de Sabran
Grammont.
_Couronne_ (flagship }
of Commodore } 74 " Gabanous.
de La Clue) }

_Sage_ 64 " Durevest.

When the order to engage was given, the fleets were not parallel, but on lines converging to form an acute angle ahead of them. Thus the leading English ship was nearer the leading ship of the French than the rear was to their rear. So if each bore down on the Frenchman opposite to it at the time, the vessels in the van would come into action first, and would be exposed to a converging fire, while it would depend on the enemy’s decision to stay still and be attacked, whether the centre and rear of the English fleet ever got into action at all.

Admiral West came down on the Frenchmen briskly, and then hauled up with the heads of his ships in the same direction as theirs. Meanwhile the other English vessels were steering to come into action while carefully preserving their relative positions to the vessels in the van. In the French line vessels here and there stood out, and ran to leeward. Our men cheered, thinking they had forced the enemy to flee, but the movement was the result of design. As these vessels ran to leeward, those astern “let all draw” and shot ahead. Thus a movement in advance was given to the whole French line, and the distance which the English ships of the centre and rear had to cover before reaching their proper opponents was constantly increased. In any case, the French admiral would almost certainly have succeeded in filing past the leading English vessels, crippling their rigging, and then running down to form a new line to leeward. But he was helped by a piece of bungling in our squadron. The =Intrepid=, the sixth ship, lost her foretop-mast. As she was before the wind, this ought to have been no great disaster, but she was so badly steered that she came right round and lay across the path of the following ship—the =Revenge=. According to all rule, tradition, and honour, the =Revenge= ought to have passed between the crippled =Intrepid= and the enemy—that is to leeward. But she tried to pass to windward, could not do so, and then backed her topsail to stop her way and prevent a collision. The vessels behind did the same thing, and thus our fleet broke in two. The five ships ahead of the =Intrepid= followed the enemy with Admiral West, while the others remained behind. It was about this time that the flag-captain, Gardiner, pointed out to Byng that if he stood out of his line he could bring the Frenchman then running past him to closer action. The admiral answered that Mathews had been broken for not taking his fleet down in a body, and that he would not incur the same fate. Rather than offend against the superstition of the line of battle, he would let the enemy get off unhurt. La Galissonière did get off with little damage, leaving us with three ships badly crippled in their rigging, and the whole fleet in scandalous disorder.