The Execution of Admiral John Byng as a Microhistory of Eighteenth-Century Britain by Joseph J. Krulder

Author:Joseph J. Krulder [Krulder, Joseph J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367767556
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2021-04-27T00:00:00+00:00

7

‘Dangerously Ill of Fevers’

Disease, Society, and Manning Issues

[M]any of the new raised Men onboard the Ships at Chatham, and the Nore, are dangerously ill of Fevers, occasioned probably by their lying about without Beds, for which he [Admiral Temple West] has made frequent application, but the supply has not answer’d the Demand.1

Soon after orders went out to raise 30,000 sailors, reports filtered back to the Admiralty Office of sick recruits. Rear Admiral Temple West, for example, complained to the Navy Office about a breakout of ill seamen at Chatham and Nore. West griped about contractors and their failures to meet the needs of the Royal Navy. West surmised that a lack of bedding caused men to sicken. Two months after the king released a proclamation for raising able-bodied seamen, a deadly malady began to infest ships under West’s command.2

But West was not the only admiral to complain of sicknesses as impressed recruits arrived at various ports throughout southern England. During the summer of 1755, Admiral Edward Boscawen, sent to intercept a French fleet from resupplying Canada, lost 2,000 men to illness. Admiral Edward Hawke also lost over 1,000 men during the Channel Campaign. The disease not only beguiled him, but Hawke pulled in his fleet earlier than the Admiralty anticipated, thereby sending a patchwork of ships under Admiral John Byng to replace him.

In this chapter, I explore a curious illness that beset the Royal Navy in 1755, marred their recruitment drive, and sapped manning levels to the point that Byng was sent to Minorca in April 1756 sailing short of a full complement by nearly 900 sailors. Though there exists much historiography on Boscawen’s ill fleet, there remains an incoherent consensus of the nature of the disease which attacked the men who sailed his ships. Further, little, if any, in-depth reviews exist that can answer why the navy suffered so many sick as the Admiralty attempted to rearm and reman for an anticipated war with France.3 The methodology of microhistory allowed connections between this 1755 navy-based illness and larger sweeps of history.4 A turn towards socio-economics proved invaluable. Careful research informs that a possible source for this mysterious navy-wide ailment belongs to impressment drives which (a first for the Royal Navy) took place inland. Plucking men from interior of Britain, as well as the usual recruitment in coastal and river towns, caused the navy to suffer deaths in thousands even before the start of the Seven Years’ War.

Separately, this chapter looks to answer a long yet unanswered question concerning the historiography on Admiral John Byng’s demise: why was he sent to the Mediterranean with a dilapidated fleet so short of men? Though illness sheds light, there remain numerous other manning issues that help to answer that question. As for the ships assigned to Byng’s fleet and their disrepair, documents reveal a supply system which did not keep up with the Royal Navy’s wartime demands.

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