Reforming the Navy Office

‘From the extensive superintendance of my Office’, Middleton wrote to Lord Shelburne in early September 1782, ‘and acquainted with the several particulars in the naval department, I flatter my self, I shall be able to contribute largely to any plan of reformation that may be resolved on.’ ¹ Here Middleton showed his disagreeable side as a political intriguer, writing behind the back of August Keppel, the First Lord of the Admiralty, to another Cabinet member of long acquaintance. ² Ever eager, the Controller aimed to turn Shelburne’s ambitious plans for political and administrative reform to the Navy’s (and his own) particular advantage. The early 1780s were as propitious a time for putting such measures into effect as the eighteenth century ever afforded. The American war had administered a powerful jolt to English public life. Alienating proponents of conciliation, disappointing advocates of coercion, driving taxes and the national debt to unheard-of heights and ending in the seemingly calamitous loss of the American colonies, the war exposed grave shortcomings in the machinery of politics, administration and public finance, whose workings had remained essentially unaltered since the days of the Tudors, and in some respects, of the Plantagenets. Reformers had been agitating for change since before the war, and suppressing the American rebellion had first diverted attention from their agenda. When victory proved elusive, however, blame came to be laid on deficiencies in the instruments of policy as well as on the errors of policy-makers. Losing the war drew additional adherents and gave new salience to the cause of reform.