the winning side, and on 22 Dec. 1688 was appointed captain of the Constant Warwick, from which in April 1689 he was removed to the Reserve, and on 15 May to the Dover, in which he served during the summer in the main fleet under the Earl of Torrington, and was employed during the autumn and winter in independent cruising. On 20 May 1690 he was appointed to the Hope of 70 guns, which was one of the red squadron in the unfortunate action off Beachy Head. In September he was moved into the Duchess, which, however, was paid off a few weeks afterwards. His career afloat being now well established, in November he resigned his commission in the army to his brother John, and in January 1690–1 was appointed to the Royal Oak of 70 guns, in which he continued till the autumn of 1692; but, having been at the time delayed in the river refitting, he had no share in the glories of Barfleur and La Hogue. In September Sir John Ashby hoisted his flag on board the Albemarle, to which Byng was appointed as second-captain (Admiralty Minute, 12 Sept.), and which he paid off in the following November. In the spring of 1693 he was offered the post of first-captain to the joint admirals, but refused it out of compliment to his friend Admiral Russell, then in disgrace [see Russell, Edward, Earl of Orford]; but accepted a similar offer made him in the autumn of the same year by Russell, then appointed commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean. He continued on this station for the next two years, and in 1696 was appointed one of the commissioners for the registry of seamen, which office he held till its abolition in 1699.
In 1701, when the Earl of Pembroke was appointed lord high admiral, Byng was nominated as his secretary and first-captain if, as he intended, he took the command in person. This would have made Byng virtually commander-in-chief; for Lord Pembroke was neither sailor nor soldier, and had no experience in commanding men; but before the nomination took effect the king died, and the Churchills, who came into power, visited, it was believed, on Byng, the old grudge which they bore to Admiral Russell, whose follower and partisan Byng was. He asked for a flag, which he considered due to him after having been so long first-captain to the admiral of the fleet; it was refused him. He applied to be put on the half-pay of his rank; this also was refused him; and he was told plainly that he must either go to sea as a private captain or resign his commission. As his means did not permit him to quit his profession, he, under this constraint, accepted the command of the Nassau, a 70-gun ship (29 June 1702), and in the course of July joined the fleet under Sir Clowdisley Shovell, which, after cruising off Brest for two months, looking out for the French under Chateau-Renaud, went south towards Cape Finisterre. On 10 Oct. Byng, having been separated from the fleet, fell in with Sir George Rooke, but was at once despatched in search of Sir Clowdisley, with orders to him to join the admiral at once. Knowing that the attack on Vigo was imminent, Byng tried to excuse himself from this duty, but without success; and though he made all haste to send the orders to Shovell, he rejoined the fleet only on the evening of the 12th, after the attack had been successfully made, and nothing remained but to complete the work of destruction.
On 1 March 1702–3 Byng was promoted to be rear-admiral of the red, and was sent out to the Mediterranean in the Ranelagh as second in command under Shovell. While there he was detached with a small squadron to Algiers, where he succeeded in renewing the treaty for the protection of English commerce; and towards the end of the year he returned to England, arriving in the Channel just in time to feel some of the strength of the great storm, though not in its full fury, and happily without sustaining any serious damage. In 1704, still in the Ranelagh, he commanded, as rear-admiral of the red squadron, in the fleet under Sir George Rooke in the Mediterranean; he had the immediate command of the detachment of the fleet actually engaged in the bombardment and capture of Gibraltar; and from his position in the centre of the line of battle, had a very important share in the battle of Malaga. On his return home he was (22 Oct.) knighted by the queen, ‘as a testimony of her high approbation of his behaviour in the late action.’ On 18 Jan. 1704–5 he was advanced to the rank of vice-admiral, and during the summer of that year commanded a squadron in the Channel for the protection of trade. In March 1705–6 he sailed in the Royal Anne for Lisbon and the Mediterranean, where he took part in the operations on the Spanish coast and in the siege of Toulon, under the command of Sir John Leake and Sir Clowdisley Shovell, which last he accompanied on his homeward voyage, and narrowly escaped being lost with him on 22 Oct. 1707.
On 26 Jan. 1707–8 Sir George Byng was raised to the rank of admiral of the blue, and appointed to command the squadron in the North Sea for the protection of the coast of England or Scotland, then threatened with invasion from France in the cause of the Pretender. But jealousy and disputes
