Byng, John

Byng, John

▪ British admiral
born 1704, Southill, Bedfordshire, Eng.
died March 14, 1757, harbour of Portsmouth, Hampshire
 British admiral executed for failing to relieve the naval base at Minorca (in the western Mediterranean) from a French siege. By initiating legal proceedings against Byng, the administration of Prime Minister Thomas Pelham-Holles (Newcastle, Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of, Duke Of Newcastle-upon-tyne, Marquess Of Clare, Earl Of Clare, Viscount Haughton, Baron Pelham Of Laughton, Baron Pelham Of Stanmer), 1st Duke of Newcastle, hoped to divert public attention from its own failings; nevertheless, Newcastle resigned in November 1756.

      The son of George Byng, Viscount Torrington, a prominent admiral, John entered the Royal Navy in 1718 and became a rear admiral in 1745. In 1755, on the eve of the Seven Years' War (1756–63), it was feared that the British base at Minorca would be attacked. Accordingly, three months before the outbreak of war, Byng was sent with an inadequate force to defend the island, but, by the time he arrived in May of that year, a French force under the Duke de Richelieu had already landed and was besieging Fort St. Philip. Byng fought a halfhearted engagement with a French fleet under the Marquis de La Galissonnière, and, at a council of war held afterward, he decided that his force was insufficient to either renew the attack or relieve the fort. He therefore returned to Gibraltar, leaving Minorca to the enemy. This failure aroused a storm of indignation in England, motivating Newcastle to promise that “he shall be tried immediately; he shall be hanged directly.” Byng was court-martialed on his own flagship in Portsmouth harbour; he was found guilty of neglect of duty and was executed by a firing squad of marines.

      The episode provoked the French author Voltaire to remark in Candide that the English found it necessary from time to time to shoot an admiral “pour encourager les autres” (“in order to encourage the others”).

Additional Reading
Brian Tunstall, Admiral Byng and the Loss of Minorca (1928).

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  • Byng, John — (1704 1757)    Born in England. Entered the navy in 1718. In 1727 1736 stationed at Mahon, Minorca; and in 1747 1748 commanded in the Mediterranean. In 1756 engaged the French at Minorca and after an indecisive battle retreated to Gibraltar,… …   The makers of Canada

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