year of her reign. His eldest son, George, received the honor of knighthood from Queen Anne, for his gallant behaviour in the battle off Malaga[1]; and after performing many other signal services, he was raised to the dignity of the peerage by the title of Baron Byng of Southill, co. Bedford, and Viscount Torrington, of Torrington, in Devonshire. He died First Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty, Jan. 17, 1733, in the 80th year of his age. The unfortunate Admiral John Byng, who after giving many proofs of courage, was at length shot upon a dubious sentence for neglect of duty, March 14, 1757, was his fourth son[2].
The officer of whose services we are now about to speak, is the eldest son of John, fifth Viscount (great-grandson of the first peer), formerly a Colonel in the 3d regiment of Guards, and afterwards a Commissioner of the Stamp Office, by Bridget, daughter of Commodore Arthur Forrest, who died Commander-in-Chief at Jamaica, and was buried at Kingston in that island[3]. Lord Torrington’s maternal grandmother was also connected with the navy, from her birth, having been born on board H.M.S. Prince Frederick, on the passage to Jamaica, on St. Cecilia’s Day, whence she was christened Cecilia Frederica Marina. George Byng, the subject of this memoir, was born in London, Jan. 5, 1768, and received the rudiments of his education under the late Dr. James, at Greenwich; from whence he was removed to a respectable seminary at Paddington, conducted by a Mr. Boucher. Being destined for the naval profession, he embarked Feb. 23, 1778, as a Midshipman on board the Thunderer, of 74 guns, commanded by the Hon. Boyle Walsingham[4], which ship formed part of the fleet under Admiral
- ↑ Aug. 13, 1704.
- ↑ Admiral Byng’s trial, with all the extraordinary circumstances connected therewith, form a very interesting portion of the second volume of Horace Walpole’s Memoirs of the last ten Years of the Reign of Geo. II., recently published from the original MSS.
- ↑ Commodore Forrest died May 26, 1770: a memoir of this gallant officer, with a portrait, will be found in the Nav. Chron. v. 25, p. 441. His son, Thomas Forrest, Esq., died at Gibraltar in 1780, of wounds he received when third Lieutenant of the Ajax, in the action between Sir George B. Rodney and Don Juan de Langara. See note †, at p. 3 of this volume.
- ↑ Afterwards a Commodore, and perished in the West Indies. See note at p. 68.
