James Young (Royal Navy officer, born 1717)
Young entered the navy as a midshipman and went out to the Mediterranean, where he would rise through the ranks during a long and extended cruise that saw him serve on a number of different vessels.
Young also played a role in the more creditable performance at the Battle of Quiberon Bay in 1759, flying a broad pennant as a commodore and participating in the decisive defeat of the French fleet.
Young was back in active service during the American War of Independence, with the important posting as commander in chief of the Leeward Islands station.
[1] Through his great-uncle, the naval surgeon James Yonge, Young had a connection with the navy, and he began his career as a midshipman aboard the 50-gun HMS Gloucester in 1737, serving in the Mediterranean.
[1] Young's active naval career continued after the war, and in February 1752 he commissioned the 44-gun HMS Jason, a former French ship that had been captured in 1747.
[5] Young in the Intrepid was the last ship of the van division during the engagement with the French fleet under the Marquis de La Galissonière.
The battle ended in a controversial strategic defeat for the British, and at the subsequent inquiries, Byng claimed that the damage sustained by the Intrepid had caused disorder in the rear division of the fleet.
[1][a] Young remained in active service after the events at Minorca, and in April 1757 was in command of the 70-gun HMS Burford, part of the fleet sent under Edward Hawke to raid the French port of Rochefort in September that year.
Young went on to command a number of small squadrons in the Western Approaches to the English Channel, blockading the coast of Quiberon and the port of Brest.
His squadron had too few fast cruisers, and the Americans were being openly supplied from the neutral Caribbean possessions, from the Dutch-held St Eustatius and the French at Martinique.
[10] Young wrote a furious letter to the governor, Johannes de Graaff, informing him of his surprise and astonishment to hear it daily asserted in the most positive manner that the Port of St. Eustatius for some time past has been openly and avowedly declared Protector of all Americans and their vessels, whether in private trade or armed for offensive war.
... the colours and forts of the States General have been so far debased as to return the salute of these pirates and rebels and giving all manner of assistance of arms and ammunition and whatever else may enable them to annoy and disturb the trade of His Britannic Majesty's loyal and faithful subjects and even the Governor of St. Eustatius daily suffers privateers to be manned and armed and fitted in their port.
[1] Young and other British officials knew they were running great risks, but when confronted with clandestine French and Dutch aid to the enemy, they could see no other way to prevent Americans from obtaining munitions than to disregard diplomatic and commercial niceties.
Further unable or unwilling to distinguish the local privateers from pirates, Young had a difficult period with the British settlers on the islands.
Young felt however that he had to stamp on them as apart from anything else he was finding it next to impossible to recruit local seamen and he feared desertion from his own ships to the better conditions and lure of money of the privateers.
The dispute was finally resolved when the local governors were empowered to license privateers, which brought some limited measure of control.
[12] Young also ran into problems with local administrations in relation to rebel prisoners who soon after the war began to arrive on the British Caribbean Islands.
Contemporary chroniclers recorded that he had raised his flag aboard HMS Aurora in February that year, but his time as the station commander was drawing to a close.
