The new treaty with France was to bring into special prominence one
of the most remarkable characters of his time, John Paul Jones. On
October 10, 1776, he had been made the eighteenth captain on a list of
twenty-four then established. He considered himself ill-treated, and
justly so, as having been first on the list of lieutenants he should
have been placed higher. His animadversions on the subject, in a letter
to Robert Morris, are worth quoting. It showed along with some very
just criticisms that he had a high and fitting estimate of his duties
as a sea officer, and of the demands of his calling. He said:
“I cannot but lament that so little delicacy hath been observed in
the appointment and promotion of officers in the sea service, many
of whom are not only grossly illiterate, but want even the capacity
of commanding merchant vessels. I was lately on a court-martial
where a captain of marines made his mark and where the president
could not read the oath which he attempted to administer without
spelling and making blunders. As the sea officers are so subject to
be seen by foreigners, what conclusions must they draw of Americans
in general, from characters so rude and contracted? In my judgment
the abilities of sea officers ought to be as far superior to the
abilities of officers in the army as the nature of a sea service is
more complicated and admits of a greater number of cases than can
possibly happen on the land; therefore the discipline by sea ought
to be the more perfect and regular, were it compatible with short
enlistments.”[7]
On June 14, 1777, Jones was assigned to the command of the little
cruiser _Ranger_, just completed at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. On the
same day Congress established the Stars and Stripes as the national
flag, and it is said, and is probable, that Jones was the first to
hoist this flag on a man-of-war. His ship was but 116 feet overall and
28 feet broad. She mounted eighteen 6-pounders.
The delay in fitting out is not to the credit of the energy of those
charged with providing the ship’s equipment. The sails were not ready
until late in October. With a crew of about one hundred and forty,
“nearly all full-blooded Yankees,” she sailed on November 1st, for
France, carrying dispatches from Congress and taking two prizes on the
way. Jones arrived at Nantes on December 2, 1777.
He had a long wait in France before he again got to sea, but his
frequent consultations with our commissioners, his always excellent
advice in naval matters, and his general activity were worth the delay.
It was not until April 10th that he got to sea, starting on his famous
cruise in the Irish Sea during which he took a number of prizes, among
them the _Drake_, a sloop-of-war carrying twenty 6-pounders. He landed
at Whitehaven, Scotland, and burned a ship, one of many which he had
hoped to destroy in this port, and made the famous descent upon Lord
Selkirk’s estate, where his men carried off the family silver. But
Jones had a mutinous crew, thirsting for booty, and his concession of
plunder was a case of _force majeure_. He later redeemed the silver,
giving to the crew several hundred pounds as its valuation as prize,
and returned it to the family. Jones had had much difficulty with
both officers and crew, partially no doubt through his own roughness
(mentioned in Fanning’s narrative) toward the former, and particularly
through the peculiar ideas of liberty prevalent, which sometimes went
so far as to claim that the movements of the ship should be put to a
vote.
Jones having arrived at Brest in May, 1778, with his prize, the
_Drake_, sought a larger command. He had to wait a year for it.
After many strivings, one was found in the _Duc de Duras_, a
fourteen-year-old East Indiaman, which was bought, fitted as a
man-of-war, and renamed the _Bonhomme Richard_ in compliment to
Franklin as being the nearest approach in French to the “Poor Richard”
of the famous almanac. The ship was far from meeting requirements,
being slow and weakly built, so that she finally carried twenty-eight
12 and 9 pounders instead of 18’s on the gun deck, eight 6’s on the
forecastle, and on the after part of the lower deck six 18’s, forty-two
guns in all. She was provided with a mixed crew of Americans, French,
English, a few Scandinavians, and eighty-three Irish and Scotch, Jones
himself being of the latter by birth. Of the first there were in
the beginning but seventy-nine, chiefly exchanged prisoners. Later,
owing to mutinous conduct of the British element, many of these were
discharged and replaced by forty-three newly arrived Americans just
released from prison, and thirty Portuguese. The total was 227 officers
and seamen, besides 130 French soldiers placed aboard to serve as
marines.
Jones’s ideas were large: they included the fitting out of a large
French squadron to act in concert and carrying a considerable number of
troops to make an attack upon the English coast. This, however, fell
through, and a squadron was organized of the _Bonhomme Richard_, 42;
the _Alliance_, 32; the _Pallas_, 32; the _Cerf_, cutter, 18, and the
_Vengeance_, brigantine, of 12 guns.
The _Alliance_ had arrived at Brest, twenty-three days from Boston,
carrying Lafayette, on February 6, 1779. She had an unreliable crew,
with many English and Irish, and a still more unreliable captain,
Landais, who had been an officer in the French navy. He had been
appointed a captain in the American service on the recommendation of
Silas Deane, who seemed to have a faculty for making errors of the
kind. Landais was to give much and continuous trouble.
The squadron did not finally get off until August 14, 1779. Its orders,
prepared by Franklin, with the advice of Sartine, the French Minister
of Marine, were to cruise to the north of the British islands and after
six weeks to go into the Texel, Holland. There were varying incidents
of capture of prizes, designs to attack Leith, insubordinations of the
French captains, etc., but on September 23d, when a convoy of forty
vessels accompanied by two men-of-war was discovered off Flamborough
Head, a prominent point a few miles south of Scarborough, England,
Jones’s moment had come.
It was not until seven o’clock in the evening that the _Bonhomme
Richard_ came within gunshot of the larger ship which turned out to be
the _Serapis_, Captain Richard Pearson, of 50 guns, 18 of which were
18-pounders. She carried 320 men. There then ensued the most remarkable
duel in naval history. Jones was left unsupported by his accompanying
subordinates, and he went into action short sixteen of his best men
and a lieutenant, Lunt, who had been sent to secure a prize. The story
of this remarkable battle must of necessity here be short; the full
details must be sought elsewhere. But short as it must be, there is
enough of it, however baldly told, to stir the blood.
Jones closed with his antagonist early in the action, and as they
came in contact the two ships were lashed together by Jones, the
stern of the _Serapis_ being at the bow of the _Bonhomme Richard_.
The latter’s main deck battery of 12-pounders was silenced, two of
the old six 18-pounders on the lower deck had burst, killing nearly
all the guns’ crews. Only three 9-pounders on the quarter deck could
be used, and one of these had to be shifted from the off side. The
guns of the _Serapis_ were still active, but her upper deck had been
cleared by the musketry fire from the tops of the _Bonhomme Richard_.
The latter’s prisoners (some 200) were released without orders, and in
their fright that the ship was sinking, willingly worked the pumps;
both ships were frequently afire. The men in the _Bonhomme Richard’s_
tops crawled along the yards into the tops of the _Serapis_ and dropped
hand grenades whenever any one appeared on deck; these grenades, at
times going down the hatches and exploding on the lower deck, finally
brought about an explosion of cartridges below which ran from gun to
gun. This went far toward determining the battle. Meantime the erratic
Landais fired three broad-sides, chiefly to the damage of the _Bonhomme
Richard_, as the shot holes were found in the latter’s unengaged side.
There can be little question that he hoped this ship would surrender
when, with his own unharmed, he would capture both. Jones’s doggedness
won the day: at half-past ten Captain Pearson, influenced no doubt
somewhat by the presence of the _Alliance_, surrendered. He stated
that an incomplete list of his killed and wounded were forty-nine of
the former and sixty-eight of the latter, or more than a third of the
whole 320. Jones estimated his loss at about 150, without stating the
proportions.
While this action was going on, the _Pallas_, 30, Captain Cottineau,
had engaged and taken the _Countess of Scarborough_, of 20 guns. The
Baltic fleet under convoy was not attacked, as it should have been by
the _Alliance_ or the _Vengeance_, a curious instance of inertia and
incapacity or worse, so long as neither chose to take part in the main
action.
Both the _Serapis_ and _Bonhomme Richard_ were terribly mauled. The
latter’s rudder, stern frame, and transoms were cut away, and the sides
between the ports were at points driven in. It was ten next morning
before the fires could be extinguished. On examination it was decided
that it would be impossible to keep the ship afloat if rough weather
should come on (which in fact was the case), and during the night and
next morning the wounded were removed. The men who had been brought
from the _Pallas_ to work the pumps were taken off the evening of the
25th (two days after the battle). Says Jones:
“They did not abandon her until after nine o’clock; the water
was then up to the lower deck, and a little after ten I saw with
unexpressible grief the last of the _Bonhomme Richard_. No lives
were lost with the ship, but it was impossible to save the stores of
any sort whatever. I lost even the best part of my clothes, books
and papers; and several of my officers lost all their clothes and
effects.”
The masts of the _Serapis_ fell soon after the surrender, and jury
masts were rigged from spars furnished by the _Alliance_, all the
spare spars of the _Serapis_ being too badly cut by shot. On September
26th she was able to steer for Holland in company with the rest of the
squadron, and on October 3d entered the Texel after some demur on the
part of the Dutch. Though Jones’s instructions gave the Texel as the
port to be made at the end of his six weeks’ cruise, his own wish
was to go into Dunkirk and thus be under the shelter of an ally. The
other captains adhered to the letter of the instructions, and Jones
felt obliged to yield. Much trouble would have been saved had his
views prevailed. As an offset, however, to such disabilities as arose
from the inability of Jones to dispose of the _Serapis_, the anger of
the British Government against the Dutch as to the reception of the
squadron in Dutch waters went far to bringing later the declaration
of war by England against Holland. Jones was allowed to land his sick
and wounded, who were cared for on an island in the bay, as were the
prisoners, numbering 537, sufficient to release by exchange all the
American seamen who were prisoners in England.
For Jones’s further history, his having to put all his ships but the
_Alliance_ under the French flag to avoid the difficulties raised by
Great Britain with Holland; his going in the _Alliance_ to Lorient,
France; the arrival there and sale of the _Serapis_; the charges
against Landais; his short cruise in the _Alliance_; his unjust
treatment by Arthur Lee, by which Landais regained command of the
_Alliance_; Lee’s embarkation in the _Alliance_ for America and the
necessity during the voyage of depriving Landais of the command on
account of evident insanity; the dismissal of Landais from the service;
Jones’s arrival in command of the _Ariel_ at Philadelphia, February
18, 1781, after more than three years’ absence, and his reception of
the thanks of Congress; his appointment to the command of the new
line-of-battle ship _America_ which he lost through its presentation to
France; his return to Europe, and the rest of his adventurous career
must be read in the many books devoted to the history of his life, not
the least interesting part of which is to be found in Fanning’s graphic
narrative. He will always stand out boldly as one of the most fearless
spirits of the sea, and had he lived in the Napoleonic epoch he would
have been met by Napoleon as a kindred soul who might have saved him
the great misfortune of Trafalgar, which so changed the history of
Europe and the world.