Since its capture in 1708, Minorca had been central to the naval and mercantile policies of Britain in the Mediterranean. The island possessed a deep water port, allowing the maintenance of a sizable fleet, which, in turn, permitted close supervision of the French and Spanish navies and the protection of a resurgent Levant trade from French, Spanish, and Barbary privateers. Both the government and members of the trading nation publicly maintained their commitment to the retention of this valuable island. As a result, reports that the French were considering an invasion of Minorca in the early months of 1756 and that they had indeed succeeded in May 1756 caused profound, nationwide anxiety. Furthermore, news that the English fleet under Admiral John Byng had failed to liberate the island ignited public fury that culminated in the collapse of the ruling ministry and the execution of Byng. In response to the loss, one newspaper concluded that England had become little better than a “nation of Harlequins,” much too effeminate to combat the French.Footnote 1 A year later, John Brown was convinced that the times were characterized by a “vain, luxurious and selfish effeminacy.”Footnote 2

Several historians have interpreted these and similar contemporary statements as a sign of a cultural crisis in the mid-eighteenth century. Kathleen Wilson, Gerald Newman, Susan Kingsley Kent, and Matthew McCormack have argued that public reaction to the disastrous beginning to the Seven Years’ War revealed uncertainty regarding the state of masculinity and that the loss of Minorca inaugurated a period of intense self-reflection focused on the impact of luxury and the prevalence of French politeness in aristocratic circles, both considered to have introduced a “creeping effeminate supineness that had corroded martial spirit and courage to the point where British imperial decline and defeat were all but inevitable.”Footnote 3 Their conclusions are predicated on the belief that public comment in the press reflected the national mood. This article adopts a different approach, suggesting that public discussion about the loss of the island was underwritten not by concerns of national emasculation but rather by eminently practical political rhetorical strategies designed to undermine the reputations of the two men at the center of the crisis—Admiral John Byng and Thomas Pelham-Holles, the duke of Newcastle. No one had anticipated the loss of Minorca. In fact, in the months beforehand, confidence that the island would be retained and the French vanquished dominated the press. News of the island's capture precipitated a political crisis from which both the government and the opposition sought to capitalize. On the one hand, William Pitt and his patriot supporters sought to use the Minorca crisis to inspire a Parliamentary inquiry into the duke of Newcastle's actions leading to the loss of the island and thus to destabilize his government. They did this not by assailing the cultural affinities between English and French aristocrats, but rather by directly intimating Newcastle's close political connections to, and seeming collusion with, the French government. The opposition press, encouraged by Pitt, linked Newcastle's role in the negotiation of the 1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle—the flawed resolution to the War of the Austrian Succession by which England had not only returned valuable conquests, such as the fortress of Louisburg, to the French but also failed to disarm the French in any meaningful way—to the loss of Minorca, explicitly establishing a pro-Gallican pattern of behavior. In the estimation of the opposition, Newcastle's continuation in office was inimical to the safety and freedom of England as the duke was simply too politically “Frenchified” to lead Britain into war.

On the other hand, Newcastle's efforts to escape parliamentary censure by blaming the loss on Admiral Byng relied on the historical tension that had been developed and refined over the preceding century in popular naval histories and biographies between overly social officers and their more professional counterparts. Naval biographies delineated two naval archetypes: competent “tarpaulins,” who were trained sailors, experienced from a very early age, courageous, and loyal; and incompetent “gentlemen,” who were political appointees and social climbers, more interested in their social profile than in winning wars and, more importantly, who were timid and thus effete. Not surprisingly, this Manichean vision of masculinity bore little relation to reality. All sea officers in the British navy were subject to rigorous standards of training and had to adhere to strict occupational standards of conduct to obtain advancement. As such, they were all “tarpaulin” officers. But, not unlike all men of rank in Georgian England, they also sought out various social milieux to acquire and display politeness in mixed company. John Byng was, for all intents and purposes, a “tarpaulin” who was also a regular participant in sociable pastimes, and there is evidence to suggest that he successfully juggled these two ostensibly antithetical masculine roles.

Byng's success did not matter. Discussion of naval failure was underpinned by a powerful tautology—that failure was the province of the gentleman and gentlemen officers were prone to failure. Consequently, the keener an admiral was to advance into polite social circles, that is, the more he became a gentleman ashore, the greater chance that with a loss he would be deemed a “gentleman” at sea. This connection grew tighter during times of military crisis, and the reading public was vigorously reminded that striving to be gentlemen had historically guaranteed military failure. The Newcastle ministry consciously invoked the gentleman-tarpaulin dyad in the early days after the loss of Minorca, suggesting that Byng was indeed too cautious to save the island. In doing so, the government immediately cast a spotlight on Byng's social behavior, reinforcing the gentleman stereotype, and immediately conditioned public debate to enumerate the many ways Byng no longer conformed to the definition of a “tarpaulin” and was rather a “gentleman” admiral, an effeminate social gadabout.

Historians sensitive to gender have ascribed the contemporary fear of creeping effeminacy in the 1750s to a belief that the adoption of French mores by the aristocracy, and by implication the navy's officers who fraternized in aristocratic circles, led to the navy's moral corruption. Gerald Newman believes that an “emergent nationalist philosophy” surfaced in the 1750s, identifying French influence as a cultural pollution designed to sap English national identity and liberty.Footnote 4 Kathleen Wilson suggests that during the 1750s a sense of “emasculation and degeneracy [gripped] the body politic.”Footnote 5 Indeed, a virulent strand of antiaristocratic sentiment had entered mainstream political discourse by the mid-1750s, and aristocrats were responsible for the slide into effeminacy. Wilson further notes the belief that “the effeteness and selfishness of Britain's ruling classes had seeped down and corroded the polity, sapping patriotic fervour and leaving weakness, ineffectuality and supineness in its place. … Its denigration intersected with other efforts to eradicate behaviours and practices (sexual and consumer as well as political) that blurred gender lines or otherwise threatened masculinity and austerity in the political and cultural realms … effeminacy had produced a weak and enervated fighting force that was undermining Britain's position in the world by relinquishing to France her ‘Empire of the Sea.'”Footnote 6 Susan Kingsley Kent similarly intimates that the worship of French culture and mores by the English aristocracy was believed to have undermined the proper operation of the government and threatened not only the loss of England's empire but also complete capitulation of Britain to the French.Footnote 7 She also notes that the losses the English suffered in the 1740s, the 1750s, and the 1780s “caused the British to question” the manliness of their rulers.Footnote 8 Finally, Matthew McCormack argues that the mid-1750s witnessed the breakdown of gender norms, claiming that the “gender order had become subverted and [thus] needed reordering.” He sees the crisis as an “epistemological one” making “individuals’ gendered identities difficult to locate and sustain.”Footnote 9 There is little doubt that these historians see England gripped in the throes of a profound cultural crisis at mid-century. But was it?

Far from being absorbed by fears of their leaders failing masculinity, there is evidence to suggest that the English were eager to engage the French and confident of the outcome in the early months of 1756. Byng was noted to have sailed from England with a strong fleet, and contemporaries were convinced that an English victory in the Mediterranean was imminent.Footnote 10 The duke of Newcastle explained to the duke of Devonshire in April 1756 that the French “had designed to attack Minorca. If Admiral Byng gets there [in] time enough, that will be safe also.”Footnote 11 The duke of Cumberland wrote to Henry Fox in May advising that once Byng met with Edgecumbe, “there will be no doubt left of our superiority at sea in the Mediterranean.”Footnote 12 The press similarly exuded confidence. In March, the Whitehall Evening Post, for example, noted: “Various are the speculations on our naval affairs … but confiding in the skill and bravery of our commanders, and the resolution and courage of our inferior officers and seamen, [we] are content to wait for a happy issue.”Footnote 13 The London Evening Post posited that the French would find victory impossible because “true Britons love fighting.”Footnote 14 The Universal Visiter suspected that the battle of Minorca would recall past glories like those of Cressy or Blenheim, and the Gazetteer suggested it was “evident that the French cannot face us in open combat at sea,” and if they attempted to wage war, they would never recover from their losses.Footnote 15 A poem by David Garrick, reprinted in the April 1756 London Magazine, depicted English confidence:

The general optimism transmitted through the press was sustained by favorable accounts largely generated by rumors carried home by sea captains or transmitted by letters from the Continent. Newspapers were quick to publish such positive accounts. For example, on 31 May 1756, Boddely's Bath Journal printed an extract of a letter from Plymouth noting that “Byng had an engagement with the Toulon squadron and had taken some and sunk some.”Footnote 17 Similarly, the Boston Gazette gleaned from a Captain Smith that Byng “had with fifteen ships obtain’d a compleat victory over twenty-three French ships off Minorca.”Footnote 18Read's Weekly Journal claimed that Admiral Smith had spoken with a Dutch ship master who intimated that the French had already lost 4,000 men in various attacks upon Minorca.Footnote 19 The Public Advertiser claimed: “A letter from Mr. Cliffords of Amsterdam, to a gentleman of this city, brings advice of an engagement between Admiral Byng and Count Galissionnere in which four of the French fleet are said to be sunk, and three taken, and that we have lost two small ships.”Footnote 20 The Whitehall Evening Post offered a similar secondhand report suggesting that the two fleets had commenced an “engagement about noon, which lasted till eight at night, when the French Admiral retired with his fleet in a shatter’d condition to Cuitadella in order to refit and stop their leaks.”Footnote 21 Indeed, much of the news fit the triumphal tradition that governed representations of the navy in the public prints and was thus deemed worthy of publication.

So strong was the belief in the strength of English arms that even after eyewitness reports of the battle were tinged with pessimism, some newspapers continued to present a rosy picture. The Derby Mercury, following revelations that the first engagement had been less successful than hoped, noted in June: “But this day a report was spread, that an account is received from Genoa, that Admiral Byng has had a second engagement with the French fleet in which he had sunk four of the enemy's ships and taken one.”Footnote 22 This account clearly stemmed from the belief that the English navy was not a haven for cowards and would never shrink from a fight. In short, there was little belief that the English were in any way inferior to the French, nor was public comment willing to suggest as much.

The level of confidence conveyed by the public prints stemmed not only from a belief in the might of the English navy but from faith in Admiral John Byng. This may seem surprising to modern readers, whose impressions of Byng have been unfairly colored by the government's propaganda in the wake of the loss of Minorca. Unfortunately, his failure to relieve Minorca and the efforts to stain his character in the aftermath have ensured that his early career has been largely disregarded by historians. The Dictionary of National Biography devoted a mere one column of a six-column entry to his exploits before 1756, citing “the details of this service present no interest: nothing could be more uneventful.”Footnote 23 A third of the more recent Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry on Byng by Daniel Baugh is dedicated to the first thirty years of Byng's life, with the remaining two-thirds focused on the years 1756 and 1757.Footnote 24 Longer treatments of Byng's life represent a similarly disproportionate viewpoint. Brian Tunstall allocates an insignificant fifteen of the 293 pages of his book on Admiral Byng to subjects prior to 1755.Footnote 25 The most recent biography, by Dudley Pope, devotes thirty pages, a paltry one-tenth of the work, to Byng's pre-1756 career.Footnote 26 In large part, the perfunctory dismissal of Byng's earlier career was motivated by the idea that he had done nothing to set himself apart from the majority of the officers in the navy. Tunstall notes that, “though Byng had never done anything to distinguish himself, he had never failed,” and that as a result “there was nothing in Byng's exterior to create any public uneasiness.”Footnote 27

To the contrary, however, there is contemporary evidence to suggest that the eighteenth-century public was presented a much more positive view of Admiral Byng. Throughout the mid- to late 1740s, Byng was portrayed favorably in the press as a decisive leader whose efforts protected the country. For example, during the Jacobite invasion in 1745, Byng was sent to patrol the Scottish shores. Upon his arrival at Berwick, he was told of the inhabitants of Holy-Island, who were supplying French privateers. He responded by “putting a number of men ashore to prevent the like practise for the future.”Footnote 28 Similarly, Byng's efforts in the Mediterranean in the final years of the War of the Austrian Succession were publicly lauded, often described with terms like “diligent”Footnote 29 or “vigilant.”Footnote 30 The London Gazette noted in April 1748 that the court at Turin was “extremely pleased with the assistance of Vice-Admiral Byng … who cannonaded the enemy in their ports.”Footnote 31 But, more than anything, Byng's documented ability to capture the French and Spanish ships cemented the perception of success. News of the detention of enemy ships was common in times of war. Byng's squadron was particularly successful in this regard, and his name was repeatedly linked to increasingly large captures. In February 1748, for example, the General Evening Post trumpeted the capture of seventeen ships, “richly laden from the Levant,” by Byng's squadron. Footnote 32 There are clear indications that throughout the 1740s the public press regarded Admiral Byng in great esteem, and each mention further established Byng's reputation as a successful commander. Nothing leading to the loss of Minorca would have given the reading public pause for concern about either Byng's commitment or his capacity as a naval officer.

There is little evidence in the months before the loss of Minorca to suggest that the English were experiencing epistemological doubt about the efficacy of the royal navy or the ability of its senior officers or its ruling aristocracy. A broad constituency was quite confident that Byng and his fleet would perform well against the French navy and English honor would be upheld. However, once it had been determined that Byng had failed and Minorca had been ceded to the French, confidence turned to anger and precipitated a political crisis of significant magnitude. In the middle of the crisis, the opposition, sensing an opportunity to overcome the seemingly insurmountable position of the duke of Newcastle,Footnote 33 attacked the government for its lackluster response to the invasion. Newcastle had endlessly trumpeted the importance of the island to his administration, and he was aware of French plans to invade Minorca.Footnote 34 Yet, the opposition claimed that his administration had done little to save the island. The opposition had laid the seeds of this response in the sympathetic London press prior to the battle for Minorca. In early May, for example, the London Evening Post wrote in dismay: “Have we not been told from time to time, these three or four months past, that the French were equipping a strong fleet at Toulon? And have we not been likewise told, that its destination was against Minorca? Why then was not provision made for the safety of that important island, by sending in time such a squadron into the Mediterranean, as might have blocked up the Toulon fleet, or destroyed it?”Footnote 35 In June, the Gazetteer concurred, suggesting that “this looks very much like our former practice of staying till the steed is stolen, before we shut the stable door.Footnote 36 One month later, the Gazetteer continued to argue this point, asking: “But then is it worthwhile to enquire why fifteen or twenty sail were not dispatched thither, when it was certainly known that the French intended the conquest of Minorca?”Footnote 37 The press's focus was reflected in further general comment. Horace Mann, for example, asked Walpole, in a letter dated late May: “I hope you will enable me in time to answer the question that is daily made to me, why Mr. Bing was not sent out sooner?”Footnote 38 With the realization that the invasion of an island that both the government and the mercantile community valued was imminent, this inactivity made little sense.

Insinuations of government neglect grew more accusatory as evidence began to mount. The Newcastle ministry had reduced the size of the Mediterranean fleet, in contradiction of past government policy. England had always kept a strong fleet in the Mediterranean. The London Evening Post noted in May: “During Queen Anne's War we used to have fifty men of war in the Mediterranean, and seldom less than forty there; in the last war we constantly kept about thirty ships of the line and frigates to watch the motions of the French and Spanish fleets, and to protect our Mediterranean and Levant trade. Hence many folks are apt to cry out, why has the same not been done in the present conjuncture of affairs?”Footnote 39 The absence of ships in the Mediterranean was not a want of ships in general, however. According to the admiralty, who conducted a survey of the readiness of its ships at home in April of 1756, fifty-four ships remained in home waters with no prior sailing orders. Of these fifty-four, twenty-four were ships of the line, fifteen possessing more than seventy guns.Footnote 40 This was an exceptionally powerful fleet, commanded by the finest admirals at the time, including Edward Boscawen and Edward Hawke. Its retention in home waters was scandalous given the unfolding situation at Minorca. George Grenville noted in a letter to Pitt: “But, however the case may be with regard to [Byng], what can be the excuse for sending a force, which at the utmost is scarcely equal to the enemy, upon so important and decisive an expedition?”Footnote 41 Consequently, in June the Monitor asked: “Who kept the greatest fleet that ever was in commission, lying by the walls in the ports of Britain, till one of the limbs, most serviceable to the British commerce, was invaded by an enemy?”Footnote 42

Moreover, government claims to have maintained both a strong fleet and a serviceable naval base in the Mediterranean were dismissed. Successive admirals, including Byng, had both privately and publicly condemned the state of the Mediterranean fleet, and various ministries had fought doggedly since the early 1740s to avoid an inquest into the disposition of the fleet. Consequently, many commentators derided the notion that England possessed a powerful fleet. Benjamin Keene questioned the state of the ships in Byng's squadron, writing to Abraham Castres that he “had heard [Byng’s] ships criticized as soon as they were named in the papers by those who knew and had seen them.”Footnote 43 The anonymous Conduct of the Ministry Impartially Examined, published in 1756, claimed that the English fleet was in deplorable shape, with many ships in dock damaged by weather, sickness, or age. Only a small number of ships were actually sea worthy.Footnote 44 Critics claimed that Minorca had been similarly neglected. The London Magazine lamented in June that there were insufficient fortifications on such an important island;Footnote 45 those present were deemed to be “entirely decayed.”Footnote 46 Another pamphlet reminded its readers in 1757 that the parlous state of Minorca ensured that no fleet could have saved it.Footnote 47 Neither the navy nor the bases at Port Mahon and Gibraltar were in any shape to protect merchant operations in the Mediterranean.

Accusations of ministerial neglect of the safety of the nation focused specifically on the culpability of the duke of Newcastle, who was often depicted as presiding over the dissolution of Britain's imperial holdings. One anonymous handbill shown to the duke by William Hammond, the member of Parliament from Southwark, announced satirically:

Driving Newcastle's behavior, according to the anonymous author of a pamphlet entitled An Appeal to the Throne, was unadulterated greed: “The principal figure in this illustrious group … has fed upon the nation for so many years, tho’ he was as unwilling to leave it at last, as he would be to get up from a ragout cooked by the creative, or rather the transforming C—, while there was a bit remaining in the dish … he has too digestive a maw; tho’, if he should, it is feared that he would contrive one way or other to return again to his own vomit.”Footnote 49 In the opposition's opinion, the threat to the island of Minorca offered the ministers an opportunity to raise taxes, neglect the welfare of the fleet, and in doing so, increase their own personal wealth.Footnote 50 As a result, over the course of the summer of 1756, several essays and poems bemoaned the influence of avarice on the performance of duty. One, entitled “Avarice and Cowardice,” claimed “the love of gold's our epidemic ill [which makes the] Lawyer lye … the courtier fawn [and] the Merchant cheat.”Footnote 51 The Bath Advertiser suggested: “A Modern Philosopher says that Avarice is big with all sorts of villainy, among which cowardice must be included; for although a covetous, rich coward will strain hard, lye and swear, to save or get sixpence, with safety of life, yet when that is in danger, his ruling passion, being the love of that damning metal Gold, honour, Glory, the Good of Society, the Love of his country are nothing to him.”Footnote 52 According to the opposition press, the deleterious effect of avarice on patriotism left the ministers, and particularly the duke, who was crushed by the burden of his own personal debt, susceptible to French advances, and more importantly open to charges of colluding with the French.Footnote 53 Not surprisingly, handbills circulated accusing ministers of accepting French bribes. One Newcastle client described one of these documents as “violent and inflammatory” manifestos that suggested that the ministers had “basely betrayed their country and sold it to France for £300,000.”Footnote 54 Newcastle was, of course, not a client of the French king, but his reputation for pro-Gallican behavior had been cemented by his role in the peace settlement to the War of Austrian succession. The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was seen in England as a reversal of British policy that alienated Britain's traditional allies, notably Austria, isolated the British, and needlessly empowered the French.Footnote 55 Newcastle's volte-face on the signing of peace and rumor of his insistence of cooperation between the British and the French to enforce the peace smacked of collusion. Mixed with reports that captured territory, particularly Cape Breton, would be ceded suggested to many that Newcastle was far too eager to preserve French military power. This placed him at odds with a public opinion primed by the opposition. An anonymous ballad of 1748 asked: “If Britain's sons all Gallic Arms despise / Why listen we at Aix to Gallic lies?”Footnote 56 One letter of January 1748 in the General Evening Post suggested that the “hopes that one party had entertain’d of the good effects of the Congress at Aix-la-Chapelle vanishes every day” and that one of the unfortunate consequences was that the “court of Versailles was forming another famous project in favour of the Pretender.”Footnote 57

The ill will that lingered after Aix-la-Chapelle returned following the loss of Minorca. William Pitt was the first to suggest a linkage between the two in a speech to the House of Commons in early May 1756, before the battle of Minorca had actually occurred. Newcastle complained that Pitt “went so far as to charge the loss of Minorca as a design in order to justify a bad peace.”Footnote 58 Pitt's accusation became a common theme in the opposition press. Both the Gazetteer and the London Evening Post later in July expanded on Pitt's accusation, noting: “The loss of Minorca seems to have been tacitly contrived by a secret article in the last definitive treaty of peace, wherein it is stipulated that in time of peace England should not keep above five or six ships of war in the Mediterranean.”Footnote 59 Similarly, The Sham Fight, a two-act play written in 1756, repeated the claim that Aix-la-Chapelle restricted the English to a fleet of no more than five ships in the Mediterranean, making its capture easier.Footnote 60 To the opposition press, it was clear that Newcastle had created the problems that the British then experienced. The Monitor noted, for example, that had the British negotiators led by the duke of Newcastle been more forceful with the French, the British could have avoided the circumstances in which they now found themselves. But, according to the newspaper, through a combination of ignorance and corruption, the French had been allowed to rebound quickly from defeat.Footnote 61

By emphasizing the duke of Newcastle's affinity for the French, the opposition contended that the duke's continuation would have a parlous impact on the safety of the nation. In doing so, critics of Newcastle sought to discredit him in the eyes of the House of Commons and to inspire a parliamentary inquiry into the loss of the island. Their efforts yielded results as public anger was fueled by assertions of ministerial negligence and demands increased for a comprehensive public inquiry. In July the London Evening Post and the Gazetteer claimed that an inquiry was quite necessary, because “we ignorant citizens cannot positively say, whether the spring of our misfortunes has bubbled up from orders disobeyed, or from orders delivered to be absolutely followed.”Footnote 62 For all Newcastle's concern over the public fury surrounding the debacle,Footnote 63 he was much more worried about the prospect of a parliamentary inquiry. Horace Walpole believed that such an inquiry would be “the chief business that will employ our ministry for the rest of the summer”;Footnote 64 he argued that it would uncover the ministers's missteps and most certainly lead to their dismissal.Footnote 65

The opposition touted Newcastle's French connections not to denigrate the cultural adoptions of the nations’ aristocrats, but rather for practical political purposes—to undermine Newcastle's legitimacy and force a practical examination by Parliament of his role in the loss of the Minorca. In the weeks leading to the loss of the island and in the immediate aftermath, it appeared as though the strategy might work. However, Newcastle's response altered the discussion. While the opposition sought to weaken the hold of the Whig grandees by highlighting their seemingly pro-French predilections, the government chose to blame Byng, subtly insinuating that he shared many of the characteristics of the country's unsuccessful seamen. That Newcastle's intention was to charge Byng is not in question. In a letter written in late July 1756 to Robert Nugent, a member of Parliament for Bristol and an ally of Fox, Newcastle reiterated the nature of the plan:

This strategy had developed early. The public had been informed of the loss of Minorca in the London Gazette on 26 June 1756. That same week government scribes inserted a puff piece in various publications intimating that Byng was paralyzed by caution:Footnote 67

Moreover, the government, in a clever move, presented public visual depictions of the battle of Minorca that demonstrated Byng that had kept a considerable distance from the enemy, reinforcing ideas that Byng was at best too cautious and at worst afraid.Footnote 69

By accusing Byng of excessive caution, the Newcastle ministry cannily sought to link Byng to a tradition of failure as defined in a century of triumphalist naval histories and biographies. Since the mid-seventeenth century, English readers had been exposed to stories of successful admirals, which flowed from the presses and formed one of the more popular genres. Histories of gallant commanders of old, including Francis Drake, Walter Raleigh, and Robert Blake, commingled seamlessly with encomiums of still-serving officers, such as Edward Vernon and Edward Hawke, linking the past to the present.Footnote 70 In order to draw a starker contrast between successful admirals and their failed brethren, authors of naval history and naval biography had settled on a schema that allowed better delineation of the successful and unsuccessful officers—the juxtaposition of two archetypes, the “gentleman” and the “tarpaulin.” Both archetypes emerged from the vituperative politics present in the wake of the restoration of Charles II in 1660. After his restoration, Charles altered the composition of the admiralty, the royal navy's senior administrative body. Although Oliver Cromwell's navy had successfully increased English presence in the Mediterranean and ensured dominance in the English Channel and the Western Approaches, the king was suspicious of the political loyalties of his senior officers. While he could not replace all of them, he could ensure that men loyal to him were offered commissions. His cousin, Rupert, was installed as Lord High Admiral, and other cavaliers were promoted to key positions within the administration of the navy.

Although politically sound, these moves proved quite unpopular. When combined with creeping naval decay, general war weariness, and the eventual disasters that accompanied the three Dutch wars, particularly the uncontested invasion of the Dutch up the Medway in 1667, critics of the government lamented the disintegration of the navy in under a decade from a once dominant power to a laughingstock. Many commentators suggested that Charles's reorganization, and in particular the king's appointment of his supporters to positions of power, was responsible. For example, the author of An Inquiry into the Late Causes of our Naval Miscarriages noted in 1707:

To critics, the problems with such men were legion. The new men possessed none of the qualities needed to succeed at sea. One commentator noted that “neither vertue, good understanding or courage [were] to be seen on any of our ships of war, except where the commanders were men of sobriety and merit which Gods knows was much the least number.”Footnote 72 Although it is unfair to blame the weakness of the royal navy on the newly created admirals, they were an easy target for commentators who sought to attack the court and the king. The ensuing debate over naval staffing, and by extension, royal foreign policy, guaranteed that opposition propaganda would characterize admirals as competent Cromwellians, or more commonly “tarpaulins,” or incompetent Stuarts, or “gentlemen.”

This dichotomy survived the fundamental reorganization of the admiralty in the late 1670s. Admirals of all social origins were required to acquire minimum professional standards. They all were to become, in theory at least, “tarpaulin” officers.Footnote 73 Nevertheless, the “gentleman-tarpaulin” paradigm persisted in naval biography as a particularly salient way of explaining defeat in times of crisis and chastising underperforming admirals. For example, following the poor showing of the navy at Beachy Head on 30 June 1690, the author of the Remarks upon the Navy published in 1700 lamented the practice of giving nonnaval men command, as it indubitably discouraged those already in the navy.Footnote 74 An earlier edition of the work suggested that British seamen remained courageous and intrepid but only when “under a good management and usage” provided naturally by tarpaulin officers.Footnote 75 In 1744, the Old England raised similar concerns about the origins of the navy's serving admirals. Of the more “flagrant public abuses … of the last two administrations,” howled the author, “was their breaking down all regard for Personal Merit, or experience in military offices … and in making P—y Interest the only step by which the bravest, the oldest, and the ablest of our soldiers and seamen could rise.”Footnote 76 It was further stated in a poem entitled “Verses occasioned by the Late Promotion of admirals”:

The message reached across the ocean to the colonies as well. In February 1756, the Pennsylvania Gazette reprinted a letter from the Westminster Journal suggesting that the “prerogative of birth” hastened the condemnation of Roman (and hence English) military commanders.Footnote 78

By the eighteenth century, the Manichean construction shifted from political rhetorical strategy to normative cultural statement. Instead of purely nautical associations, “gentleman” and “tarpaulin” had expanded to include a number of other characteristics, including courage, honor, self-sacrifice, and loyalty, or, conversely, cowardice, dissipation, self-promotion, and dereliction, that could be used to laud successful admirals or deride and discredit the unsuccessful ones. The construction had gained such common public usage that it would remain the key trope in discussing naval performance for over a century. Even as late as the mid-nineteenth century, Thomas Babington Macaulay recalled the two stereotypes, noting that the gentlemen captains were “ostentatious [and] voluptuous,” kept harems, and ate well as their troops starved, while the tarpaulins were professionals who had worked from the bottom of the hierarchy to its head.Footnote 79

Of the many qualities that had accreted to the definition of “tarpaulin,” three characteristics in particular formed the core of the perceived masculine ideal for sea officers: lifelong experience aboard a ship; keenness to commit violence upon the enemy, even if outnumbered; and finally, a penchant for self-sacrifice. First, the finest admirals were considered those who had been introduced to the profession at a young age, or in contemporary terms “bred to the sea.” George Byng, noted one biographer, went to sea as a volunteer at age fifteen.Footnote 80 Walter Raleigh and Lord Dartmouth both entered the service at the age of seventeen.Footnote 81 Edward Vernon was “early in the service of his country, from his own natural inclination, and the concurrence of his father.”Footnote 82 Being bred to the sea ensured that each admiral was a master of all tasks needed for sea-borne operations. The Old England argued in 1746 that, in the reigns of William and Anne, “more regard was had to the virtue and merit of a man … the hands chopped in laborious Exercises of Ropes, Sails and Oars and the rugged visage imbrown’d by the various changes of the weather … were esteemed marks of manhood and experience.”Footnote 83 Biographies of Robert Blake, Francis Drake, George Legge, and John Balchen similarly reiterated the belief that those men who had entered the service at a young age were more than competent than those installed at a later date.Footnote 84

But tarpaulins were also considered to possess a “true British heart,” generally an aphorism for loyalty, intrepidity, and self-sacrifice. Admiral Mathews, for example, had a reputation for being combative and irascible,Footnote 85 but his loyalty to the crown was never questioned.Footnote 86 Indeed, Horace Walpole, in mocking Mathews's devotion, noted that he “believes that God lives upon beef and pudding, loves prize fighting and bull-baiting, and drinks fog to the health of Old England.”Footnote 87 John Benbow was equally loyal. As one biographer noted in 1787, Benbow “thought he had no right to chuse his station, and that if his Majesty thought fit to send him to the East or West Indies or anywhere else, he would chearfully execute his orders as became him.”Footnote 88

As laudable as the loyalty of these admirals was, indomitable courage was the hallmark of the English seaman and his commanders. Such courage usually manifested itself in the biographies in a fight against all odds. Met with an intractable and insurmountable foe, the English admiral tended to throw himself and his fleets into the battle without reservation. The Old England noted, on 23 March 1745, that “an English ship was not to fly from one of another nation, tho’ double her force.”Footnote 89 Robert Blake's fleet engaged a Dutch fleet in 1652 though outgunned, and the fight continued for five hours, inflicting a loss of two ships on the Dutch, while losing none. On another occasion, despite possessing forty ships “very ill provided both with men and ammunition, and expecting new supplies from those whose animosity hinder’d them from providing them,” Blake attacked and repelled the Dutch fleet.Footnote 90 Admiral Knowles, with five ships, attacked a fort, subduing it with “the damage done the English … inconsiderable.”Footnote 91 Similarly, George Rooke saved the Smyrna merchant fleet from French attack even though he was badly outnumbered.Footnote 92 In each case the displays of courage were explained as the result of “the restless ardour of his own spirit and a noble jealousy of the honour of his country.”

Willingness to brave insurmountable odds threatened admirals with grave injury. Once again, naval biographers considered wounds garnered in battle to be the sine qua non of a competent admiral and that it was the duty of men to die for king and country. Those who were injured were rewarded with everlasting glory. Aubrey Beauclerc, a captain under Vernon in the West Indies, at the assault on the castle of Boccachica in 1740, had “both of his legs … shot off: but such was his magnanimity that he would not suffer his wounds to be dressed till he had communicated his orders to his first lieutenant, which were, to fight till the last extremity.”Footnote 93 Drake's biographer notes Drake's unwillingnesss to acknowledge an injury received in the battle for the town of Nombre de Dios in 1572: “As he stept forward, his strength, sight and speech failed him, and he began to faint from want of blood, which he then perceived had issued in great quantity from a wound in his leg in the first encounter, and which he had hitherto concealed lest he should discourage his company.”Footnote 94 He further refused to allow the wound to be bound and would not return to the ship to recover. Not surprisingly, therefore, those admirals deemed worthy possessed indomitable courage and attacked without cessation until the battle had been won.

Clearly, notions of physical self-sacrifice were intrinsic to the definition of worthy admirals. Similarly, self-promotion, whether political or economic, was equally avoided. The Gentleman's Magazine noted in 1749:

According to their biographers, England's admirals followed this advice faithfully. John Belchen, for example, “never sacrificed the honour of his country to the designs of a party, or his own private interest. The welfare of his country, and the honour of the British flag were the great motives that influenced his conduct, and to promote the greatest pleasure of his life.”Footnote 96 This also meant that tarpaulin officers were immune to the lure of wealth. Robert Blake, for example, eschewed monetary gain. According to Johnson's biography of the admiral, “he scorned nothing more than money, which as fast as it came in, was laid out by him in the service of the state.”Footnote 97 He reportedly died no more than £500 richer than his father.Footnote 98 While it was unlikely that anyone could match Blake's example, frugality was considered the greatest of political virtues and thus ideal in an officer.Footnote 99 The Gazetteer similarly intimated that True Patriotism stemmed from frugality and that ambition and luxury were real challenges to the crown.Footnote 100

Avoiding self-promotion ensured tarpaulin officers would never waver in their service to the king. In contrast, gentlemen officers were consummate self-promoters, unwilling to sacrifice life for king and country and searching for monetary aggrandizement. Unwillingness to fight was chief among the sins of a seaman. Admiral Richard Lestock, for example, was remembered in prints and poems as an admiral who was:

Refusal to reengage similarly tarnished the reputation of admirals. John Campbell, describing Captain Peyton's decision in June 1746 to avoid further battle with the French, which was reached through the convention of a council of war, noted “councils of war generally do not fight.” He continued: “When a commander in chief, invested with full power to act on his sole authority calls for a council of war, it creates a strong suspicion that he wants to divide the blame of an unjustifiable action. The history of mankind affords innumerable examples of cowardice in collective bodies, of which every individual would have been grievously ashamed.”Footnote 102 Furthermore, acts of cowardice immediately stained the legacy of past admirals and warriors. A poem entitled “The Earl of Torrington” suggested that Arthur Herbert's cowardice at the battle of Beachy Head “disturbs their very urn,” and called for “valiant Drake, / Frobisher, Cavendish, Montagu and Blake,” to rise and note the erosion of their memories.

Similarly, officers eager to accumulate wealth were vilified, as many commentators felt that greed contributed to problems with the performance of the fleet: “This is not the only instance (says the author of the life of Queen Anne) wherein the nation suffer’d by the unskillfulness, Treachery and cowardice of our commanders at sea, in the first years of the war. Nor is it much to be wonder’d at, when, in a preceding reign, such a covetous spirit have over-spread the face of the kingdom, that men perfectly scrambled for the revenues of the crown, and made their private fortunes out of the nations treasure.”Footnote 103 The Gentleman's Magazine was similarly condemnatory, implying that “cowardice, blunders and miscarriages [were] the natural consequences of that mercenary principle of selfishness, which the late detestable father of corruption so successfully inculcated.”Footnote 104 More importantly, greed led the admiralty to bribery and ultimately treason “and in a late reign [they] were taken off from that natural affection and duty they ow’d their country and wholly drown’d in covetousness; so that instead of contriving how to better the nations by the happy resolution, their chief care was to get mony for themselves and to bring others to shame in the bribery, that they might form a party strong enough to prevent the root of all evils being punished as a crime.”Footnote 105 Underlying the condemnation of excessive personal gain was an implicit denunciation of overly social behavior and overt public displays of wealth that smacked of self-promotion over the necessary sublimation of self to the king's service.

More startling, pursuit of excessive wealth led to charges of disloyalty and often manifested itself as treasonous collusion with the French government. Such charges were not new. English polemic had focused on the wealth of the French court for as long as the rivalry had existed between the two monarchies. Shakespeare's Henry V, for example, identifies French money as the impetus behind Scrope's and Grey's attempt to assassinate him.Footnote 106 More than seventy years later, Charles II's chief minister, the earl of Danby, was accused of accepting French money. However, poor performance by England's admirals always elicited charges of being in the employ of the French. Since their nation was clearly superior in craft and materials, English commentators concluded that only through bribery could French victory be attained. Thus, Arthur Herbert, the earl of Torrington, an admiral disgraced at the Battle of Beachy Head in 1690, was reportedly burnt in effigy in Holland, “riding a dog with two women on his back, one hand combing his peruke and the other filling his pocket with French gold.”Footnote 107

Finally, readers of naval biographies were thus accustomed to treat self-promotion and the reluctance to sacrifice one's life as simple cowardice, which carried a number of attendant and very serious societal repercussions. The Gentleman's Magazine for September 1746 suggested: “A coward with a commission is neither a good subject, a good Christian, nor a good or wise man in any sense, but must be of necessity a traitor to the king, a thief to his country, a murderer to his party and, consequently, detested of God and man.”Footnote 108 The Pennsylvania Gazette for November 1756 was similarly apocalyptic, noting that cowardice “necessarily occasions the destruction of a state”Footnote 109 Cowardice clearly rendered an officer useless to the king. More importantly, self-preservation tampered with the natural divine order. The Gentleman's Magazine, once again, noted in 1746 that “his fear impeaches the divine providence, which chiefly glories to exert itself in times and places of most imminent hazard.”Footnote 110 Not only was it an honor for admirals to be wounded and to die for king and country, but wounds also appear mandatory to demonstrate a willingness to act. As the London Magazine argued in 1747, “to die's more glorious than to live a slave.”Footnote 111

Eighteenth-century naval biographies sought to define for their readers the difference between successful and unsuccessful admirals. They achieved this goal by continuing to use the “gentleman-tarpaulin” construction to predict and assess performance, despite changes to training and promotion regulations early in the century that ensured all admirals were by training “tarpaulin.” Failure remained the purview of the “gentlemen,” and indeed any officer who lost a key battle or did not perform as expected was immediately so characterized. According to the archetype, their desire for self-promotion inspired them to acquire and display greater wealth, which in turn inspired feelings of cowardice and the decline of martial spirit. Thus defined, sociable behavior, particularly in times of crisis, was central to the very definition of an unsuccessful admiral and was thus inimical to an officer's performance. Many commentators were convinced that liberal public displays of affluence were antithetical to a successful military career. The consequences of effeminate behavior had been noted by the London Evening Post in 1743: “We hear the English Officers are very gay in Frankfort, and have quite rival’d the French in politeness; the city in general are well pleased with their company.—And well they may, for according to our English Custom abroad, they spend prodigious sums of money without the least oeconomy—for the honour of Great Britain.”Footnote 112 Not only were sociable officers distracted from their duties, but polite and gentle circumstances threatened to undermine an officer's occupational training. Many newspapers in early 1756 noted the stultifying effect of sociability on the martial spirit. The Monitor, a London newspaper, complained that naval officers, trapped in harbor without orders, had little other choice than to “display their effeminate capacities in balls and masquerades.”Footnote 113 The London Evening Post similarly claimed: “Our tars might turn fops and some Beau Mizen or other be dubb’d with the title of Knight, or which is worse, advanced to the position of Admiral. The rage of Money-getting would then be stiled spirit and fire, and that old musty principle, Honour, be drumm’d out of both the army and the navy, only to be retained to sanctify Malice and screen Murder.”Footnote 114 Finally, John Brown claimed in one diatribe:

To these critics, sociable behavior eroded a sailor's connection to his craft, preventing the sailors from acquiring, or at least demonstrating, the necessary competence to succeed. Byng, like many men in his position, was very sociable. He was the son of a notable peer and consequently demanded the respect of others.Footnote 116 He was vice-admiral of the blue, a senior naval post, and a client of Lord Anson, the First Lord of the Admiralty. He had acquired a small fortune over the course of his moderately successful naval career,Footnote 117 not only in cash but in works of art and other valuables, including fine china, which represented the latest craze to strike Britain.Footnote 118 Moreover, he had stood for election in Rochester, a rather insecure admiralty seat, and won, becoming the MP in 1754.Footnote 119 Furthermore, like many of his contemporaries, he sat for several portraits, a sure sign of gentility, according to Marcia Pointon.Footnote 120 Finally, though he had a house in Mayfair, in the 1750s he had begun work on his estate at Wrotham Park.Footnote 121 He wished for advancement socially, and in this he was different neither from many of his contemporaries who sought advancement, both in and outside of the Royal Navy, nor from any other consumer of luxury goods. He acquired objects appropriate to his stature and income, and he displayed them in the tasteful manner demanded by social convention, thus conforming to contemporary demands regarding the deportment of a gentleman.

Had there been concern for overly socialized officers in the years before the loss of Minorca, Byng certainly would have warranted comment. However, none was forthcoming. Aside from a series of uncomplimentary comments by Edward and Frances Boscawen,Footnote 122 who were already disinclined to favor Byng because of his connection to Lord Anson, public comment on Byng's social activities were not derisory, but rather complementary. The following story appeared in the Whitehall and London Evening Posts:

Beyond the display of extravagant wealth, this story clearly depicts the actions of a paternal master, acting to ensure the safety of his servants and, when endangered himself, being rescued by those very servants. Taken together, public plaudits for both occupational and social spheres of his life suggest that Byng had successfully juggled his social and martial obligations throughout the 1740s and early 1750s without provoking public comment.

Despite his lengthy and moderately successful career, John Byng's failure at Minorca combined with his public sociability guaranteed that he would be labeled a “gentleman” in the months after the loss of the island. The government's implication that Byng was an overly cautious admiral immediately colored the debate regarding the loss of Minorca. First, public comment lamented the presence of unqualified admirals in general. A letter from Britannicus to the London Evening Post stated: “Wherever men shall be promoted to Posts, not for their merits, but their attachments to a party, there will often be wanting common sense.”Footnote 124 The Post continued to draw upon historical accounts to condemn the loss of Minorca, noting on 13 July 1756: “Great Kings and wise states have never trusted their fleets or armies, at least without repenting it, but to experienced commanders, men of tried capacities, and who had not only shewn abilities of doing, but a power as well as a will to do their duty.”Footnote 125 Once final confirmation of the loss of Minorca was received, new calls for the exclusion of the “gentleman” admiral found their public place. Throughout the realm's newspapers came the following public notice: “We hear that a motion is intended to be made in an honourable house, that no person shall be capable of rising to any naval command who has not served a certain time before the mast. Then we may expect more such characters as Benbow and Walton were, and Hawke and Saunders are: and that the epithet of honourable and the corrupted blood of high birth, will then be less liable to injure their country, through incapacity, effeminacy, or cowardice.”Footnote 126 Clearly, members of the public struggled to understand the loss of Minorca. Their initial responses, correct or not, were conditioned by the explanation that had been used in the past to some degree of success. Even though Byng was by training a “tarpaulin,” having joined the navy as a teenager and steadily climbed the ranks, his reported actions at Minorca failed to conform to the strict definition of a “tarpaulin” developed over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Having been prompted by the government to view Byng as a “gentleman,” the press strained hard to reconstruct his public character to conform to the archetype. The government was once again the first to cast aspersions on the character of the admiral, suggesting that prudence infused his every thought.Footnote 127 Concern for Byng's prudence soon turned to an indictment for cowardice. The Public Advertiser, for example, was far more pointed in its condemnation:

Indeed, the fear of fighting, as noted above, was quite galling to many Englishmen, or as the author of Friendly and Seasonable advice to Admiral Byng suggested, cowardice “really stuck in their stomachs.”Footnote 129 The author continued: “Time was when an English Admiral with a fleet so thoroughly well-manned, and with such a number of brave lads more than your complement … would have made the monsieurs scamper back to Toulon.”Footnote 130 Many satirical attacks targeted Byng's personal courage. One poem ran:

The Boston Gazette stated angrily that “not a single person was hurt on board the largest ship in the two fleets,” suggesting that they had avoided confrontation.Footnote 132 A “Court of Common Sailors” inserted in a number of newspapers and magazines implied that Byng “because he did not lead the van, but gave the command, and his post of honour and danger to his rear chef d’escadre … which shews he did not intend any harm to the enemy.”Footnote 133 Even though Byng's public reputation had proven otherwise in the years before Minorca, explanations of failure predicated on the “gentleman” myth demanded that Byng be labeled a coward.

Even worse, Byng's unwillingness to fight was furthermore depicted as motivated by self-promotion and greed. The Gentleman's Magazine wondered in August, “Was he afraid of the smell of gunpowder, or did he love the touch of gold?”Footnote 134 Indeed, rapacity became central to his public characterization. The Bath Advertiser, for example, printed a letter, ostensibly from a ranking admiral, suggesting that Byng was “more capable of corruption from an enemy, than any other commander he ever knew in the navy.”Footnote 135 In particular, both the Bath Advertiser and the Newcastle Journal printed a claim circulating the country in September 1756 that, while he was in the Mediterranean, Byng cheated his men by overcharging them for wine rations. They noted: “It is said, that amongst other methods of raising money from his command, Bung made at the rate of above twenty thousand pounds a year by his contract for supplying his squadron with wine. This wine was a course Italian sort, which he could buy for about three half-pence a quart, and had it delivered out to the common men at an advanced price, sufficient to do this.”Footnote 136 Of course, avarice compelled Byng to uncover alternate sources of wealth. Not satisfied with simply bilking his men for enormous sums, Byng, according to his detractors, accepted French bribes. Brass counters depicting Byng receiving French gold were distributed throughout London.Footnote 137Williamson's Liverpool Advertiser proclaimed, “French Louis D’or silenced a great part of our cannon in the late expedition.”Footnote 138 A similar sentiment emerges from “On the Venal Sons of Britain,” a poem printed in the 13 November 1756 Gazetteer, which claimed: “Who for gallic gold does sell his country / Mark him ye Gods! With infamy and shame.”Footnote 139 The Pennsylvania Gazette suggested in September that the pope had cleared several saint's days to ensure Byng's canonization and then stated that “proofs of their attachment to the French Interest” would soon arise.Footnote 140 Byng's actions, according to many accounts, smacked of collusion with the enemy.

Finally, Byng's previously accepted social proclivities were further demonstrations of his “gentleman” status. Byng's critics savaged him for his social pretensions, proposing that as a result of his social life, the skills he had acquired over his naval career had been neutered. The Salisbury Journal lamented in March 1757: “We cannot expect that the hero, who dotes on his lap dog, lolls at ease on his soft couch, and is supported by a court interest will risque the hazard of a broadside, much less sail in quest of the enemy.”Footnote 141 Similar injunctions were offered by the Gazetteer on 24 August 1756: “If the prudence or indeed public spirit of those at the helm of the political vessel directs them to make the choice of persons who have distinguished themselves for their gallantry on board private ships of war, instead of having recourse to those Toast and Butter Captains, who spend their times at Tea tables, china shops, masquerades and brothels, the British would now, as heretofore, be the terror of all enemies to the British.”Footnote 142 The Bath Advertiser advised its readers in July that Byng be left to his “Tea and drawing room.”Footnote 143 Even the harshest of comments focused on his inability to play the role of sailor. Writers resurrected the ghost of his father, George Byng, to further chastise him for his lifestyle. In Admiral Byng and the Elysian Shades, published in 1757, his father rebukes Byng:

The words here mirror the language that would emerge later in the century in public scandals, as outlined by Anna Clark.Footnote 145 There is a great deal of gender inversion. For example, The Sham Fight excoriated the admiral, noting “why his face is as smooth and as white as a Court Lady's a-s; and he speaks as fine as a waiting woman.”Footnote 146 In one print published in September 1756, Byng is overheard proclaiming, “I am a silly Bitch and never succeed.”Footnote 147 Accusations of effeminacy were further solidified by prints depicting Byng in women's clothes.Footnote 148 But overall, the context of the criticism is not the revelation of a gendered crisis but rather Byng's failure to adhere to the characteristics exemplifying the tarpaulin tradition.

Both the opposition and the government had specific targets for the propaganda each unleashed in the days after news of the loss of Minorca reached England. The opposition, led by Pitt, sought to undercut the power of the duke of Newcastle and to force a public airing of his foreign policy decisions. The government sought to obstruct all calls for a parliamentary inquiry by deflecting blame onto Admiral Byng. The rhetorical strategies that each adopted were predicated on existing discourses that were further refined and sharpened to fit the circumstances. Concerns over Newcastle's role in the formulation of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which had led to accusations of collusion in the late 1740s, were amplified with the loss of Minorca. The opposition sought to demonstrate a pattern of support for the French that proved beyond doubt that Newcastle's continuation in power threatened national security and that the king should consider replacing him with noted anti-Gallican patriot William Pitt. Newcastle's riposte was predicated on the well-known “gentleman-tarpaulin” dyad, a century-old schema that explained naval failure as a by-product of selfish and cowardly admirals. Byng had proven an effective admiral, but following the loss of the island, his prior history was discarded and his character reconstructed to better display the characteristics of a “gentleman” admiral. In the press, he became a cowardly, selfish, and rapacious social gadabout whose personal and social interests distracted him from his true duty. In neither case was gender the central trope motivating public discussion, nor was the discussion reflective of a broader concern for waning masculinity in the mid-eighteenth century.