Part 7

Thus, about all that could be offered was the command of small warships or privateers, offers which the proud Jones promptly rejected. To M. Chaumont he wrote, in this connection, a letter containing the following extracts: "I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast, for I intend to go _in harm's way_. Therefore buy a frigate with sails fast, and that is sufficiently large to carry twenty-six or twenty-eight guns on her deck. I would rather be shot ashore than go to sea in the armed prizes I have described."

He continued his heckling correspondence with the greatest energy, alternately cajoling, proposing, complaining, begging to be sent on some important enterprise. He wrote innumerable letters to De Sartine, Franklin, De Chartres, De Chaumont, and many others, and finally to the king himself, who granted him an interview. More as a result of this conference with Louis XV than from other sources, he was finally rewarded by being put in command of a small squadron.

At first he was highly delighted with the appointment, but as time wore on and he saw what a poor assortment of ships and crews he had, he was vastly disappointed. But having accepted the command, with true heroic purpose he made up his mind to carry it through to the best of his ability.

The expense of fitting out the expedition was the king's, while the flag and the commissions of the officers were American. The object of the French government was to get Paul Jones to operate against the coasts and shipping of England under the American flag, as the courtesy of warfare forbade France, as an ally, to ravage the coasts of Great Britain before the enemy herself had struck a blow at French interests.

As stated, Paul Jones had a motley array of ships--those which were left over after the French officers had had their pick. The flag-ship, the _Bon Homme Richard_, was a worn-out old East Indiaman, which he refitted and armed with six 18-pounders, twenty-eight 12-pounders, and eight 9-pounders--a battery of forty-two guns. The crew consisted of 375 men of many nationalities, among which were not more than one hundred and fifty Americans, including Wannashego, who had faithfully stuck to his leader during all his trials in Brest. The _Alliance_, the only American ship, was a good frigate rating as a large thirty-two or medium thirty-six. She was commanded by a jealous-minded, half-mad Frenchman named Landais, who was in the American service. The _Pallas_, thirty-two guns; the _Vengeance_, twelve guns; and the little _Cerf_, of eight guns, were all officered and manned by Frenchmen.

Bad as were conditions of ship and crew, however, there was one other feature of the organization which proved a greater handicap to the Scotch commodore. This was the famous _concordat_, an agreement between the various commanders of the ships which Paul Jones was compelled to sign before his commission would be approved by the French minister of the navy. While its terms related largely to the distribution of prize money, it also contained clauses which weakened his authority, and gave his captains a chance to wink at it if they chose.

The little squadron, accompanied by two French privateers, sailed finally from L'Orient on August 14, 1779, on what was planned to be a fifty-days' cruise. Thanks to the Duchesse De Chartres's gift of ten thousand louis d'or, Paul Jones had been able to fit out his flag-ship in a much better condition than the king's fund would have permitted.

On the 18th the privateer _Monsieur_, which was not bound by the _concordat_, took a prize which the captain of that vessel proceeded to relieve of all valuables and then ordered into port. The commodore opposed this, and sent the prize to L'Orient. This so angered the _Monsieur's_ captain that he parted company with the squadron.

But the episode was only the beginning of Paul Jones's troubles with insubordination of officers. While attempting to capture a brigantine, some of his English sailors deserted in two of his small boats. These could not be overhauled, and Landais insolently upbraided the commodore for their loss, declaring that thereafter he would act entirely upon his own responsibility (which indeed he had been doing right along!). The _Cerf_ and the other privateer then pretended to go off to look for the escaped former English prisoners, and they too failed to appear again.

Paul Jones was now left with only the _Bon Homme Richard_, the _Pallas_, the _Vengeance_, and the _Alliance_. It would have been better, as later events showed, if the latter ship had decamped with the _Cerf_ and the privateers; for Captain Landais impudently ignored all of Paul Jones's signals. He even had the audacity to leave the squadron for several days at a time, as the cruise continued, returning when the whim seized him. When other prizes were taken he was bold enough to send two of these into Bergen, Norway, where they were sold to the English, a procedure entirely against the wishes of the commodore, and one which was a source of trouble between Denmark and the United States for many years after the war.

Paul Jones was also compelled to humor the other French captains. Several times he changed his course or modified his operations in compliance with their demands. Had he enjoyed an absolute command he would have carried out his pet scheme of laying Leith and Edinburgh under contribution, but he was so afraid that such a venture would miscarry, owing to the uncertain behavior of his men, that he gave it up.

With his old flag-ship, his ragged squadron, and his unruly officers, Paul Jones then cruised along the Yorkshire coast, and succeeded in capturing a number of vessels. Finally, as he was preparing to end his disappointing voyage at The Texel, Holland, in accordance with Dr. Franklin's orders, chance threw in his way the opportunity for making the cruise a brilliant success.

And, Jones-like, this opportunity he seized eagerly. He saw in a flash that it was his one moment for restoring his waning power to its former pinnacle.

XIII

FIGHTING FRIEND AND FOE

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.

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!"

XIV

DIPLOMACY AND SOCIETY

The desperate battle fought in the bright moonlight was witnessed by many persons in Scarborough and on the Flamborough Head. These English people immediately spread the alarming tidings throughout the enemy country by lighting immense signal fires on the cliffs. Although it was not definitely known what ship had taken the formidable _Serapis_, nearly everybody rightly guessed that it had been captained by the "terrible Paul Jones." The British along the sea coast all the way from Cape Clear to Hull were in a great fright, and for days to come looked for the appearance of the "blood-thirsty buccaneer" in their particular locality.

With his two new prizes--for the _Pallas_ had succeeded in capturing the _Countess of Scarborough_ after a short engagement--the commodore now set off for The Texel, where he arrived October 3. He was none too soon in getting into port, either. Very shortly after his arrival an English squadron, consisting of sixty-four ships-of-the-line and three heavy frigates, which had been looking for him, hove into view.

The scape-goat Landais, with the _Alliance_, was already in The Texel when the American-French squadron arrived. Paul Jones at once took steps for the care of the wounded and prisoners, and then sent special messengers to Dr. Franklin with news of the great victory and a report of Landais's scandalous behavior, demanding that he be court-martialed.

An important problem now to be solved was how to induce the Dutch authorities to allow Paul Jones and his battered ships to remain long enough in a neutral port to make necessary repairs to carry them to France. Indeed, Sir Joseph Yorke, British minister in Holland, lost no time in demanding that the Dutch government turn over to England "the pirate and criminal, Paul Jones, and every ship under his command." An enormous amount of correspondence then passed between the diplomats of the three countries concerned; conferences were held; even Paul Jones himself took a most active hand in presenting his arguments in favor of the step he had taken. The people of Holland were secretly in sympathy with the revolting colonies; but the wealthy Dutch ship-owners were gaining a rich harvest from the commerce with England at this time, and they made their weighty power felt in settling the question. These men thought the ships should be held by Holland until after the war. However, the other contingent argued them down, and the States-General at last sent England the verdict of his country, which was to the effect that Holland would _not_ deliver over the vessels to England, but would insist that they depart from Holland waters at the first favorable weather.

In the meantime, kind-hearted Dutch maids thronged the decks of the _Serapis_, _Alliance_, _Pallas_ and _Scarborough_. They brought with them gifts of food and clothing for the strong and healthy, as well as an abundance of delicacies for the sick and wounded. More than one rosy-cheeked, fair-haired girl acted as nurse, and it is no wonder that under such jolly, tender care the ailing ones made rapid improvement.

As he watched his ships nearing the finish of their repairs, Paul Jones's heart became more anxious, and often he looked seaward where the British ships were grimly patrolling to prevent his escape when the Dutch authorities should order him out at the first favorable wind. He hoped intensely that this sort of wind would not come before he had everything aboard in readiness and his plans for evading the enemy well formed.