First Salute - Barbara Wertheim Tuchman [76]
Hardly designed to invigorate naval spirit, the verdicts of the Toulon courts-martial succeeded in tightening the grip of Fighting Instructions while mystifying the public and deepening public suspicion of government. Eleven out of twenty-nine captains were accused and tried, of whom one died, one deserted and was never heard of again, seven were cashiered from the service and only two acquitted. Damage and discouragement in the navy, not unnaturally, followed.
In 1777, the Admiralty’s report of 35 ships of the line in the Grand Fleet was shown to be fiction when surveyors reported the majority unfit for sea and only six fit for service, and these, when inspected by the new Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Keppel, “no pleasure to his seaman’s eye.” Little had improved since the survey of 1749, when the inspector discovered lax and ignorant officers, crews left idle and unskilled, stores disorganized, equipment shabby and decaying, ships dirty, unseaworthy and inadequately manned. Leaving untouched the central problem of corrupt management at the top to which these deficiencies could be traced, the authorities were moved to enact a sterner version of the Fighting Instructions under the title Additional Fighting Instructions, or, more formally, the Naval Discipline Act of 1749, which added “negligence” in the performance of duty falling short of the last ounce of fighting effort as a punishable offense. Under this legislation was staged the navy’s most notorious act of the century, the execution in 1757 of Admiral Byng on being tried and convicted under the death penalty of negligence in what was judged to be a halfhearted fight to relieve Minorca. In the actual combat that made Byng’s tragedy, when ordered to relieve Minorca, the Admiralty had underestimated, as it so often did, the strength of the enemy and had sent Byng with a small inadequate and ill-equipped squadron to the defense. The enemy had already landed and overrun the island when he reached Gibraltar. The Governor of Gibraltar, supposed to assist with troops, refused to release them, on the ground that they could not be spared from his garrison. Although Byng had already complained at the inadequacy of his squadron, he made no protest and proceeded against the French, whose ships were larger with heavier guns than his own, but were keeping to the defensive. When the two fleets came within sight, the French were to leeward and Byng had the wind. He raised the signal for line ahead but did not follow it at once, while he had the advantage, with the signal to bear down (engage) because his ships had not yet completed the line formation. He was cramped by the effect of the Mathews court-martial, which had punished Mathews for engaging without his full force in line. Having himself sat on the bench in the Mathews-Lestock case, Byng cited the verdict to his flag captain, “You see, Captain Gardiner, that the signal for the line is out,” and he pointed out that two ships were still out of place. “It was Mr. Mathews’ misfortune to be prejudiced by not carrying down his force together, which I shall endeavor to avoid.” When Byng did raise the signal to bear down, his ships, still in some disarray, came in at an angle with the van taking the full blows of the French guns. The center and rear were still too far apart from the enemy to bring their firepower to bear in support. The van was crushed. The fleets separated as night fell. Byng, making no effort to regroup, summoned a war council and readily accepted the advice given under his command that nothing further could be done and Minorca must be left to its fate. Accordingly, without further action he returned with his fleet to Gibraltar,