James Young

Notes on Officer

YOUNG, JAMES (d. 1789), admiral, is said to have entered the navy in 1737 on board the Gloucester, carrying the broad pennant of Commodore the Hon. George Clinton as commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean; most probably, however, he had some earlier service, the record of which cannot now be found. When the Gloucester went home, Young was transferred to the Lancaster; was promoted to be lieutenant, 9 March 1738–9; was in 1742 moved into the Namur, flagship of Admiral Mathews; was promoted by him to be commander of the Salamander bomb, and on 16 May 1743 to be captain of the Neptune of 90 guns. This, as such appointments commonly were, was for rank only; and ten days later he was moved to the Kennington of 20 guns; being thus, as was spitefully pointed out at the time, ‘midshipman, lieutenant, and captain in one voyage’ (Narrative of the Proceedings of H. M. Fleet, pp. 114–15), although the voyage had lasted for six years. It did, in fact, last several years more; for from the Kennington he was moved to the Dunkirk, and remained in the Mediterranean till the peace in 1748. In 1752 he was appointed to the Jason, and in 1755 to the Newark, from which he was moved in October to the Intrepid, a 64-gun ship, one of the squadron sent out to the Mediterranean in the following spring, under the command of Admiral John Byng [q. v.] In the battle near Minorca on 20 May 1756 the Intrepid was the last ship of the van division [see West, Temple], and in running down towards the enemy had her foretopmast shot away. Byng afterwards asserted that this was the cause of the disorder in the rear division of his fleet; but Young, when examined before the court-martial, denied that it ‘occasioned any impediment to the rear division,’ and this was directly or indirectly confirmed by all the other evidence.

In 1757 Young commanded the Burford in the expedition against Rochefort, under Sir Edward Hawke (Lord Hawke) [q. v.], and in the fleet which afterwards cruised in the Bay of Biscay under Hawke and Boscawen. In 1759 he was captain of the 74-gun ship Mars during the long months off Brest, and on 20 Nov. was flying a commodore's broad pennant. Continuing in the Mars, in November 1761 he had command of a small squadron off Havre. On 21 Oct. 1762 he was promoted to be rear-admiral of the red; but peace being concluded shortly afterwards, he did not then hoist his flag. On 28 Oct. 1770 he was made vice-admiral of the white, and in April 1775, being then vice-admiral of the red, he was appointed commander-in-chief on the Leeward Islands station, with his flag in the Portland. On 29 Jan. 1778 he was promoted to be admiral of the white, and in July he returned to England. He had no further employment, and died in London on 24 Jan. 1789.