officers with one consent lied to the same effect (Byron's ‘Journal’ in Hawkesworth's Voyages, i. 28; A Voyage round the World in His Majesty's Ship the Dolphin … by an Officer on board the said ship, pp. 45, 51 n).
From the Straits of Magellan the Dolphin and Tamar proceeded westward across the Pacific, skirting the northern side of the Low Archipelago and discovering some few of the northernmost islands. It now seems almost wonderful how these ships could have sailed through this part of the ocean without making grander discoveries; but they appear to have held a straight course westward, intent only on getting the voyage over. Not only the Low Archipelago but the Society Islands must have been discovered had the ships, on making the Islands of Disappointment, zigzagged, or quartered over the ground, as exploring ships ought to have done. And the necessary inference is that Byron was wanting in the instinct and the hound-like perseverance which go to make up the great discoverer. Having passed these islands, the ships fell in with nothing new; they seem indeed to have gone out of the way to avoid the possibility of doing so, and to have crossed the line solely to get into the track which Anson had described. Many of the seamen were down with scurvy, and Byron knew that the Centurion's men had found refreshment at Tinian; so to Tinian he went, and, after staying there for a couple of months, pursued his way to Batavia, the Cape of Good Hope, and so home. The Tamar was sent to Antigua, her rudder having given way; but the Dolphin arrived in the Downs on 9 May 1766, after a voyage of little more than twenty-two months. ‘No navigator ever before encompassed the world in so short a time,’ is Beatson's questionable commendation of what was primarily meant as a voyage of exploration (Nav. and Mil. Mem. vi. 458).
In January 1769 Byron was appointed governor of Newfoundland, an office he held for the next three years. On 31 March 1775 he was advanced to be rear-admiral, and on 29 Jan. 1778 to be vice-admiral. A few months later he was appointed to the command of a squadron fitting out at Plymouth for the North American station, or nominally to intercept the Count d'Estaing, who, with twelve ships of the line, had sailed from Toulon on 13 April. The delays consequent on maladministration prevented Byron sailing till 9 June, and even then his ships were wretchedly equipped and badly manned. The rigging was of second-hand or even twice-laid rope, and the ships' companies were largely made up of draughts from the gaols. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that the first bad weather should have scattered the ships and dismasted several, that gaol fever and scurvy should have raged among the crews, and that the components of the squadron should have singly reached the American coast in such a state that they must have fallen an easy prey to any enterprising enemy. Fortunately D'Estaing retired from before Sandy Hook just in time to leave the passage open to the first of Byron's ships, on 30 July. Others arrived later. Byron himself, in the Princess Royal, made Halifax with difficulty, so did two others; one got to Newfoundland, one was driven back to England, all were more or less shattered, and all more or less disabled by the sickness of their men. It was 26 Sept. before the squadron was collected at Sandy Hook, and it was not till 18 Oct. that it could put to sea to look for the enemy. It was immediately overtaken by a tremendous storm, which reduced the ships to their former condition of helplessness. One was wrecked, one was driven off the coast and had to make for England, the others got to Rhode Island and there refitted; but it was 13 Dec. before they were again ready for sea. The delay had permitted D'Estaing to appear in the West Indies with a strong force, and with the first news of Byron's approach he sheltered himself and his squadron under the guns of Fort Royal of Martinique. For several months the English, being in superior strength, kept the French shut up in Martinique. In June Byron went to St. Christopher's to see the trade safely off for England, and D'Estaing, taking advantage of his absence, and having been reinforced by ten ships of the line, went south, and without difficulty, almost without opposition, made himself master of Grenada brutally handing over the town to be pillaged (Barrow, Life of Lord Macartney, i. 62). Byron had meanwhile returned to St. Lucia, and having learned that D'Estaing had gone to Grenada, at once followed to protect the town, which he had believed able to hold out for some time. He had no intelligence of D'Estaing having received a considerable reinforcement, and took for granted that in point of numbers his fleet was the stronger. At daybreak on 6 July 1779 he was off Grenada with twenty-one sail of the line and a large number of transports carrying the soldiers designed to co-operate with Lord Macartney. As he advanced the French got under way and stood out, and Byron, under the idea that there were not more than sixteen of them, made the signal for a general chase, and to engage as they came up with the enemy; nor did he make any alteration
