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In a word, he was devoted as the scape-goat of the ministry, to whose supine negligence, ignorance, and misconduct, the loss of that important fortress was undoubtedly owing. Byng's miscarriage was thrown out like a barrel to the whale, in order to engage the attention of the people, that it might not be attracted by the real cause of the national misfortune.
For these broad reasons of distinction it is Mathews's battle that best measures the reaction of which Hawke is the type, for there was especially illustrated defect of spirit, to cover which the letter of the law was invoked; whereas in Byng's action, extremely bad form, in the attempt to conform to the letter of the Instructions, emphasizes the contrast with Rodney's methods, precise and formal unquestionably, but in which form ceases to be an end in itself and is reduced to its proper function as the means to carry into effect a sound military conception.
Writing with reference to a captain convicted of misbehavior before the enemy, he said, "If a man does not do his utmost in time of action, I think but one punishment ought to be inflicted;" and it may be inferred that he would have approved Byng's execution, where cowardice was not proved, but grave military dereliction was.
"Uncle, don't attempt the game-pie. We'll be too late, as sure as our heads. Didn't you hear Mrs. Price say there was a power of company wanting seats; it would be too bad if we lost the sight after all." "What, Prissy, worse than Admiral Byng's defeat, or my spoilt medal?" "Oh! Uncle Rowland, how can you joke! Now, Fiddy, there's a dear creature, don't have anything to say to the cream-tart.
Thomas Pocock, Chaplain of the Ranelagh, Byng's flag-ship at Malaga, says: 'Many of our ships went out of the line for want of ammunition. Byng's own opinion, as stated by the compiler of his memoirs, was, that 'it may without great vanity be said that the English had gained a greater victory if they had been supplied with ammunition as they ought to have been. I myself heard the late Lord Alcester speak of the anxiety that had been caused him by the state of his ships' magazines after the attack on the Alexandria forts in 1882.
The Canadians, it appeared soon after noon, had been the most successful of the entire British army. They had pushed their lines almost to Douai. To the south, General Byng's forces had not advanced quite so far. Suddenly there was an explosion inside a tank scarcely a hundred feet from Hal and Chester. Great clouds of earth ascended into the air. The tank stopped stock still.
Byng's men were mostly South-Africans born, who had lived and worked below the Zambesi all their lives; or else those whose blood was in a fever at the thought that a colony over which the British flag flew should be trod by the feet of an invader, who had had his own liberty and independence secured by that flag, but who refused to white men the status given to "niggers" in civilized states.
At eleven o'clock to the minute Ian Stafford entered Byng's mansion and was being taken to Jasmine's sitting-room, when Rudyard appeared on the staircase, and with a peremptory gesture waved the servant away. Ian was suddenly conscious of a terrible change in Rudyard's appearance.
It was torture to meet him, and the day of the inquest, when Byng had come to his rooms after his interview with Lady Tynemouth and Mr. Mappin, he had been tried beyond endurance. "Shall we have Krool in without Byng's permission? Is it wise?" asked Wallstein again. He looked at Stafford, and Stafford instantly replied: "It would be well to see Krool, I think.
It was the only thing in which Byng had proved invulnerable, and Krool had remained a menace which she vaguely felt and tried to conquer, which, in vain, Adrian Fellowes had endeavoured to remove. For in the years in which Fellowes had been Byng's secretary his relations with Krool seemed amiable and he had made light of Jasmine's prejudices. "The butler is out and they come me," Krool said. "Mr.