On the 14th of September Commodore Jones sent for the captains of the
Pallas and Vengeance, and confided to them a plan he had for laying the
city of Edinburgh under a contribution of two hundred thousand pounds,
besides capturing an armed ship of twenty guns and three fine cutters
that lay in Leith roads.
“The ships lie in a state of perfect indolence and security,” he said,
“which will prove their ruin.”
The French captains were not at first equal to this bold project. During
one whole night, while the squadron lay off the Frith of Forth, did Paul
Jones argue with them, and at last their consent was won.
When it was submitted to the younger officers, all received it with
ardor.
“If these captains had but the dash and enterprise of their juniors
anything could be attempted,” remarked Paul Jones to Lieutenant Dale.
Dale shrugged his shoulders.
“The French have lost more ships through prudence than the British
through rashness,” was his significant answer.
Paul Jones then made every preparation for the descent. De Chamillard,
who had proved himself a brave and resolute man, was to take the terms
of capitulation and ransom to the magistrates of Edinburgh. One half
hour exactly was to be given them to provide two hundred thousand pounds
or its equivalent. The gallant young Dale was to command the landing
party.
The Frith of Forth was then entered, and on the 15th of September the
ships were seen distinctly beating up the Frith. The alarm was general
among the inhabitants, who knew the mighty name of Paul Jones, and who
prepared as well as they could to meet him. Batteries were erected, and
the citizens were served with arms from Edinburgh Castle. A little boy,
ten years old, who was in Edinburgh then, well remembered the alarm and
commotion, and often spoke of it afterward. This was Walter Scott.
One man, however—a member of Parliament—took it into his head that the
Bon Homme Richard was a British cruiser, whose mission was to destroy
the daring American. He therefore sent a boat with a messenger, asking
that some powder and shot be sent him so that he might defend himself
against the notorious Paul Jones. The commodore received the messenger
politely on the quarter-deck, with several officers around him.
“Tell your master,” he said, “that I send the powder very cheerfully—Mr.
Dale, will you have a barrel hoisted out?—and regret that I have no shot
suitable for this powder.” As the powder was of no use without the shot
the member of Parliament was no better off with it than without it.
Nevertheless, the messenger did not have wit enough to see that he was
being gulled, and accepted the barrel very thankfully. The men on deck,
who saw through the ruse, grinned broadly while they were very zealous
in getting the powder over the side. Bill Green, however, who had been
talking with the men in the boat, touched his cap and spoke aside to
Paul Jones:
“If you please, sir, that ’ere duck-legged chap, he’s a pilot, sir.”
“I am glad you told me,” answered Paul Jones: and, approaching the man,
he said carelessly: “My fine fellow, I shall be on and off this coast
looking for Paul Jones for some days, and I shall want a pilot, so I
think I shall have to keep you.”
“All right, sir,” answered the man, touching his cap; and, calling out
to his mates in the boat, he cried: “Tell Ailsa I have got a job of
piloting, and she need not expect me till she sees me.”
This man proved to be of great service in piloting the vessel; for, even
after her character was discovered, he was forced to direct her, as his
own life, as much as that of anybody’s on the ship, depended upon her
safety.
The Bon Homme Richard, with her two consorts, the Pallas and the
Vengeance, continued working to windward up the Frith until Sunday, the
17th of September, a gusty autumn morning. Then they were almost within
cannon shot of the town. The boats were hoisted out, De Chamillard with
his soldiers were ready, and Dale, the youngest lieutenant on board, but
the one most after Paul Jones’s own heart, was just about to step over
the side. The wind had been fresh since the dawn of day, but suddenly a
black and furious squall was seen upon the water ahead of them. The men
were ordered in from the boats to assist in shortening sail, which was
barely done before the squall struck them. The gale increasing
fearfully, the boats were hoisted in, and the vessels were obliged to
bear up before the wind in order to save their spars. The gale
continuing, they were driven out of the Frith, and had to seek the open
sea for safety.
Toward night the wind moderated. The North Sea was full of merchant
ships, and the Bon Homme Richard, as well as the Pallas, cruised back
and forth, taking and sinking a number of colliers. This, however, was
not the sort of enterprise that suited Paul Jones’s daring spirit. He
proposed several adventurous plans to the French captains, but could not
win their co-operation. They were brave men, but more prudent than
enterprising, and they had not the personal knowledge of Paul Jones’s
powers and resource to take the risks he proposed. There was a large
fleet of merchant ships lying in the Humber, which Paul Jones wished to
entice into the open roads. The Bon Homme Richard went off before the
wind, and returned wearing British colors, hoping that a certain ship
which carried a pendant at her masthead was a ship of war, and would
fight. This ship, though, kept to the windward and near dangerous
shoals, so that the Bon Homme Richard could not approach with safety.
In order to learn some news of what was being done in the way of
preparations to meet him, Paul Jones boldly hoisted a signal for a
pilot. Two pilot boats, supposing the Bon Homme Richard to be a British
cruiser, responded. There was great eagerness between the pilot boats as
to which should be taken on board. Lieutenant Dale, under Paul Jones’s
orders, took them both on board, in order to learn everything possible
about the state of affairs along the coast. Presently Paul Jones, in his
undress uniform, which greatly resembled the British uniform, except
that he wore a Scotch bonnet of blue cloth bound with gold, strolled
along the deck, and, seeing young Dale in conversation with the pilots,
joined him.
“Have you heard anything of Paul Jones and his ship, my good man?” he
asked.
“Yes, sir,” responded both pilots in a breath, and one of them
continued:
“That ’ere ship yonder,” pointing to the vessel wearing a pendant, and
which was still near the entrance to the Humber River, “she is a armed
merchantman—”
“And,” broke in the other, anxious to contribute his quota, “there’s a
king’s frigate layin’ at anchor up the river, a-waitin’ for news o’ that
impudent rebel ship o’ Paul Jones’s to take her and sink her. I piloted
the frigate in, and they’ve give us a private signal for all ships while
the rebel ship is in these waters.”
“That signal would be useful to us,” remarked Paul Jones, smiling in
spite of himself. “We have not been in port since early in August, and
we might get in trouble through not knowing the signal.”
The pilots, still supposing the Bon Homme Richard to be a British ship,
gave the signal. Having got all he wanted out of them, Paul Jones
dismissed them with money, saying that as there was already a frigate in
the river he would continue to cruise outside. As the pilots went over
the side, Bill Green bawled at them:
“Thankee for that ’ere private signal!” And a roar of laughter from the
foks’l showed the sailors’ appreciation of the joke. But the pilots went
off well satisfied with their fee and perfectly unsuspicious.
As soon as the pilot boat was out of sight, Bill Green, under Dale’s
orders, hoisted the private signal, and lay near the mouth of the river.
The armed vessel came a little way down the stream, but something
aroused her suspicions, and she put back hastily. The entrance to the
Humber being very difficult and dangerous, Paul Jones concluded not to
attempt it, but to cruise around Flamborough Head, in the hope of
rejoining his consorts, the Pallas and the Vengeance, and also with the
hope of intercepting the Baltic fleet, which was due about that time.
This was the night of the 22d of September, the turning point in the
career of Paul Jones, and it was one of the most miserable nights he had
ever spent in all his adventurous life. The time of his cruise was now
up, and upon joining the other two ships it would be his duty to proceed
to the Texel, after a fruitless and inglorious expedition. After having
endured all the agony of hope deferred, of suspense and almost of
despair for fifteen months, he had at last got to sea in a miserable old
hulk that was only a travesty on the fair frigate that he had hoped to
command. He had lost one of his best officers and twenty-three of his
men. More than half his squadron had deserted him, and he had been
humiliated by the insubordination of a French captain that he could not
properly punish without incurring the displeasure of the only ally that
his distressed and struggling country could claim. He had taken a few
prizes, most of which had been lost by caprice or folly, and he was now
about to return to bear all the shame of failure, for to Paul Jones’s
lofty and comprehensive mind the lack of brilliant success was failure.
A spirit of fierce unrest seemed to possess him as he walked the
quarter-deck of the Bon Homme Richard while the twilight fell on that
September evening. The darkness came on fast, and with it a fresh but
fickle wind. The moon was near its full, and as it rose from the water
it cast a pale and spectral glare over the vast expanse of the North
Sea. Clouds were scudding wildly across the sky, and occasionally the
moon was obscured for long periods. It was one of those ghastly nights
when misfortune and sorrow and disappointment seem to brood over the
universe.
The Bon Homme Richard was under easy canvas, and the crew were sitting
around the foks’l after their day’s work was done, listening to yarns
and songs. Presently, in the stillness of the September night, Paul
Jones heard Bill Green’s rich voice singing. Scarcely knowing why he did
it, so heavy was the weight upon his heart, Paul Jones walked quietly
along the deck, and, leaning over the rail, unobserved by the men, he
listened to the song. It was sad enough, and the air had a melancholy
beauty in it that went to his very soul. It struck him with the deadly
chill of a presentiment. The men, too, listened with a subdued and
silent attention. This was the song:
_Call the watch! Call the watch!
Ho! the starboard watch, ahoy!_ Have you heard
How a noble ship, so trim, like our own, my hearties, here,
All scudding ’fore the gale, disappeared
When yon southern billows rolled o’er their bed so green and clear?
_Hold the reel! Keep her full! Hold the reel!_
How she flew athwart the spray, as, shipmates, we do now,
Till her twice a hundred fearless hearts of steel
Felt the whirlwind lift its waters aft and plunge her downward bow!
_Bear a hand!_
_Strike to’gallants! Mind your helm! Jump aloft!_
’Twas such a night as this, my lads, a rakish bark was drowned,
When demons foul, that whisper seamen oft,
Scooped a tomb amid the flashing surge that never shall be found.
_Square the yards! A double reef! Hark! the blast!_
Oh, fiercely has it fallen on the war-ship of the brave!
When its tempest fury stretched the stately mast
All along the foamy sides, as they shouted on the wave.
_Bear a hand!_
_Call the watch! Call the watch!
Ho! the larboard watch, ahoy!_ Have you heard
How a vessel, gay and taut, on the mountains of the sea
Went below, with all her warlike crew aboard—
They who battled for the happy, boys, and perished for the free?
_Clew, clew up, fore and aft! Keep her away!_
How the vulture bird of death, in its black and viewless form,
Hovered sure o’er the clamors of his prey,
While through all their dripping shrouds yells the spirit of the
storm.
_Bear a hand!_
_Now, out reefs! Brace the yard! Lively there!_
Oh, no more to homeward breeze shall her swelling bosom spread;
But Love’s expectant eye bids Despair
Set her raven watch eternal o’er the wreck in ocean’s bed!
_Board your tacks! Cheerly, boys!_ But for them
Their last evening gun is fired—their gales are over blown!
O’er their smoking deck no starry flag shall stream;
They’ll sail no more—they’ll fight no more—for their gallant ship’s
gone down!
_Bear a hand!_
A solemn silence followed as the last musical note died away on the
waters. The waves and the lightly whistling wind had made a soft
accompaniment for the sweet, sad music. Paul Jones listened to every
word, and at the last “_Bear a hand!_” something like a groan burst from
him. Hope had almost gone—despair was near to him. He stepped
noiselessly from his place at the rail, and with bent head and folded
arms began again to walk the quarter-deck. Dale, watching Paul Jones’s
slight but sinewy figure as he walked up and down like a caged tiger,
noticed the new expression on his face—an expression almost of
hopelessness. Well might Paul Jones be hopeless, if this was to be the
barren result of a cruise in which he had promised himself and those
under him so much glory.
All the early hours of the night this ceaseless walk continued. It was
Dale’s watch on deck, and he was relieved at midnight by Cutting Lunt,
the only other sea lieutenant on the ship since Henry Lunt’s loss in the
boat. Although not given to following the commodore unless invited, Dale
looked after him wistfully as he went below. Once within the cabin, Paul
Jones threw himself in a chair, and, resting his head on his hands, gave
way to a silent paroxysm of despair. He knew not how long he sat in this
agony of thought and feeling, but at last, raising his head, he saw his
cabin boy, Danny Dixon, crouched in a corner, sound asleep. Although
Danny’s orders were to leave the cabin and go to his hammock at ten
o’clock, he was often found in the cabin at midnight, for which he
always made the excuse that he had fallen asleep and did not know when
it was six bells.
Something in the boy’s faithful and doglike attachment appealed to Paul
Jones at this moment of supreme distress. “Poor little fellow!” he
thought to himself, gazing at the boy’s sleeping figure. “There is one
faithful soul who loves me, poor and unlettered and simple as he may
be.”
He then rose, and, going forward, laid the boy’s head in a more
comfortable position and threw a blanket over him.
“Let him rest; he will lie there until morning. And what would not I
give for his sound and careless sleep!”
A few moments later a slight tap was heard at the cabin door, and Paul
Jones himself opened it. There stood young Dale. His eyes dropped before
the calm gaze of the commodore’s. He had come, led by an impulse of pity
and veneration, but he knew not how to express it. In a moment or two
Paul Jones spoke:
“Dale, I know why you have come. You feel for me in my misfortunes—for
surely misfortune has followed this cruise. Know you, though, that while
I want no man’s insulting pity, yours, which comes from the heart, is
sweet to me.”
At this he laid his hand on the young lieutenant’s shoulder, and Dale,
glancing up, his own eyes full of tears, saw that Paul Jones’s eyes were
moist.
“I know, sir, better than anybody, the trials, the disadvantages, the
insults you have been subject to. But there is not a man on this ship
who does not believe in you and know that, if we have no captured ship
of war to bring back with us, it is fate—not want of enterprise. But,
commodore, I have a strange presentiment. I feel yet that within
twenty-four hours we shall have some glorious event upon our hands.
Something tells me that we are at a turning point, and that Fortune,
which favors the brave, has yet a glorious reward for you.”
“May you be right!” answered Paul Jones, with a melancholy smile.