utterly destroyed a Spanish fleet of eighteen ships of the line beside a number of smaller vessels. The king wrote his congratulations to the admiral with his own hand; so also did the emperor; and the Queen of Denmark, who claimed a personal acquaintance with him, sent friendly messages through the master of her household.
With the destruction of the Spanish fleet the purely naval work of the expedition was accomplished, but for the next two years Byng continued in Sicilian and Neapolitan waters, keeping the command of the sea and co-operating with the German forces so far as possible. In August 1720 the Spaniards evacuated Sicily and embarked for Barcelona; and Byng, having convoyed the Piedmontese troops to Cagliari, acted as the English plenipotentiary at the conferences held there for settling the surrender of Sardinia to the Duke of Savoy, who, in acknowledgment of his services, presented him with his picture set in diamonds. On his return home immediately after he was appointed rear-admiral of Great Britain and treasurer of the navy; in the following Jan. was sworn a privy councillor; and on 9 Sept. 1721 was raised to the peerage with the titles of Baron Southill and Viscount Torrington. He had been M.P. for Plymouth since 1705. In 1724 he resigned the treasurership of the navy in favour of his eldest son; in 1725 he was installed knight of the Bath; and on the accession of George II was appointed first lord of the admiralty, 2 Aug. 1727. He held this office till his death on 17 Jan. 1732–3. He was buried at Southill in Bedfordshire.
The victory which Byng won off Cape Passaro, by its extraordinary completeness, gave him a perhaps exaggerated reputation as a naval commander; but independently of this, his uniform success in all his undertakings sufficiently bears out Corbett's eulogium of him as a man who devoted his whole time and application to any service entrusted to him; who ‘left nothing to fortune that could be accomplished by foresight and application.’ He describes him also as a man firm and straightforward in his dealings, impartial and punctual in the performance of whatever he engaged in. He was accused by his enemies of meanness, greediness, and avarice, and several of his letters show that he was in the habit of looking closely after his pecuniary interests; but to one brought up as he had been, the value of money may well have been unduly magnified, and lessons of parsimony must have been inculcated till it became almost a second nature.
He married on 5 March 1691 Margaret, daughter of James Master of East Langden in Kent, who survived him by many years, dying at the age of eighty-seven in 1756. He had a numerous family, consisting of eleven sons and four daughters.
His portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller is in the Painted Hall at Greenwich, to which it was presented by George IV. There is also another portrait by J. Davidson, a bequest of Mr. Corbett in 1751; and a picture of the action off Cape Passaro, by Richard Paton, presented by William IV, but of no historical value.
[Brit. Mus. Addl. MS. 31958 (this is the manuscript Life of Lord Torrington which has been quoted or referred to by Collins, Dalrymple, and others as in the Hardwicke Collection, and being undoubtedly what it claims to be, written from Byng's own journals and papers, is of the very highest authority, though of course its views are very partial; it ends abruptly in 1705); Charnock's Biog. Nav. ii. 194; Collins's Peerage (1779), vi. 100; An Account of the Expedition of the British Fleet to Sicily in the years 1718, 1719, and 1720, under the command of Sir George Byng, Bart., &c. (published anonymously, dedication signed T. C.), by Thomas Corbett, secretary of the admiralty; Letters and other documents in the Public Record Office, more especially Home Office Records (Admiralty), No. 48.]
BYNG, JOHN (1704–1757), admiral, was the fourth son of George Byng, viscount Torrington [q. v.] He entered the navy in March 1718 on board the Superb, commanded by his maternal uncle, Streynsham Master, served in her for eighteen months in the Mediterranean, and was present at the defeat of the Spaniards off Cape Passaro, in which the Superb had a very prominent share [see Arnold, Thomas]. After serving in the Orford, the Newcastle, and the Nassau, he was moved into the Torbay. He passed his examination on 31 Dec. 1722, and continued in the Torbay, with the rating of able seaman, till 26 Feb., when he was removed, with the same rating, to the Dover, and on 20 June was promoted into the Solebay. On 11 April 1724 he was appointed to the Superb as second lieutenant; and when that ship was ordered to the West Indies, he was superseded from her at his own request on 29 March 1726. On 23 April he was appointed to the Burford as fourth lieutenant, continued in her on the home station as third and as second lieutenant, and at Cadiz, on 26 May 1727, was discharged to the Torbay for a passage to England. On 8 Aug. 1727 he was promoted to the command of the Gibraltar frigate in the Mediterranean; in the summer of 1728 he was moved into the Princess Louisa, also in the Mediterranean, and continued in her for
