little captain that it would be dangerous for him to go out with but one
ship, he replied that he liked nothing better than “going into harm’s
way,” and he finally went. He waited outside an English port till the
warship _Drake_ came out. The British commander stared at the new flag,
for he had never seen it before. “What ship is that?” he asked. “It is
the American ship _Ranger_.” Some one on the _Drake_ made fun of the
new flag, saying it looked like a patchwork quilt. “Very well,” retorted
Captain Jones, “we will cover your Union Jack with it, then.”
The battle between the _Ranger_ and the _Drake_ lasted just one hour and
four minutes. When it was over, the _Drake_ had lost her captain and
first lieutenant and thirty-eight men, killed and wounded, while the
loss on the _Ranger_ was only two killed and six wounded.
When Captain Jones returned to the shores of France he brought with him
the _Drake_ as a prize, with a goodly crew of British prisoners to
exchange for Americans. As he had promised, the Stars and Stripes were
at the _Drake’s_ masthead over the British flag. There was no trouble
then about saluting the American flag. All France and America went wild
over this victory. In fact, nearly every nation under heaven--excepting
Great Britain--was greatly pleased with the escapade of brave little
Captain Jones.
Of course, Captain Jones had just had enough to make him long to be
“going into harm’s way” on a larger scale. But France now had her own
troubles with England. She needed all the ships and men she could raise
to make a navy able to beat the big fleet Great Britain was getting
ready for a great naval battle. Still, Captain Jones would not be put
off. With Doctor Franklin’s help the French found him a poor old ship
which they told him to arm and man and go ahead with. Jones did his
best, but the foundry did not fill his order for cannon, and he was
obliged to take some old guns which were too heavy for the positions he
had to give them. It was bad enough to be forced to fight the whole
British navy with a poor, slow, rotten old hulk with out-of-date guns,
but the men he had to take to do the fighting were worse. Among them
were Portuguese and Malays who could not understand orders in either
French or English; but, worst of all, there were a hundred or more
English prisoners, who would watch their chance to stab or shoot the few
Americans in command, and surrender the ship to their own countrymen.
Dr. Benjamin Franklin’s “Poor Richard” almanac had been published as a
French book, under the title of “Bonhomme Richard,” or “Goodman
Richard.” So Jones, in compliment to his genial friend and helper, named
his newly-made-over ship, _Bonhomme Richard_. Before he got this craft
ready, several French commanders and crews wished to join him. These men
were not capable commanders, but they had better ships and crews than
Captain Jones, the one man best able to use them to advantage.
When Jones started out with the _Richard_, he was followed by a sort of
private fleet, among which were the _Alliance_ and the _Pallas_. The
commanders of the other ships refused to obey orders unless they
happened to feel so disposed. Most of the other ships got lost or
started off, like pirates, after prizes for themselves, so that when
Jones met the leading ships of the British, there were only the
_Richard_, the _Alliance_, and the _Pallas_ left.
When the three ships came round a high point called Flamborough Head and
saw there the British men-of-war, _Serapis_ and _Countess of
Scarborough_, Commander Jones ordered the _Pallas_ to engage the
_Countess_ while he, with the _Richard_, tackled the _Serapis_.
The commander had one lieutenant, Richard Dale, an American who had
escaped in the most mysterious way from an English prison. Without the
heroic aid of this officer Jones might have lost the day--or the night,
for the battle did not begin until dark. There were hundreds of people
on the shore watching the fight. At the very beginning they saw--and
heard--the old cannon on the _Richard_ bursting and killing nearly all
the gunners and powder-boys serving them.
Meanwhile the _Serapis_, which was a brand-new ship with twice the
number and weight of guns that Jones had, was raking the _Richard_ fore
and aft, and shooting great, ragged holes in her sides. The sea came
pouring into the ship and the British prisoners came running up, yelling
frantically, “We are sinking!” By sheer force of will and fear of eye,
Paul Jones and Richard Dale drove those excited Englishmen back into the
hold to work the pumps, as though they would pump the North Sea dry.
Jones sailed his ship close to the _Serapis_, intending to catch hold of
its side with hooks called grappling-irons. This made it possible for
the men on both ships to fight hand to hand. The _Richard_ came
alongside with such force that a spar which stuck out at the side
(called the jib-boom) was driven into the ropes which held the mast
nearest the stern of the _Serapis_ (called the mizzenmast). The grip
which Captain Jones now had on the _Serapis_ was like that of a Boston
bulldog who has an English mastiff by the throat. If one ship went down,
the other would have to go too.
“Well done, my brave lads. We have got her now!” shouted Jones; and he
ordered the sailing master to haul the _Richard’s_ cable over and tie
the jib-boom of the _Serapis_ to his own mizzenmast. When the cable
caught and became tangled the master uttered an oath.
“Don’t swear,” said Jones calmly. “In another moment we may be in
eternity; but let us do our duty.”
The ropes and spars of the two ships were now so tangled that the men in
the top of the _Richard_ scrambled across into the rigging of the enemy,
like monkeys in two treetops. In spite of all the captain’s efforts, the
_Richard_ was now on fire in a dozen places. The people on shore
cheered, for it looked as if the English were burning the “pirate” ship.
The master-at-arms, hearing a report that the captain and Dale had both
been killed, started with two others to surrender to the commander of
the _Serapis_, all three shouting, “Quarter!” The commander of the
_Serapis_, hearing the cry, asked Jones if he was ready to give up.
“No,” shouted the American commander, “_I have not yet begun to fight!_”
By this time even the masts of the _Richard_ were burning; but an
American sailor saw a chance to do great harm to the enemy. Seizing a
hand grenade, or bomb, he crept across the yardarms of both ships and
threw it down upon the deck of the _Serapis_. The bomb fell and burst on
a train of gunpowder scattered by broken cartridges. The flame blazed
along past several of the big guns, ending in a terrific explosion.
This turned the tide of the battle. The Americans swarmed on board the
_Serapis_ and took possession of it. The English commander surrendered
by pulling down the flag of his ship. In giving up his sword to Jones he
said, with a sneer,
“It is painful to me that I must resign to a man with a halter around
his neck.”
The American captain seemed not to notice the intended insult. Every
American boy and girl has a right to be proud of Paul Jones for his
noble reply:
“Sir, you have fought like a hero.”
[Illustration: JOHN PAUL JONES COMMANDING THE “BON HOMME RICHARD” IN THE
BATTLE WITH THE “SERAPIS.”]
The _Pallas_ had captured the _Countess of Scarborough_ after an hour’s
fighting. The _Bonhomme Richard_, when cut loose from the _Serapis_,
sank to the bottom of the sea. Before the rest of the enemy’s fleet
could stop them, Jones and the commander of the _Pallas_ sailed away
with the _Serapis_ and the _Countess_ to a safe neutral port in Holland.
The British now offered a reward of more than fifty thousand dollars for
Captain Paul Jones, dead or alive. The people of Holland begged him not
to fly the American flag, as there were two British fleets waiting
outside that Dutch harbor to capture him. But Paul Jones insisted on
flying the Stars and Stripes, not only in that port, but when he came
out and ran the gauntlet of more than forty British men-of-war. He
passed them all with colors flying, and reached a French port in safety.
Captain Paul Jones was one of the heroes of the world. The French made
him a knight and King Louis presented him with a magnificent
gold-handled sword. The United States Congress voted him a gold medal in
honor of his greatest victory and passed a resolution commending “his
zeal, prudence and intrepidity,” assigned him to the command of a new
ship of the line then being built, and proposed to create for him the
rank of real admiral, until then unknown in the American navy. General
Washington wrote him a letter of congratulation in which he said: “You
have won the admiration of the world.”
Thus the son of a poor gardener became our greatest naval hero in the
War of the Revolution. But above all the honors he received at home and
abroad, this was Paul Jones’s proudest boast: “_I have ever looked out
for the honor of the American flag._”
GENERAL MARION, THE CAROLINA “SWAMP FOX”
A hundred years ago, when boys had but few books of any kind, “The Life
of General Marion” was their favorite book of adventure, because of its
short stories of rare bravery and hairbreadth escapes. General Francis
Marion, of whom the book tells, was a southern man, born the same year
as General Washington, and a commander of some of the American troops in
the War for Independence.
During that war, when the British found that they could accomplish
little in the northern states, they decided to carry the war into the
south. Lord Cornwallis was the British commander; under him Colonel
Tarleton was a cavalry officer notorious for bullying and cruelty who
became a terror to the whole region. Another commander of British troops
in the south was a former American general, Benedict Arnold, the
traitor, who joined the British after he had failed to deliver West
Point into the hands of the enemy.
General Horatio Gates was sent by the Congress to defend the south
against the British. But General Gates was not a great or brave
commander. He was defeated by Cornwallis at Camden, South Carolina. He
lost two thousand men, and the rest of his soldiers were scattered.
Because of this terrible defeat--the worst in the whole War for
Independence--the southern people were deeply discouraged.
What was to be done? In the south there were many Tories, as the people
were called who believed that those who fought against England for
liberty were rebels. Besides fighting in the British campaigns, the
southern Tories went about in bands, shooting and injuring all the
“rebels” they
[Illustration: GENERAL MARION, THE CAROLINA “SWAMP FOX.”]
could. So the southern patriots gathered together in small companies to
defend their families from the British and the Tories, and to prevent
the British from capturing the whole southern country before Washington
could send down a better general and another army.
During the months after the defeat at Camden, the fight was carried on
in what was called guerrilla warfare--_guerrilla_ being Spanish for
“little war.” Small bands of Americans hid in the woods and swamps, and
when they caught the British off guard, suddenly pounced upon them,
taking or rescuing prisoners. The greatest leader of this kind of
warfare on the American side was General Marion.
These southern soldiers had very poor weapons. Most of their guns were
the kind used in shooting birds, and were loaded with shot instead of
bullets. For swords they had wooden-handled saws with the teeth ground
down to a smooth edge. They had but little to eat--often only potatoes,
which they could bake in the ashes of their campfires.
Their horses, however, were the finest and fastest in all that country.
Although these men had to deny themselves food and clothing, their
horses were well fed and groomed, for often the masters’ lives depended
on the fleetness of their steeds. And the horses sometimes acted as if
they understood and enjoyed the terrible game of life and death their
masters were playing.
Some of the bravest men in the south, seeing no other way to save or to
serve their country, came and offered themselves to General Marion, to
fight under the greatest hardships and risks in the most dangerous
adventures. Among these was the famous Sergeant Jasper, who was one of
the first to risk his life for the flag. Nine British ships-of-war
attacked a fort in Charleston Harbor. They shot away the staff on which
the American flag was flying; but Jasper jumped out, caught the banner
before it touched the ground, and climbed up and nailed it in place,
while the guns were aimed at him as well as at the starry ensign.
While Sergeant Jasper was under General Marion he was often sent out on
scout and spy duty. He had a natural talent for disguising himself. He
went once to visit a sergeant in a British regiment. While he was there
a number of American prisoners were brought in. Taking it for granted
that a guard of ten British soldiers, with these prisoners, would pass a
certain spring, Jasper left the British camp to obtain help. He found
only one American who could go with him. The two hid themselves near the
spring, surprised the ten redcoats, disarmed them, and, with the former
prisoners, marched gaily back to Marion’s headquarters with the ten
captured British soldiers.
Once when General Marion came to a river ferry, he heard that a company
of ninety British regulars were taking more than two hundred captured
Americans to the prison-ship at Charleston. The prisoners already in the
hold of the ship were starved and neglected. Besides, smallpox had
broken out among them, and many of the best men among the patriots were
dying of that loathsome disease. So General Marion ordered his men to
ride through the darkness to the ford where the British and their
prisoners had crossed the river a few hours before. Here they learned
that the redcoats and their charges were going to stay that night at a
country tavern called the Blue House. The Americans approached this
place with great caution. When they came to a wooden bridge, they took
horse-blankets and laid them down on the bridge to deaden the sound of
the horses’ hoofs.
Before deciding how to make an attack, General Marion sent several
scouts to find out the lay of the land. With tread as sure and silent as
that of moccasined Indians, the scouts returned and whispered this
report:
“The officers are carousing in the house. Some of the men are outside.
Many of them must be asleep, as we could not get a glimpse of them. A
few sentinels are lounging about, without a thought of being attacked.”
Marion told his men to lie down under the trees for a little rest. Very
early in the morning, when all the British, including the sentinels,
seemed to be asleep, he roused the men and ordered the attack.
The odds were over three to one against them, but Marion’s men were used
to that. They were taking a great risk, but there was much to be
gained--guns, equipment and British prisoners who could be exchanged so
as to release Americans from the prison-ship. Best of all, each man of
the thirty might be the means of setting ten other Americans free.
When the men were well awake, General Marion sent a lieutenant ahead,
directing him as follows:
“Take a few men with you, make a wide circle, and come in behind the
house. Get as close to them as you can, and wait till I give the signal.
Then close in on them and see that no one gets away. We must make quick
work of this. See that your guns are all right.”
To the men waiting with him he said: “Are you ready?”
“Ready, sir,” they whispered back.
“Come on, then,” he commanded. “Follow me. Don’t make any noise. Don’t
speak. Watch me. Don’t fire till I say the word.”
They crept around the Blue House like Indians, testing every twig lest
it snap, and feeling their way in the darkness. Suddenly a shot rang out
in the early morning air. A sentinel on the other side of the house must
have seen the lieutenant’s men. The British soldiers, roused from a
sound sleep, jumped about, peering this way and that in the darkness. No
one knew what had happened, or what would happen next.
The officers came tumbling out, swearing and yelling. As the Americans
came rushing in from all sides, shouting and shooting, the British
thought they were attacked by an army instead of by thirty guerrillas.
Marion’s men grabbed the rifles of the British soldiers, shooting some
and knocking others down. Some of the British shouted, “Quarter!” and
General Marion ordered his men to stop firing.
There was a wholesale surrender, and the hundreds of American prisoners
were set free. Many of them joined Marion’s men. When the British saw
how they and their prisoners had been taken in, ten to one, they looked
sheepish.
But the British leader, the bullying Colonel Tarleton, had made his
escape. His motto seemed to be--
“He who fights and runs away
Will live to fight another day.”
He ran away, at least, though he did not do any fighting first.
Five months after the battle of Camden, there was another battle at
Cowpens. The British army, commanded by Tarleton, was only a little
larger than the American. The redcoats were so badly beaten that they
lost over nine hundred men, while the American loss was only
seventy-two.
One day, not long after, Tarleton was bullying a southern woman in her
home, where he and some of his officers were quartered. There was, on
the American side, a Colonel Washington, a distant relative of the
commander-in-chief. In his insulting way, Tarleton asked, when the lady
said this officer was a relative of hers:
“What does Colonel Washington look like? I have never had the pleasure
of meeting him.”
“You might have seen him,” said the lady, sweetly, “if you had _looked
behind you_ at the Battle of Cowpens!”
This polite way of calling him a coward made Tarleton very angry, but he
was no match in wit for a brave and brilliant southern woman.
Though many of the wealthiest people of the south were Tories, some of
them were true patriots. A widow named Motte had just built a beautiful
home on a hilltop, and had furnished it elegantly, when the British
decided that it would make a fine fort, and promptly took possession of
it. General Marion and his guerrilla band surrounded the mansion and
told Mrs. Motte, who was then staying in a neighbor’s house, that if he
could set her house afire he could “smoke out” the British and capture
them. That woman patriot was glad to sacrifice her lovely home for the
good of her country; so Marion burned down the mansion and made the
redcoats his prisoners.
WINNERS OF THE WEST
WOLFE AND MONTCALM, THE RIVAL HEROES OF QUEBEC
More than one hundred years after Champlain returned from France to his
beloved Quebec, France and Great Britain were at war. In America this
struggle was called the French and Indian War, because the English
colonists had to fight against the French and their Indian allies, who
came down from Canada to keep the English out of the country along the
Ohio River. In Europe this strife, in which several other nations took
part, was known as the Seven Years’ War.
During this war young George Washington was first heard of. He was sent
into the western wilderness in the dead of winter to carry a message
from the English governor of Virginia to the French commander at a fort
in western Pennsylvania. A few years later, General Braddock came over
with an army of British regulars to fight the French and their allies in
the region where the young messenger had been. Major George Washington
was on the English general’s staff, and saved many of the British
regulars after Braddock fell, defeated, near Fort Duquesne, where
Pittsburgh now stands.
The British attacked the French also at Louisburg, in Nova Scotia, and
at Ticonderoga, near the southern end of Lake Champlain; but the most
important point to attack was Quebec, “the Gibraltar of America,” which
Champlain had built nearly one hundred and fifty years before. The
general then in military command at Quebec was the Marquis de Montcalm,
a true Frenchman, devoted to his king, and to his mother, wife, and
children, from all of whom he was separated because of his warm love of
country.
[Illustration: THE MARQUIS DE MONTCALM, THE BRAVE DEFENDER OF QUEBEC.]
In his frequent letters to his mother and his wife, Montcalm told all
his troubles with the governor of Canada and the Canadian volunteers. He
had brought from France to Quebec an army of regular soldiers. They
looked with scorn upon the French Canadian raw recruits, who seemed
about as rude as their Indian neighbors. The Canadian governor, on his
side, saw with jealous eyes the French marquis who had come from Old
France to command the Canadian companies along with his own French
troops. It needed rare tact and true love of country for Montcalm to
keep friendly with the Canadian governor, who pretended to be the
friend of the marquis while secretly turning everybody he could against
him.
When the general won a great victory at Oswego, hundreds of miles away,
the governor, who was not there, wrote to his friends and the men over
him in France about “my” victory and what “I” planned and “I” did with
such great success. But though Montcalm wrote about his trials and
troubles to his wife and mother, he managed to keep on good terms with
the governor and to prevent an outbreak between the French regulars and
the Canadian soldiers and Indian warriors.
General Montcalm knew that the British would attack the French
stronghold of Quebec. To keep this fortress at the narrow point in the
St. Lawrence River might mean the saving not only of all Canada, but
also of the French forts and territory along the Wabash and Mississippi
rivers, more than a thousand miles away to the southwest.
The fortress at Quebec seemed impossible to take, for it was on top of a
high, steep cliff looking over the St. Lawrence. The lower part of the
town lay along the level of the river far below, but the town would be
of no use whatever to an enemy that could not take the fort, frowning
directly overhead. It seemed that the only way the fort might be reached
by an enemy was by way of the St. Charles River, just below the town.
Troops might be taken up this river, and reach Quebec by going a long
distance around back of the city. Montcalm had logs chained together,
making a “boom,” and threw that across the St. Charles where it flows
into the St. Lawrence. Then no ship or large boat could enter there and
land soldiers behind the fort.
Not only was the St. Lawrence River narrow at Quebec, but there were
many rocks in the swift channel below, so that no ship without a
skilled pilot could pass up to the town. Montcalm, however, wishing to
make Quebec doubly safe, posted most of his army below the town, to
prevent the approach of the enemy.
Meanwhile William Pitt, the British prime minister, decided, as Montcalm
had foreseen, that Quebec must be taken. Pitt made up his mind also that
a young British officer named Wolfe was the right man to place in
command of the British army, to capture the Canadian fortress. Wolfe’s
father had been a general, and from the age of sixteen the son had been
a soldier. As a colonel under General Amherst at Louisburg, James Wolfe
had shown himself so fearless as to be even rash, and so devoted to his
duty that he seemed not to care for his own life. He was so daring and
reckless that some one tried to warn the king of England by saying,
“That young Wolfe is mad.”
“Mad, is he?” snapped King George. “Then I only hope he will bite some
others of my generals!”
Colonel Wolfe was as keen and wise as he was brave; so the king
appointed him general and commanded him to capture Quebec.
James Wolfe was as devoted to his mother as Montcalm was to his--even
more so, for Wolfe had neither wife nor child to divide his affection.
He wrote home often about his army life, his hopes, and his aims. With
all his successes and honors, General Wolfe was a very modest young man.
He sailed up the St. Lawrence with a small army--only nine thousand men.
Of these he wrote to William Pitt:
“Our troops are good, and if valor can make amends for the want of
numbers, we shall probably succeed.”
To the astonishment of Montcalm and the French army and people, the
British ships sailed up to the Isle of Orleans opposite Quebec as if
there were no dangerous rocks in the rapid river there. Wolfe had taken
some Canadian pilots on board farther down the St. Lawrence, and had
threatened to hang them if one of the ships ran upon a rock.