General Blakeney's chief claim to fame lies in his gallant defence of Minorca in 1756 at the age of eighty-four. Blakeney's detractors said that he conducted the seventy-day siege from his bed, as he suffered from gout.
Promotion had come late to the general, who did not become a colonel till his sixty-fifth year. St Philip's Fort was not the first he defended. During the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion - when he was seventy-two - he was Lieutenant-governor of Stirling Castle, and routed his Highland attackers. When appointed Lieutenant governor of Minorca in 1747, he was seventy-five.
On arrival in Minorca he took over supreme command, as the governor Lord Tyrawley was absent on leave, and continued to be for the next nine years. Blakeney was far from happy about the state of his defences, and made such preparations as he could, accumulating stores in the fort against a siege, including 1,000 barrels of beef from Leghorn, which Fowkes of Gibraltar had refused. As rumours of a French attack strengthened, he called his first Council of War on 5 February 1756, to which he invited a certain naval captain, the Honourable Augustus Hervey of His Majesty's ship Phoenix, which happened to be in port. Hervey was critical of Blakeney, and a close friend of Byng although he disapproved of his strategy. He later staked his career in support of Byng at the latter's trial. Hervey was a colourful and flamboyant personality. In addition to being an English Casanova and a competent naval officer, he was a diarist like Pepys, with many entries describing Mahon and coming threats of war:
2nd May 1753 - 1 had but little winds and got off Mah6n. . . and sailed into the harbour when the sea breeze came in. 1 found several of my old acquaintances: Colonel Rufane, Mr. and Mrs. Mace, Col. Lockhart and General Blakeney, whom 1 dined with. Mr. Edgcumbe came in and we were glad to renew old friendships. I went to the Freemason's Lodge held by brother Boyd; I was admitted member of it, and drank three times three to the Brethern of it . . . We were very merry while 1 stayed at Mah6n, making parties at Alayor and Ciudadela, and shooting.
IstJan. 1756 - 1 got into Port Mah6n on New Year's Day. . . but no declaration of war yet. I found here many rich and beautiful prizes [captured ships]. We sealed up all their papers and hatches, and laid them in safety. I diverted myself very well at Mahon with my friends of Cornwallis's Regiment, and was lucky enough to get in with a very pretty girl, daughter of Smallridge that kept the tavern. She and I agreed very well, and I kept her all the while, and a sweet pretty creature she was, so that she engrossed my whole time here, and as I lay at the house, we had no interruption. I prepared for sea as soon as I could, expecting war every minute. We received intelligence from all parts that the French are meditating the taking of Minorca, and assembling a great fleet and army at Toulon . . .

At a Council of War on 5 February, which sat for several weeks, Hervey was critical of Blakeney's lack of action, of the countless resolutions that were never implemented, and attributed the inertia of the aged general to his undue kindness to the inhabitants. He suggested that Minorcans who had helped in constructing the secret passages in the fort be moved inside it lest they disclose them to the enemy; that buildings too close to the fort be demolished; and that the island be placed under martial law.
The wearied general waited till he had finished, then sent him to sea to reconnoitre for the enemy. Hervey was not deceived and wrote in his diary: 'This evening I was ordered off the island for seven days to give notice of the enemy's approach' but he 'believed the General wanted to get rid of me out of the Council.'
 
 

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