Page:Memorandum (Rear-Admiral Sir John C. Dalrymple Hay, 1912).djvu/10

( 6 ) Sir John Hay of the advantages of the conditions of service under which he had been serving from 1835 to 1866, yet, as he did not obtain his flag till the 6th April, 1866, he has no right to complain of the mode in which this Order in Council was to affect him. This Order in Council stated, that if he continued a Rear-admiral until he was sixty-five years of age he was to be retired; if he obtained his Vice-admiral's flag before that time, he was to be retired as a Vice-admiral when sixty-eight years of age; and if he obtained his Admiral's flag before that date, he was to be retired when seventy, unless before that he obtained the rank of Admiral of the Fleet. As he was only forty-five years of age when he became a flag officer, it was certain that if he lived he must attain the rank of Admiral of the Fleet, the object of ambition of every naval officer.

In June, 1866, he was requested to form one of the Board of Admiralty, and had various responsible duties entrusted to him, such as the armament of the Navy and the conduct of the naval part of the Abyssinian war. Feeling, however, that his superiors might desire him to serve afloat, he proposed to Mr. Corry, then First Lord of the Admiralty, before the general election