full, the two ships separated. Immediately after, Pearson also laid his
topsails back, as he says in his official report, to get square with the
Richard again; Jones at the same instant filled away, which brought the
two ships once more broadside and broadside. As he had already suffered
greatly from the superior force of the Serapis, and from her being more
manageable and a faster sailer than the Richard, which had several times
given her the advantage in position, Jones now determined to lay his
ship athwart the enemy's hawse; he accordingly put his helm up, but,
some of his braces being shot away, his sails had not their full power,
and, the Serapis having sternway, the Richard fell on board of her
farther aft than Jones had intended. The Serapis' jib-boom hung her for
a few minutes, when, carrying away, the two ships swung broadside and
broadside, the muzzles of the guns touching each other. Jones sent Mr.
Stacy, the acting master, to pass up the end of a hawser to lash the two
ships together, and, while he was gone on this service, assisted with
his own hand in making fast the jib-stay of the Serapis to the Richard's
mizzen-mast.
Accident, however, unknown for the moment to either party, more
effectually secured the two vessels together; for, the anchor of the
Serapis having hooked the quarter of the Richard, the two ships lay
closely grappled. In order to escape from this close embrace, and
recover the advantage of his superior sailing and force, Captain Pearson
now let go an anchor, when the two ships tended round to the tide, which
was setting toward Scarborough. The Richard being held by the anchor of
the Serapis, and the yards being entangled fore and aft, they remained
firmly grappled. This happened about half-past eight, the engagement
having already continued an hour.
Meantime the firing had recommenced with fresh fury from the starboard
sides of both vessels. The guns of either ship actually touched the
sides of the other, and, some of them being opposite the ports, the
rammers entered those of the opposite ship when in the act of loading,
and the guns were discharged into the side or into the open decks. The
effect of this cannonade was terrible to both ships, and wherever it
could be kept up in one ship it was silenced in the other. Occasional
skirmishing with pikes and pistols took place through the ports, but
there does not appear to have been any concerted effort to board from
the lower decks of the Serapis, which had the advantage below.
The Richard had already received several eighteen-pound shot between
wind and water, causing her to leak badly; the main battery of
twelve-pounders was silenced; as for the gunroom battery of six
eighteen-pounders, we have seen that two out of the three starboard ones
burst at the first fire, killing most of their crews. During the whole
action but eight shots were fired from this heavy battery, the use of
which was so much favored by the smoothness of the water. The bursting
of these guns, and the destruction of the crew, with the partial blowing
up of the deck above, so early in the action, were discouraging
circumstances, which, with a less resolutely determined commander, might
well have been decisive of the fate of the battle.
Colonel Chamillard, who was stationed on the poop, with a party of
twenty marines, had already been driven from his post, with the loss of
a number of his men. The Alliance kept studiously aloof, and, hovering
about the Pallas and the Countess of Scarborough, until the latter
struck, after half an hour's action, Landais endeavored to get
information as to the force of the Serapis. He now ran down, under easy
sail, to where the Richard and Serapis grappled. At about half-past nine
he ranged up on the larboard quarter of the Richard, of course having
the Richard between him and the Serapis, though the brightness of the
moonlight, the greater height of the Richard, especially about the poop,
and the fact of her being painted entirely black, while the Serapis had
a yellow streak, could have left no doubt as to her identity; moreover,
the Richard displayed three lights at the larboard bow, gangway, and
stern, which was an appointed signal of recognition.
Landais now deliberately fired into the Richard's quarter, killing many
of her men. Standing on, he ranged past her larboard bow, where he
renewed his raking fire, with like fatal effect. To remove the chance of
misconception, many voices cried out that the Alliance was firing into
the wrong ship; still the raking fire continued from her. Captain
Pearson also suffered from this fire, as he states in his report to the
Admiralty, but necessarily in a much less degree than the Richard, which
lay between them. There is ample evidence of Landais having returned
there several times to fire on the Richard, and always on the larboard
side, or opposite one to that on which the Richard was grappled with the
Serapis.
While the fire of the Serapis was continued without intermission from
the whole of her lower-deck battery, the only guns that were still fired
from the Richard were two nine-pounders on the quarter-deck, commanded
by Mr. Mease, the purser. This officer having received a dangerous wound
in the head, Jones took his place, and, having collected a few men,
succeeded in shifting over one of the larboard guns; so that three guns
were now kept playing on the enemy, and these were all that were fired
from the Richard during the remainder of the action. One of these guns
was served with double-headed shot and directed at the main-mast, by
Jones' command, while the other two were loaded with grape and canister,
to clear the enemy's deck.
In this service great aid was rendered by the men stationed in the tops
of the Richard, who, having cleared the tops of the Serapis, committed
great havoc among the officers and crew upon her upper deck. Thus, the
action was carried on with decided advantage to the Serapis' men on the
lower decks, from which they might have boarded the Richard with a good
prospect of success, as nearly the whole crew of the latter had been
driven from below by the fire of the Serapis and had collected on the
upper deck. In addition to the destructive fire from the tops of the
Richard, great damage was done by the hand-grenades thrown from her tops
and yard-arms. The Serapis was set on fire as often as ten or twelve
times in various parts, and the conflagration was only with the greatest
exertions kept from becoming general.
About a quarter before ten a hand-grenade, thrown by one of the
Richard's men from the main-top of the Serapis, struck the combing of
the main-hatch, and, glancing inward upon the main deck, set fire to a
cartridge of powder. Owing to mismanagement and defective training, the
powder-boys on this deck had bought up the cartridges from the magazine
faster than they were used, and, instead of waiting for the loaders to
receive and charge them, had laid them on the deck, where some of them
were broken. The cartridge fired by the grenade now communicated to
these, and the explosion spread from the main-mast aft on the starboard
side, killing twenty men and disabling every man there stationed at the
guns, those who were not killed outright being left stripped of their
clothes and scorched frightfully.
At this conjuncture, being about ten o'clock, the gunner and the
carpenter of the Richard, who had been slightly wounded, became alarmed
at the quantity of water which entered the ship through the shot-holes
which she had received between wind and water, and which, by her
settling, had got below the surface. The carpenter expressed an
apprehension that she would speedily sink, which the gunner, mistaking
for an assertion that she was actually sinking, ran aft on the poop to
haul down the colors. Finding that the ensign was already down in
consequence of the staff having been shot away, the gunner set up the
cry, "Quarter! for God's sake, quarter! Our ship is sinking!" which he
continued until silenced by Jones, who threw at the recreant a pistol he
had just discharged at the enemy, which fractured his skull, and sent
him headlong down the hatchway. Captain Pearson, hearing the gunner's
cry, asked Jones if he called for quarter, to which, according to his
own words, he replied "in the most determined negative."
Captain Pearson now called away his boarders and sent them on board the
Richard, but, when they had reached her rail, they were met by Jones
himself, at the head of a party of pikemen, and driven back. They
immediately returned to their ship, followed by some of the Richard's
men, all of whom were cut off.
About the same time that the gunner set up his cry for quarter, the
master-at-arms, who had been in consultation with the gunner and the
carpenter in regard to the sinking condition of the ship, hearing the
cry for quarter, proceeded, without orders from Jones, and either from
treachery or the prompting of humane feelings, to release all the
prisoners, amounting to more than a hundred. One of these, being the
commander of the letter-of-marque Union, taken on August 31st, passed,
with generous self-devotion, through the lower ports of the Richard and
the Serapis, and, having reached the quarter-deck of the latter,
informed Captain Pearson that if he would hold out a little longer the
Richard must either strike or sink; he moreover informed him of the
large number of prisoners who had been released with himself, in order
to save their lives. Thus encouraged, the battle was renewed from the
Serapis with fresh ardor.
The situation of Jones at this moment was indeed hopeless beyond
anything that is recorded in the annals of naval warfare. In a sinking
ship, with a battery silenced everywhere, except where he himself
fought, more than a hundred prisoners at large in his ship, his consort,
the Alliance, sailing round and raking him deliberately, his superior
officers counselling surrender, while the inferior ones were setting up
disheartening cries of fire and sinking and calling loudly for
quarter--the chieftain still stood undismayed. He immediately ordered
the prisoners to the pumps, and took advantage of the panic they were
in, with regard to the reported sinking of the ship, to keep them from
conspiring to overcome the few efficient hands that remained of his
crew.
Meanwhile the action was continued with the three light quarter-deck
guns, under Jones' immediate inspection. In the moonlight, blended with
the flames that ascended the rigging of the Serapis, the yellow
main-mast presented a palpable mark, against which the guns were
directed with double-headed shot. Soon after ten o'clock the fire of the
Serapis began to slacken, and at half-past ten she struck.
Mr. Dale, the first lieutenant of the Richard, was now ordered on board
the Serapis to take charge of her. He was accompanied by Midshipman
Mayrant and a party of boarders. Mr. Mayrant was run through the thigh
with a boarding-pike as he touched the deck of the Serapis, and three of
the Richard's crew were killed, after the Serapis had struck, by some of
the crew of the latter who were ignorant of the surrender of their ship.
Lieutenant Dale found Captain Pearson on the quarter-deck, and told him
he was ordered to send him on board the Richard. It is a remarkable
evidence of the strange character of this engagement, and the doubt
which attended its result, that the first lieutenant of the Serapis, who
came upon deck at this moment, should have asked his commander whether
the ship alongside had struck. Lieutenant Dale immediately answered:
"No, sir; on the contrary, he has struck to us!"
The British lieutenant, like a true officer, then questioned his
commander, "Have you struck, sir?" Captain Pearson replied, "Yes, I
have!" The lieutenant replied, "I have nothing more to say," and was
about to return below, when Mr. Dale informed him that he must accompany
Captain Pearson on board the Richard. The lieutenant rejoined, "If you
will permit me to go below, I will silence the firing of the lower-deck
guns." This offer Mr. Dale very properly declined, and the two officers
went on board the Richard and surrendered themselves to Jones.
Pearson, who had risen, like Jones, from a humble station by his own
bravery, but who was as inferior officer to Jones in courtesy as he had
proved himself in obstinacy of resistance, evinced from the first a
characteristic surliness, which he maintained throughout the whole of
his intercourse with his victor. In surrendering he said that it was
painful for him to deliver up his sword to a man who had fought with a
halter around his neck. Jones did not forget himself, but replied with a
compliment, which, though addressed to Pearson, necessarily reverted to
himself, "Sir! you have fought like a hero, and I make no doubt but your
sovereign will reward you in a most ample manner."
As another evidence of the strange _melee_ which attended this
engagement, and of the discouraging circumstances under which the
Richard fought, it may be mentioned that eight or ten of her crew, who
were, of course, Englishmen, got into a boat, which was towing astern of
the Serapis, and escaped to Scarborough during the height of the
engagement. This defection, together with the absence of the second
lieutenant with fifteen of the best men, the loss of twenty-four men on
the coast of Ireland, added to the number who had been sent away in
prizes, reduced Jones' crew to a very small number, and greatly
diminished his chance of success, which was due at length solely to his
own indomitable courage.
Meantime the fire, which was still kept up from the lower-deck guns of
the Serapis, where the seamen were ignorant of the scene of surrender
which had taken place above, was arrested by an order from Lieutenant
Dale. The action had continued without cessation for three hours and a
half. When it at length ceased, Jones got his ship clear of the Serapis
and made sail. As the two separated, after being so long locked in
deadly struggle, the main-mast of the Serapis, which had been for some
time tottering, and which had only been sustained by the interlocking of
her yards with those of the Richard, went over the side with a
tremendous crash, carrying the mizzen-topmast with it. Soon after, the
Serapis cut her cable and followed the Richard.
The exertions of captors and captives were now necessary to extinguish
the flames which were raging furiously in both vessels. Its violence was
greatest in the Richard, where it had been communicated below from the
lower-deck guns of the Serapis. Every effort to subdue the flames seemed
for a time to be unavailing. In one place they were raging very near the
magazine, and Jones at length had all the powder taken out and brought
on deck, in readiness to be thrown overboard. In this work the officers
of the Serapis voluntarily assisted.
While the fire was raging in so terrifying a manner, the water was
entering the ship in many places. The rudder had been cut entirely
through, the transoms were driven in, and the rotten timbers of the old
ship, from the main-mast aft, were shattered and almost entirely
separated, as if the ship had been sawn through by ice; so much so that
Jones says that toward the close of the action the shot of the Serapis
passed completely through the Richard; and the stern-post and a few
timbers alone prevented the stern from falling down on the gunroom deck.
The water rushed in through all these apertures, so that at the close
of the action there were already five feet of water in the hold. The
spectacle which the old ship presented the following morning was
dreadful beyond description. Jones says in his official report: "A
person must have been eye-witness to form a just idea of the tremendous
scene of carnage, wreck, and ruin that everywhere appeared. Humanity
cannot but recoil from the prospect of such finished horror, and lament
that war should produce such fatal consequences."
Captain Pearson also notices, in his official letter to the Admiralty,
the dreadful spectacle the Richard presented. He says: "On my going on
board the Bonhomme Richard I found her to be in the greatest distress;
her counters and quarters on the lower deck entirely drove in, and the
whole of her lower-deck guns dismounted; she was also on fire in two
places, and six or seven feet of water in her hold, which kept
increasing all night and the next day till they were obliged to quit
her, and she sunk with a great number of her wounded people on board
her." The regret which he must, at any rate, have felt in surrendering,
must have been much augmented by these observations, and by what he must
have seen of the motley composition of the Richard's crew.
On the morning after the action a survey was held upon the "Poor
Richard," which was now, more than ever, entitled to her name. After a
deliberate examination, the carpenters and other surveying officers were
unanimously of opinion that the ship could not be kept afloat so as to
reach port, if the wind should increase. The task of removing the
wounded was now commenced, and completed in the course of the night and
following morning. The prisoners who had been taken in merchant-ships
were left until the wounded were all removed. Taking advantage of the
confusion, and of their superiority in numbers, they took possession of
the ship, and got her head in for the land, toward which the wind was
now blowing. A contest ensued, and, as the Englishmen had few arms, they
were speedily overcome. Two of them were shot dead, several wounded and
driven overboard, and thirteen of them got possession of a boat and
escaped to the shore.
Jones was very anxious to keep the Richard afloat, and, if possible, to
bring her into port, doubtless from the very justifiable vanity of
showing how desperately he had fought her. In order to effect this
object he kept the first lieutenant of the Pallas on board of her with a
party of men to work the pumps, having boats in waiting to remove them
in the event of her sinking. During the night of the 24th the wind had
freshened, and still continued to freshen on the morning of the 25th,
when all further efforts to save her were found unavailing. The water
was running in and out of her ports and swashing up her hatchways. About
nine o'clock it became necessary to abandon her, the water then being up
to the lower deck; an hour later, she rolled as if losing her balance,
and, settling forward, went down bows first, her stern and mizzen-mast
being last seen.
"A little after ten," says Jones in his report, "I saw, with
inexpressible grief, the last glimpse of the Bonhomme Richard." The
grief was a natural one, but, far from being destitute of consolation,
the closing scene of the "Poor Richard," like the death of Nelson on
board the Victory in the moment of winning a new title to the name, was
indeed a glorious one. Her shattered shell afforded an honorable
receptacle for the remains of the Americans who had fallen during the
action.
The Richard was called by Captain Pearson a forty-gun ship, while the
Serapis was stated by the pilot, who described her to Jones when she was
first made, to have been a forty-four. Jones and Dale also gave her the
same rate. The Richard, as we have seen, mounted six eighteen-pounders
in her gunroom on her berth deck, where port-holes had been opened near
the water; fourteen twelve, and fourteen nine-pounders on her main deck,
and eight six-pounders on her quarter-deck, gangways, and forecastle.
The weight of shot thrown by her at a single broadside would thus be two
hundred and twenty-five pounds. With regard to her crew, she started
from L'Orient with three hundred eighty men. She had manned several
prizes, which, with the desertion of the barge's crew on the coast of
Ireland, and the absence of those who went in pursuit under the master
and never returned, together with the fifteen men sent away in the
pilot-boat, under the second lieutenant, just before the action, and who
did not return until after it was over, reduced the crew, according to
Jones' statement, to three hundred forty men at its commencement.
This calculation seems a very fair one; for, by taking the statement of
those who had landed on the coast of Ireland, as given in a contemporary
English paper, at twenty-four, those who were absent in the pilot-boat
being sixteen in number, and allowing five of the nine prizes taken by
the Richard to have been manned from her, with average crews of five men
each, the total reduction from her original crew may be computed to be
seventy men. Eight or ten more escaped, during the action, in a boat
towing astern of the Serapis. To have had three hundred forty men at the
commencement of the action, as Jones states he had, he must have
obtained recruits from the crews of his prizes.
In the muster-roll of the Richard's crew in the battle, as given by Mr.
Sherburne from an official source, we find only two hundred twenty-seven
names. This can hardly have been complete; still the document is
interesting, inasmuch as it enumerates the killed and wounded by name,
there being forty-two killed and forty wounded. It also states the
country of most of the crew; by which it appears that there were
seventy-one Americans, fifty-seven acknowledged Englishmen, twenty-one
Portuguese, and the rest of the motley collection was made up of Swedes,
Norwegians, Irish, and East Indians. Many of those not named in this
imperfect muster-roll were probably Americans.
With regard to the Serapis, her battery consisted of twenty eighteens on
the lower gun-deck, twenty nines on the upper gun-deck, and ten sixes on
the quarter-deck and forecastle. She had two complete batteries, and her
construction was, in all respects, that of a line-of-battle ship. The
weight of shot thrown by her single broadside was three hundred pounds,
being seventy-five pounds more than that of the Richard. Her crew
consisted of three hundred twenty; all Englishmen except fifteen
Lascars; and as such, superior to the motley and partially disaffected
assemblage of the Richard. The superiority of the Serapis, in size and
weight, as well as efficiency of battery, was, moreover, greatly
increased by the strength of her construction. She was a new ship, built
expressly for a man-of-war, and equipped in the most complete manner by
the first of naval powers. The Richard was originally a merchantman,
worn out by long use and rotten from age. She was fitted, in a makeshift
manner, with whatever refuse guns and materials could be hastily
procured, at a small expense, from the limited means appropriated to her
armament.
The overwhelming superiority thus possessed by the Serapis was evident
in the action. Two of the three lower-deck guns of the Richard burst at
the first fire, scattering death on every side, while the guns of the
Serapis remained serviceable during the whole action, and their effect
on the decayed sides of the Richard was literally to tear her to pieces.
On the contrary, the few light guns which continued to be used in the
Richard, under the immediate direction of her commander, produced little
impression on the hull of the Serapis. They were usefully directed to
destroy her masts and clear her upper deck, which, with the aid of the
destructive and well-sustained fire from the tops, was eventually
effected. The achievement of the victory was, however, wholly and solely
due to the immovable courage of Paul Jones. The Richard was beaten more
than once; but the spirit of Jones could not be overcome. Captain
Pearson was a brave man, and well deserved the honor of knighthood which
awaited him on his arrival in England; but Paul Jones had a nature which
never could have yielded. Had Pearson been equally indomitable, the
Richard, if not boarded from below, would, at last, have gone down with
her colors still flying in proud defiance.
The wounded of the Serapis appear, by the surgeon's report accompanying
Captain Pearson's letter to the Admiralty, to have amounted to
seventy-five men, eight of whom died of their wounds. Of the wounded,
thirty-three are stated to have been "miserably scorched," doubtless by
the explosion of the cartridges on the main deck. Captain Pearson states
that there were many more, both killed and wounded, than appeared on the
list, but that he had been unable to ascertain their names. Jones gave
the number of wounded on board the Serapis as more than a hundred, and
the killed probably as numerous. The surviving prisoners, taken from the
Serapis and the Countess of Scarborough, amounted to three hundred
fifty; the whole number of prisoners, including those previously taken
from captured merchant-vessels, amounted to near five hundred.