Byng's execution and Royal Navy aggression

The passage argues that Byng's execution taught Royal Navy officers that failure to attack could be more dangerous than an unsuccessful attack. That lesson helped create an aggressive command culture and a psychological expectation that British officers would seek battle. French and Spanish doctrine more often treated completion of the assigned mission as the first priority and battle as an exception. British convoy escorts also had strict orders not to abandon their charges, showing that mission primacy was not uniquely foreign. The strategic issue was whether a doctrine built for colonial protection and trade could still produce decisive action in a fleet war against Britain.