ndies, and on the nineteenth two more to
North America, where they could be of little immediate service; on the
twenty-third, two of the line and three frigates a convoy-hunting off
Cherbourg; and on the first of April five ships of the line, including
three returned from this last service, to reinforce sir Edward Hawke,
already too strong for the French fleet bound to Canada; that all these
ships might have been added to Mr. Byng's squadron, without exposing
Great Britain or Ireland to any hazard of invasion: that at length Mr.
Byng was detached with ten great ships only, and even denied a frigate
to repeat signals, for which he petitioned; although at that very time
there were in port, exclusive of his squadron, seventeen ships of the
line and thirteen frigates ready for sea, besides eleven of the line and
nineteen frigates almost equipped. From these and other circumstances,
particularized and urged with great vivacity, many individuals
inferred, that a greater number of ships might have been detached to the
Mediterranean than were actually sent with admiral Byng; that the not
sending an earlier and stronger force was one great cause of Minorca's
being lost, and co-operated with the delay of the ministry in sending
thither reinforcements of troops, their neglect in suffering the
officers of the garrison to continue absent from their duty, and their
omitting to give orders for raising miners to serve in the fortress of
Mahon.

{GEORGE II. 1727-1760}

EXAMINATION of the AMERICAN CONTRACT.

The next inquiry in which the house of commons engaged, related to the
contracts for victualling the forces in America, which were supposed by
some patriots to be fraudulent and unconscionable. This suspicion arose
from an ambiguous expression, on which the contractor being interrogated
by the committee appointed to examine the particulars, he prudently
interpreted it in such a manner, as to screen himself from the
resentment of the legislature. The house, therefore, resolved that the
contract entered into on the twenty-sixth day of March, in the year one
thousand seven hundred and fifty-six, by the commissioners of the
treasury, with William Baker, Christopher Kilby, and Richard Baker, of
London, merchants, for furnishing provisions to the forces under the
command of the earl of Loudon, was prudent and necessary, and properly
adapted to the securing a constant and effectual supply for those forces
in America.

INQUI