Page images
PDF
EPUB

1757.

COURT-MARTIAL ON BYNG.

93

and exclaimed, "What! they have not put a slur on me, "have they?"—apprehending that they had condemned him for cowardice. On being assured that they had not, his countenance at once resumed its serenity, and he went to hear the sentence of his death pronounced with the utmost calmness and composure.

In almost any other Court, or almost any other case, an unanimous recommendation to mercy from the judges would be treated as conclusive. Not so was it held in the case of Byng. The English people were still chafed at their loss of Minorca, and clamorous for a victim. Anonymous letters reached His Majesty's hands, with threats, if he should venture to pardon. Hand bills were posted up, with the paltry rhyme, and more paltry sentiment, HANG BYNG, OR TAKE CARE OF YOUR KING. Some of the late administration were base enough to hope that the sacrifice of the Admiral would be their own vindication. And, above all, each party was lying in wait, eager to charge and denounce the others upon the slightest symptom as favourers of Byng.

[ocr errors]

At this crisis the conduct of Pitt appears to me in no small degree deserving of honour and respect. He saw the tide of popular opinion running decidedly and strongly against Byng. And it was on popular opinion only that Pitt himself leant for support. He could not trust to dexterous cabals, like Fox, nor to Royal favour, as once Granville, nor to patronage of boroughs, like Newcastle. Yet this public feeling, which alone had borne him to office, which alone could maintain him in office, he now, when he deemed justice at stake, deliberately confronted and withstood. He openly declared in the House of Commons his wish that the King's prerogative might be exerted in mitigation of the sentence, adding that he thought more good would come from mercy than from rigour. To His Majesty in private Pitt detailed whatever other relenting indications had, though timidly, appeared in the debate, and said that the House of Commons wished to see the Admiral pardoned. Sir," replied the King, "you have taught me to look "for the sense of my subjects in another place than in "the House of Commons." * This answer His Majesty

66

* Lord Orford's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 157.

designed as a severe reproof; yet how high is the compliment which in truth it conveys!

The Royal ear had been, however, prepossessed by other advisers, and remained deaf to all arguments for the mitigation of the sentence. His Majesty appears to have entertained the opinion,-in common with a large majority of his subjects at the time, that some rigorous example was required for the future discipline of the Navy. One of Voltaire's tales has well portrayed this prevailing idea, when he makes his imaginary traveller land at Portsmouth, and witness the execution of an Admiral who is shot, as he is told, on purpose to encourage the others! * Voltaire, however, did not confine himself to satire on this subject; having received by accident from the Duke de Richelieu a letter containing some laudatory expressions on Byng, he sent it over to the unfortunate Admiral to be used in his defence, an act of much humanity, but of no result.t

No where did the Admiral find more strenuous intercessors than among his former judges. Several of the Court Martial were constantly urging the Admiralty with entreaties that his life might be spared. One of them, Captain Augustus Keppel, (famous in after years as Admiral and Lord) authorised Horace Walpole the younger, and he in his turn authorised Sir Francis Dashwood, to declare to the House of Commons that Keppel and some of his brethren desired a Bill to absolve them from their Oath of Secrecy, as they had something of weight to say in relation to their sentence. Keppel was himself a Member of the House, but too bashful to speak in public. Being, however, generally called upon to rise and explain himself, after Sir Francis's communication, he again expressed his wish, and named four other Members of the Court as concurring in it. There was here, however, some misapprehension on his part or some treachery on their's, since of these four, two afterwards disclaimed what Keppel had alleged in their name. "The House," says an eye-witness, was wonderously

66

* "Dans ce pays çi il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un "Amiral pour encourager les autres!" (Candide, chap. 23.)

† Correspondance de Voltaire, vol. iv. p. 424. 432. et 450. ed. 1825. See also Sir John Barrow's Life of Lord Anson, p. 275.

1757.

EXECUTION OF BYNG.

95

"softened."* Next day the King sent a message, through Pitt, announcing that he had respited the Admiral's execution while these suggestions for disclosures were in progress. A Bill to absolve the Members of the Court Martial from their Oath of Secrecy was accordingly brought in by Sir Francis Dashwood, supported by Pitt, and cavilled at by Fox. "Is it proper," asked he, "that a set of judges should go about for three weeks, "hearing solicitations from the friends of the prisoner, "and then come and complain of their own sentence? The Bill was carried rapidly and tumultuously by 153 against 23. But in the Upper House it was treated with judicial accuracy and precision by two chiefs of the Law, -Lords Hardwicke and Mansfield. They examined at their Bar separately and on oath every member of the Court Martial, requiring answers especially to these two questions: "Whether you know any matter that passed previous to the sentence upon Admiral Byng, which may show that sentence to have been unjust?' And, "Whether you know any matter that passed previous to "the said sentence which may show that sentence to "have been given through any undue practice or motive?" To the general surprise every Member of the Court Martial, - -even Keppel himself,-answered both these questions in the negative. It thus plainly appeared that the Bill owed its origin rather to kind feeling than to settled judgment, and that its whole foundation had now crumbled away; it was accordingly rejected by the Lords, not without some expressions of contempt for the haste and heedlessness of the House of Commons.‡

66

66

66

[ocr errors]

No further obstacles interposed, and the completion of the tragedy was fixed for the 14th of March. Byng's whole behaviour was most manly, -equally unaffected and undaunted. A few days before one of his friends standing by him said, “Which of us is tallest?" He answered, "Why this ceremony? I know what it means; "let the man come and measure me for my coffin." More

* H. Walpole to Sir H. Mann, March 3. 1757.

† Parl. Hist., vol. xv. p. 815., &c.

Lord Marchmont and Lord Hardwicke treated the House of "Commons with the highest scorn." (Lord Orford's Memoirs,

vol. ii. p. 487.)

than once he declared his satisfaction that at least he was acquitted of cowardice, and his conviction that he had acted throughout to the utmost of his ability. These sentiments were also expressed in a written paper, which he delivered to the Marshal of the Admiralty a few moments before his execution. For some time past he had been confined on board the Monarque in Portsmouth harbour; he now desired to be shot on the quarterdeck, and not in the place assigned to common malefactors. At the appointed hour of noon he walked forth with a firm step, and placed himself in a chair, refusing to kneel or allow his face to be covered, that it might be seen whether he betrayed the least symptom of fear. Some officers around him, however, represented that his looks might confuse the soldiers, and distract their aim, on which he submitted, saying, "If it will frighten them, "let it be done; they would not frighten me.' His eyes were bound; the soldiers fired, and Byng fell.

[ocr errors]

On reviewing the whole of this painful transaction it appears just to acknowledge that, notwithstanding the party insinuations of that time, the officers of the Court Martial were swayed only by pure and honourable motives. They judged right, as I conceive, in pronouncing that Byng did not do as much as he might have done for the relief of Minorca; they judged right in acquitting him both of treachery and cowardice. But they seem to me to err when they proceed to apply to the case of Byng the severe penalties prescribed by the 12th Article of War. They confound the two ideas-neglect of duty and error of judgment. It was not from any heedless omission that the Admiral had failed to pursue the French fleet, or to relieve the English garrison; it was from inferior talent and inferior energy of mind. Το such deficiencies the 12th article, with its penalty of death, was clearly not intended to apply. But further still, supposing the sentence passed, it was surely no light stain on the Royal Prerogative, or on those who wielded it, to set at nought the unanimous recommendation of the judges. To deny the claim of mercy in such a case could scarcely be palliated even by the strongest motives of State-policy. In truth, however, all sound State-policy points in the opposite direction. Whenever a dispropor

1757.

EXECUTION OF BYNG.

97

tionate severity is applied to an involuntary fault, the sure result, after a short interval, is to enlist public sympathy on the side of the sufferer, to change condemnation into pity, and to exalt any ordinary officer, who has acted to the best of his small abilities, into the fame of a hero and a martyr.

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »