It was on the 23d of September, when the squadron was chasing a small ship off Flamborough Head, that a number of distant sails were seen rounding the point. A long, steady look through his glass convinced Commodore Jones that he could not be mistaken: that this was the Baltic fleet of merchantmen which he had heard were in that vicinity, and which he had hoped he might meet before he reached The Texel.
Without delay Paul Jones hoisted the signal for a general chase. Captain Landais, however, ignored the signal, and sailed on by himself. So angry was Paul Jones at this cool display of indifference—or cowardice, if that it were,—that he stamped his foot on the deck, and shouted his feelings through his speaking-trumpet, but it availed nothing; the insolent Landais kept right on going.
When the merchant ships saw Paul Jones's squadron bearing down upon them, they ran in under the lee of the shore, and, protected by two British frigates which immediately got in between them and their foe, made off down the coast at their best speed. These English frigates were the Serapis, a brand-new ship of forty-four guns, and the Countess of Scarborough, twenty guns.
FIGHT BETWEEN THE SERAPIS AND THE BON HOMME RICHARD
From a rare print
The afternoon sun was well down in the heavens by this time. In the far distance, her sails glinting white and rosy in the path of the sun, and constantly growing smaller, was the fleeing Alliance. And not far behind her, in pursuit, sped the little Vengeance, whose captain Paul Jones had told to try to persuade the half-mad Landais to return to his duty.
This turn of affairs left two ships facing each other on each side. Commodore Jones ordered Captain Cottineau, of the Pallas, to look after the Countess of Scarborough, while he himself took care of the Serapis. He never lost his head; with that "cool, determined bravery," of which Benjamin Franklin spoke, and with "that presence of mind which never deserted him," recorded by Fanning, he made up his mind to make the best of a seemingly hopeless situation, and engage an enemy ship which he knew to be the superior of his own in almost every respect.
He now crowded on all possible sail, until the Bon Homme Richard had come within pistol shot of the Serapis. It was then seven o'clock and the moon was just rising in a clear blue sky. Off some distance, the Countess had begun to run away, and the little Pallas was making after her fiercely. Paul Jones was thus left practically alone to meet his big antagonist of the bristling guns and well-trained, perfectly-disciplined crew.
As the Bon Homme Richard approached him, Captain Pearson, of the Serapis, hailed; but there was no reply. "I don't like this fellow's looks, for all he is apparently less powerful than ourselves," observed the British commander to his first officer. Uneasily he used his night-glass again. "I wonder if it can be the blood-thirsty pirate, Paul Jones," he added a moment later. Then he ordered his sailing-master to hail again.
"This is His Majesty's ship Serapis, forty-four guns. What ship is that?"
Still no answer.
Once more the hail came over the water, sharper, more peremptorily. "This is His Maj——"
By this time Paul Jones had the Bon Homme Richard where he wanted her; he gave a low signal to Richard Dale, who commanded the Richard's gun-deck, and Lieutenant Dale cried, "Blow your matches, boys!" At his words the gunners touched a tiny flame to the touch-hole of each big gun on the port side, and a heavy broadside was poured into the enemy ship.
But the British captain was not far behind. Before the echoes had died out his own guns spat fire with a roar, and great clouds of smoke drifted up and began to envelope the combatants. Following this the discharges came fast and furious, both the American and British crews working their guns with the utmost vigor.
From the beginning the fight seemed to go against the Bon Homme Richard. There was hardly any stage of the three and a half hours' desperate combat at which Paul Jones would not have been excused in lowering his flag—had he not been the prodigious fighter he was. Hardly had the battle well begun when two of the rust-pitted old 18-pounders exploded, killing the men working them and rendering the whole battery useless for the rest of the action.
Perceiving this, and anxious to take advantage of the loss of defense on the lower gun-deck resulting, Captain Pearson attempted again to pass the bow of the Richard and rake her. On the other hand, Commodore Jones's whole effort was to close with the enemy and board him, for he knew now that it was only a question of time, if he did not succeed, before his old shell of a vessel would be sunk.
After the broadsiding had continued with unremitting fury for almost an hour, Captain Pearson made another effort to get across the Richard's bow. But he miscalculated, and the two vessels were brought so close together that the Richard ran into her enemy's weather quarter. Paul Jones was quick to make his first attempt to board, but the ships swung apart before the operation could be completed, and those who had reached the Serapis's rail had to leap back to save themselves from capture.
The Bon Homme Richard was now in a sad condition. Little of her starboard battery was left, and of the 140 odd officers and men stationed at the main gun-deck battery at the beginning, over eighty had been killed or wounded. Numerous holes low in the hull, made by the big balls of the Serapis's 18-pound guns, were letting in water at an alarming rate. Time and time again did the ship's carpenter and his mate stop these up, only to have new holes splinter through with a sickening sound.
It is no wonder that Captain Pearson, knowing his enemy was in great distress, thought that, when the crew of the other ship had failed to board him, Commodore Jones would be ready to surrender.
"Has your ship struck?" he called through his trumpet.
And then Paul Jones made his famous reply:
"I have not yet begun to fight!"
After the ships had swung apart they continued to fire broadsides into each other. With the starboard battery of the Richard practically out of commission, however, it is easy to see that she worked at a great disadvantage in this sort of dueling. Had not a lucky wind favored her at this stage, it is likely she could not have floated much longer. This enabled her to blanket her enemy, which compelled the Serapis to lose all headway. By more adroit handling of his vessel, waterlogged though she was, Paul Jones once more brought the ships alongside, bow to bow and stern to stern.
"Now, my fine fellows, lash us together!" cried the commodore; and with his own hands he helped his men to do the job, while the muskets of the British sailors rattled a storm of lead among them.
At this critical time, when Paul Jones was bending every nerve to grapple with the Serapis, the renegade Alliance suddenly made her appearance. The hearts of the gallant commander and his brave lads beat gladly at this sight. "Now," thought they, "Landais has come back to help us!"
Judge of their dismay when, as soon as he could get within range, the mad French captain turned his broadsides not into the British frigate but into the already sorely-afflicted Bon Homme Richard! She staggered under the fresh onslaught, the vicious bite of him who should have given aid. The American sailors cursed the treacherous Landais, and shook their fists at him. If they could have caught him they would have rended him limb from limb, so violent was their rage. In the midst of the maledictions, the culprit turned about and made away again, with the strange fickleness of purpose that had all along characterised his movements.
As soon as the Serapis and the Richard were well lashed together, Paul Jones drew practically all his crew from below to the upper deck and the tops, leaving only a small force to man the three small pieces on the quarter-deck. From this upper position they now commenced sweeping the decks of the enemy with their muskets. The crew of the Serapis, on the other hand, were forced to take refuge on their lower decks, from which point they continued to fire their great guns into the already riddled hull and lower decks of the Richard.
Several times Captain Pearson made desperate attempts to cut the lashings loose, but at each of these efforts the fire of the American ship's muskets was so accurate and withering that British seamen fell one upon another. Not a single British Jack reached the coveted goal, if we may except one bold fellow who was just opening his heavy Sheffield knife to sever the key-rope when an unerring bullet from the watchful Wannashego cut short his life. In another instance, the young Indian saw a British sailor drawing a bead on Paul Jones, who stood all unconscious of his peril. There was a report—but it was the report of Wannashego's reliable gun instead, and the British marine tumbled from the rigging where he was concealed.
Soon all the officers of the French marines had been killed or wounded, and Paul Jones was forced to take charge of them. His voice cheered them on in their own tongue; he exhorted them to take good aim, and when he saw a fellow firing ineffectively, he would often take his musket from his hand and show him, by coolly bringing down one of the foe, how he should manipulate it. In fact, toward the last the commodore stood on the quarter-deck rail by the main topmast backstay, and as he gave orders and encouragement, received loaded muskets from his marines, and fired them with deadly precision. His indomitable spirit penetrated every quaking soul, infusing it with new hope and new courage. As one French sailor said afterward: "Everyone who saw his example or heard his voice became as much a hero as Paul Jones himself."
By this time both vessels were on fire in several places. Half the men on both ships had been killed or disabled. The leaks in the Richard's hold had multiplied, she was much deeper in the sea; while the mainmast of the Serapis hung in splinters and threatened to go by the board at any moment.
Now, to the surprise of everybody, the cowardly Landais, with the Alliance, once more put in an appearance. This time he fired several broadsides into both combatants, seeming to take as much delight in hitting one as the other. As before, the man who surely could not have been sane, put his helm over and sailed away—very luckily for the last time.
While he was making off, a gunner on the Richard, thinking the ship was sinking, called loudly for quarter. No sooner were the words out of his mouth than Paul Jones sprang forward and felled him with the butt end of his pistol.
"Do you want quarter?" called Captain Pearson.
"No," roared Paul Jones; "you are the one to ask that!" And he purposely sent a pistol shot whistling close to the British captain's ears.
As if to make matters worse at this trying moment, the master-at-arms on the Richard, also thinking the ship sinking, opened the hatches and released nearly two hundred British prisoners, taken from prizes, who began to swarm on deck in the greatest confusion!
It was a moment to try the resourcefulness of the quickest intellect. Paul Jones hesitated just a moment, then he thundered at the prisoners to man the pumps or he would fill them full of lead. They obeyed like dumb-driven sheep. As the water in the hold of the sinking ship began to pour over her bulwarks into the sea again, the men on the Richard resumed the battle with new vigor.
Paul Jones had given orders to drop hand-grenades from the rigging down into the hold of the Serapis, through her main hatchway, which was open. By this same means the enemy had been set afire at various times before. Now, at an opportune moment, a hand-grenade fell among a pile of cartridges strung out on the deck of the Serapis. A terrific explosion occurred, killing many of her men.
It was an opportunity too good to let go. With a shout, the dashing John Mayrant, cleared the bulwarks of the enemy ship at the head of a yelling throng of Americans and French, and the next moment a terrific hand-to-hand struggle with cutlass and pistol was being waged.
Seeing his men falling back, Captain Pearson knew that he was a defeated man, and struck his colors to save those of his crew still alive.
The capture of the British frigate came none too soon, for the old shot-torn Bon Homme Richard was settling fast. By the combined efforts of crew and prisoners, the fire in both ships was extinguished. Then all bent their efforts to removing the wounded and prisoners from the Richard to the Serapis, together with ammunition and other valuables.
All the rest of that night the heroic old craft kept afloat, with the Stars-and-Stripes—the same flag the Colonial maids of Portsmouth had given Paul Jones upon his departure in the Ranger—flying proudly at her peak. Then, as if waiting for daylight to illuminate her last action before man, she slowly sank just as the sun came up across the waters in the east. The very last vestige anybody saw of her was her flag, still flying—unstruck!
When, two years later, Paul Jones returned to America, he met Miss Mary Langdon, who had been one of the girls to make this ensign. "I wished above all things to bring this flag to America," said he; "but, Miss Mary, I could not bear to strip the old ship in her last agony, nor could I deny to my dead on her decks, who had given their lives to keep it flying, the glory of taking it with them."
"You have done exactly right, commodore," exclaimed she. "That flag is just where we all wish it to be—flying at the bottom of the sea over the only ship that ever went down in victory!"
