The memorial in a Bedfordshire church bristles with outrage: "To the perpetual Disgrace of Public Justice," it claims of the man it commemorates, Admiral John Byng, executed on the quarterdeck of his ship 250 years ago yesterday for failing to engage the French in battle with sufficient enthusiasm. He was, it adds, "a Martyr to Political Persecution...when Bravery and Loyalty were Insufficient Securities for the Life and Honour of a Naval Officer." Or, as Voltaire put it more coolly and cynically in his contemporary novel Candide: "In this country, it is wise to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others."
As they gathered at the church in Southill, Beds, yesterday at noon, the time of Byng's execution, to lay a wreath and say prayers, with the bell tolling 52 times in commemoration of his age, descendants of the unfortunate admiral who have petitioned the government for a posthumous pardon were aware that their request was unlikely to be granted.
Last night, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said Byng could not receive the sort of pardon that ministers granted last year to men shot at dawn during the first world war - basically because there is no one alive who remembers him.
The MoD said there had been specific reasons for the first world war victims to be pardoned: "There are people alive who knew them. There was a feeling that a wrong had been done. It was a personal matter rather than something lost in the mist of time." The Byng episode, the spokesman said, was accepted past history and a pardon would set a precedent. Who next? Anne Boleyn or Joan of Arc?
But descendant Sarah Saunders-Davies from Romsey, Hampshire, called it a shameful end for an admiral with an unblemished career. "His court martial was a sham, with false testimonies, witness intimidation and intrigue - all to cover up the failure of the government."
Byng, a career naval officer, certainly appears to have been stitched up. He was sent with an inadequate fleet in May 1756 to prevent the capture of the British garrison at St Philip's Castle on the island of Menorca after a French invasion. The admiral made it clear that he believed he did not have enough ships or men, but was denied reinforcements. When a French fleet hove into view, they were half-heartedly engaged but then allowed to escape and Byng eventually set sail back to Gibraltar without relieving the fort.
He may have been unfortunate that the French commander's jubilant account of the battle reached London before his own report did and the government, privately ashamed it had underestimated the threat to the island, determined to make its admiral a scapegoat. It released an edited version of Byng's dispatch to inflame the public against him then had him arrested, brought back to England and put before a court martial at Greenwich. Byng was so sure he would be acquitted that he ordered a carriage to carry him back to London.
If the ministerial miscalculations sound familiar from subsequent conflicts, Byng's punishment was not. The government had recently altered the articles of war to ensure officers could not evade responsibility for their actions through the pulling of strings. The only punishment for dereliction of duty was death.
On March 14 1757, despite appeals from the court martial - two vice-admirals refused to sign the sentence - Byng was led on to the quarterdeck of his flagship, the Monarque, anchored off Spithead, and was shot by an execution party of Marines. In the words of the Newgate Calendar: "Thus fell, to the astonishment of all Europe, Admiral John Byng who was at least rashly condemned, cruelly sacrificed to vile political intrigues."
Byng was the first and last admiral to be executed. But there is a view that Voltaire was right. The naval historian N A M Roger believes his death did indeed encourage the others: "The execution of Byng ... taught officers that even the most powerful friends might not save an officer who failed to fight ... Byng's death revived a culture of determination which set British officers apart from their foreign contemporaries.
Mrs Saunders-Davies said: "Admiral Byng did not deserve to be shot. He may not have been a brilliant sailor but he had an unblemished career and he had never lost a ship or drowned a sailor. The Byngs won't take the refusal of a pardon lying down. We're going to take this further."
Backstory
Britain seized Menorca during the war of the Spanish succession in 1708 and held it until the French invaded in 1756. There is evidence that the government of the Duke of Newcastle knew an invasion was imminent months earlier, but did nothing to reinforce the garrison at St Philip's Castle (Port Mahon), under the command of the bedridden 81-year-old General William Blakeney. Most of the garrison's officers had been allowed to go on leave to Gibraltar. In March 1756, Admiral John Byng (left) was ordered to sail from Gibraltar with a fleet of 10 ships to defend the island and deliver a force of 200 marines to reinforce the fort. He protested that he would not have enough men. He came off worse after engaging a larger French fleet and retreated to Gibraltar, leaving the fort to be captured. The battle was the start of the seven years' war, the first global conflict, during which the British would more than make amends for the loss by destroying French influence in India and America.