ADMIRAL BYNG SUPERSEDED AND SENT HOME PRISONER.

The two officers who succeeded to the command in the Mediterranean, were accompanied by lord Tyrawley, whom his majesty had appointed to supersede general Fowke in the government of Gibraltar, that gentleman having incurred the displeasure of the ministry, for not having understood an order which was unintelligible. By the same conveyance, a letter from the secretary to the admiralty was transmitted to Mr. Byng, giving him notice that he was recalled. To this intimation he replied in such a manner as denoted a consciousness of having done his duty, and a laudable desire to vindicate his own conduct. His answer contained a further account of the engagement in which he was supposed to have misbehaved, intermixed with some puerile calculations of the enemy’s superiority in weight of metal, which served no other purpose than that of exposing his character still more to ridicule and abuse; and he was again so impolitic as to hazard certain expressions, which added fresh fuel to the resentment of his enemies. Directions were immediately despatched to sir Edward Hawke, that Byng should be sent home in arrest; and an order to the same purpose was lodged at every port in the kingdom; precautions which, however unnecessary to secure the person of a man who longed ardently to justify his character by a public trial, were yet productive of considerable effect in augmenting the popular odium. Admiral Byng immediately embarked in the ship which had carried out his successor, and was accompanied by Mr. West, general Fowke, and several other officers of that garrison, who were also recalled, in consequence of having subscribed to the result of the council of war, which we have mentioned above. When they arrived in England, Mr. West met with such a gracious reception from his majesty as was thought due to his extraordinary merit; but Mr. Byng was committed close prisoner in an apartment of Greenwich hospital.