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
Defiance60Capt.Andrews.
Portland50〃Baird.
Lancaster60〃Edgcumbe.
Buckingham (flagship of Admiral West)68〃Everitt.
Captain64〃Catford.
Intrepid64〃Young.
Revenge64〃Cornwall.
Princess Louisa60〃Noel.
Trident64〃Durell.
Ramillies (flagship of of Byng)90〃Gardiner.
Culloden74〃Ward.
Kingston60〃Parry.