Honest Admiralty leaders still had to work within patronage

Were there honest senior naval administrators, or was everyone embezzling?

There were honest leaders, but they still had to operate within the inherited political and patronage system because only Parliament and government could change it wholesale.

Not every senior naval administrator was personally corrupt. Henderson was a profoundly honest officer who wanted the best for the Royal Navy. Even honest board members could not remake the wider machinery of government on their own and had to secure results through the system that existed. Leaders such as St Vincent ran into trouble when they treated root-and-branch reform as if personal authority could override those political limits.