War & Peace Quote by John Byng

Even as a battlefield observation, the line reads like a nervous half-confession. Byng gives us a morning “with nothing of the enemy” in sight, then immediately undercuts any relief with “though we were still lying to” - a nautical phrase for staying hove-to, paused but not safe. The syntax itself stalls: the sentence drifts, stops, and leaves you hanging the way an indecisive commander might. That unfinished feel is the point. It’s a report that performs caution while quietly advertising inertia.

Byng’s context sharpens the edge. As a British naval officer (and in effect a soldier of empire) best remembered for the Minorca fiasco and his subsequent execution “to encourage the others,” he occupies a historical role where language becomes evidence. After a failed engagement, every verb gets interrogated: did you press? did you pursue? did you take initiative? “We saw nothing” can sound like prudence, but it can also read as an alibi: you can’t fight what you can’t see. “Still lying to” implies discipline and seamanship, yet it also signals a choice to remain static.

The subtext is a portrait of command under political scrutiny: the enemy may be absent, but judgment isn’t. Byng’s phrasing anticipates the court-martial logic that would later devour him, where hesitation is reframed as dereliction. It’s bureaucratic language trying to look like plain speech - and failing just enough to reveal the fear underneath.