In April, 1778, there were more than two-score of French ships-of-the-line
within easy sailing distance of the coast of England. They were tremendous
three-decked monsters, armed with tier upon tier of cannon, and it took
nearly a thousand officers and men to man each of them. They lay at
anchor in the harbors of France or sallied forth into the open sea to the
southward to prey upon the commerce of Great Britain. But grand as they
were, not one of them dared to do what John Paul Jones did in the little
Continental sloop of war “Ranger.” By good seamanship, an element of
chance, and a reckless daring almost without precedent, he accomplished
under the very noses of the gold-laced French admirals what they had been
hemming and hawing about since the beginning of the war.
Inaction weighed upon the mind of Paul Jones more heavily than the hardest
of labor. He had to be up and doing all the time, or trouble was brewing
for everybody on shipboard. So when he reached Nantes, France, and found
that the frigate which had been promised him was not forthcoming, he
determined, alone and unaided, to do with the little “Ranger” what he
was not yet destined to do with a bigger ship. No person but Paul Jones
would for a moment have considered such a desperate project as the one he
conceived. What the flower of the navy and chivalry of France had refused
to attempt was little short of suicide for the mad American. But Jones was
not cast in an ordinary mould. When he got to Brest, he made up his mind
once and for all, by one good fire of British shipping to put an end to
all the ship and town burnings in America.
There was clanking of bit and chain as the anchor was hove up short on
the little craft. The officers and men of the great vessels of the French
fleet looked over the glistening water, warmed by the afternoon sun of
spring, and wondered where their impetuous harbor-mate was off to. A week
before, they knew Paul Jones had demanded that the French Admiral salute
the Continental flag which the “Ranger” wore for the first time. And they
had given those salutes right willingly, acknowledging publicly the nation
they had been helping in secret. They knew he was a man of determination,
and they wondered what the American was going to do. Some of them--the
younger ones--wished they too were aboard the dainty little craft, bound
out to sea under a man who feared nothing and dared everything. They heard
the whistles and hoarse calls of the bos’n as the men tumbled down from
aloft, the sheets flew home, and yards went up to their blocks with a
clatter and a rush that showed how willing were the hands at the tackles.
The tops’ls caught a fine breeze from the southward and, bracing up, the
“Ranger” flew down the harbor and around the point of Quiberon just as
the sun was setting behind the purple cloud-streaks along the line of
limitless ocean. Up the coast she moved, her bowsprit pointing fearlessly
to the north, where lay the Scilly Isles. The Frenchmen left behind in the
harbor looked enviously at the patch of gold, growing every moment more
indistinct in the fading light, and said “En voilà un brave!”
The next day Jones left the Scilly Isles on his starboard quarter and
steered boldly up Saint George’s Channel into the wide Irish Sea. The
merchantmen he boarded and captured or scuttled did not quite know what
to make of a man who feared so little that he looked into the eyes of the
lion sternly and even menacingly when one movement might have destroyed
him. These channel-men thought themselves secure, for such a venturesome
procedure as that of Paul Jones was contrary to all precedent. They
couldn’t understand it at all until their vessels were burned and they
themselves were prisoners. Then they knew that they had been taken by
a man whose daring far surpassed that of the naval captains of England
and France. In plain sight of land he took a brig bound from Ireland
to Ostend. He didn’t want to be bothered with prisoners, so he sent her
crew ashore in their own boat to tell the story of their escape. Then off
Dublin he took another ship, the “Lord Chatham,” and sent her in charge
of a prize-crew down to Brest.
Paul Jones had one great advantage. Nowadays, when the railway and
telegraph have brought all the people of the world closer together, such
a cruise would be impossible. The report would be sent at once to the
Admiralty, and two fleets, if necessary, would be despatched post-haste
to intercept him. But Paul Jones knew the value of the unexpected. And
although fortune favors the brave and the winds and waves seem always on
the side of the ablest navigators, he had made his calculations carefully.
He knew that unless an English fleet was at some point nearer than
Portsmouth he would have ample time to carry out his plans.
He made up his mind before burning any shipping to capture, if possible,
the Earl of Selkirk, who lived on St. Mary’s Isle, and to hold him as
a hostage. By this means he hoped to compel England to treat American
prisoners with humanity, according to the laws of war. But on the
twenty-first of April he picked up a fisherman who gave him information
which for the moment drove all thought of the Earl of Selkirk and the
shipping from his mind. Inside the harbor of Carrickfergus, where Belfast
is, lay a man-of-war of twenty guns, the “Drake,” a large ship, with more
men than the “Ranger” carried. He would drop down alongside of her under
cover of the night and board her before her crew could tumble out of
their hammocks. Such an attempt in a fortified harbor of the enemy would
not have occurred to most men, but Paul Jones believed in achieving the
impossible. He waited until nightfall, and then, with a wind freshening
almost to a gale, sped up the harbor. The “Drake” lay well out in the
roadstead, her anchor lights only marking her position in the blackness
of the night. Carefully watching his time, Captain Jones stood forward
looking at the lights that showed how she swung to the tide. He kept full
headway on the “Ranger,” until she could swing up into the wind almost
under the jib-boom of the Englishman. By dropping his anchor across the
chain of the “Drake” he hoped to swing down alongside, grapple, and board
before the crew were fairly awake.
But this time he was destined to fail. Everything depended on the dropping
of the anchor at the proper time. His orders were not obeyed, for not
until the “Ranger” had drifted clear of the Englishman’s chain did the
splash come. Then it was too late. Fortunately the watch on the “Drake”
were not suspicious. Had they been wider awake they would have had the
“Ranger” at their mercy, and Paul Jones might not have survived to fight
them a few days later. As it was, they only swore at the stupidity of the
Irish lubber they thought he was. Jones knew that his chance was gone,
and as soon as a strain came on the cable it was cut, and he filled away
to sea again.
He now returned to his original plan of burning the shipping of some
important town. He decided on Whitehaven as his first objective point, and
the “Ranger,” sailing leisurely over, dropped anchor in the outer harbor
during the following night.
Whitehaven was a town of considerable importance in the Scottish and
North of England shipping trade. The inhabitants were for the greater part
sailors and others who made their living by the sea, and there was never
a time when the docks were not crowded with vessels, of all countries,
from the sloop to the full-rigged ship, discharging or taking on cargoes
which figured largely in England’s commerce. At one side of the harbor lay
the town, and farther around to the left lay the docks where the shipping
was. Over two hundred vessels, large and small, lay there or out in the
roadstead. Two forts, mounting fifteen guns each, guarded the town. They
were adequately garrisoned, and it looked like a piece of desperate folly
to make the attempt upon a town directly under their guns.
Paul Jones knew Whitehaven from his childhood. He remembered just where
the guard-houses were to be found, and knew how to force the entrance
to the barracks. By three o’clock in the morning he was ready to make
the assault. Two cutters with fifteen men in each, armed with cutlasses
and pistols, were all he took to do the work. With thirty men he went
fearlessly and confidently to intimidate the soldiers, spike the guns in
the forts, overawe the town, and burn the shipping! Lieutenant Wallingford
was given command of one of the cutters. His mission was to burn the
shipping to the left. The other cutter Paul Jones commanded himself, and
assumed the more hazardous duty of holding with his fifteen men the forts
and the town, until such a blaze should illumine the morning sky that all
England would know that the burning of Portland, Maine, was avenged.
Quietly they pulled up towards the great stone dock, where the
shipping-houses were. The tide was very low as they moved past the
schooners and brigs in the harbor, many of them careened far over
on their sides, waiting for a rise in the tide to pull down to more
comfortable moorings. But the boats went by without challenge or notice,
and Wallingford’s cutter had slipped away like a gray shadow in the
darkness. The first violet streaks of dawn were just beginning to throw
the shore-line to the east in hazy silhouette when they reached the
landing-place.
The dawn was coming up quickly now, and Paul Jones led his fifteen men
at a run to the nearest fort. With cutlass in one hand and pistol in the
other, they dashed upon the first sentry. There was no time for stealth,
so they bore him down by sheer weight. The next one saw them coming,
but Jones locked him and the rest of them in the guard-house. Then he
proceeded to spike the guns. So quick was the work that not a shot was
fired. They were running towards the second fort before the soldiers were
quite sure what had happened. Even then they were too terrified to follow
in pursuit. As the gallant band ran towards the other fort they got a
clear view of the harbor, a glimmering sheet of orange and violet, under
the morning glow. But strain his eyes as he might, their captain could
get no sign of Wallingford or his work. They dashed as desperately at
this fort as at the other and were equally successful, intimidating the
garrison and spiking every gun they could find.
But what could be the trouble with Wallingford? Still seeing no blaze or
even spark among the shipping to the eastward, Paul Jones felt that the
main object of his descent upon the town was to prove a failure. So he
dashed down the street from the fort towards the dock, pistol in hand,
followed by his crew, who rolled along grinning at the ease with which
they had accomplished their work. One of them had a bad cut over the head
and the blood was staining his shoulder, but he didn’t seem to mind it in
the least. To their surprise as they passed the houses the people began
coming out of their doors shaking their fists at and cursing them. They
grinned no longer, for they knew that some one had betrayed them. Jones
looked around for the fifteenth man. The fellow with the cut wiped some
blood from his cheek and said,--
“Dave Freeman, sir, he’s gone!”
Freeman was the traitor, then.
But there was no time for parley or revenge. The mob was collecting
in the street they had left and soon would be down on the dock. Though
Wallingford failed, Paul Jones would not. He dashed into a house on the
dock, and seizing a burning brand went aboard one of the largest vessels
of the fleet. He hastily pulled together some straw and hatchway gratings
and soon had a roaring blaze. Then one of his men spilled a barrel of tar
in the midst of it to make the destruction more sure.
[Illustration: THE DESCENT ON WHITEHAVEN]
He had been so intent upon his work that he had not noticed the mob
that had gathered on the dock. The place seemed black with people, and
their number was increasing every minute. Then, leaving the work of
destruction to the others, he went down alone to face fifteen hundred
infuriated people with a single flint-lock pistol! Dave Freeman had done
his work well, for they seemed to pour from every street and doorway.
But Paul Jones was determined that the work should be finished, and
took a position where he could command the boat-landing and retreat of
his men. The people came down in a body to within twenty paces of Paul
Jones and then--stopped. There was something in the _look_ of the man
and the menacing black barrel that moved from one to the other that made
them quail and fall over each other to get out of range. Those in the
background swore and pushed gallantly, but the front rank was a line
of straw, and Paul Jones moved it with his old flint-lock as though a
Biscay wind-squall was striking it. For fifteen minutes and longer he
stood there, immovable, the master of the situation, the picture of the
intimidating power of one resolute man over a mob. Such another instance
is hardly to be found in history.
When the black smoke rolled up from half a dozen vessels of the fleet,
Paul Jones’s crew retreated in an orderly manner to the cutter. Jones
walked down the steps into the boat, covering the crowd the while. Then
his men leisurely rowed away, not a shot having been fired. It was not
until the cutter was well out into the bay that some of the bewildered
soldiers recovered sufficiently to load two cannon that Paul Jones had
overlooked. These they brought to bear upon the cutter dancing down in
the sunrise towards the “Ranger” and fired. The shot whistled wide of the
mark, and Jones, to show his contempt of such long-range courage, fired
only his pistol in return.
But that was not the end of this remarkable cruise. Having failed to find
the Earl of Selkirk on St. Mary’s Isle, Paul Jones squared away to the
southward, hoping to pick up another full-rigged ship off Dublin or to
meet with the “Drake” again. He knew that by this time the Admiralty was
well informed as to his whereabouts, and that before many hours had passed
he would be obliged to run the gauntlet of a whole line of British fire.
But he hated to be beaten at anything, and since the night when he failed
to grapple her had been burning to try conclusions yard-arm to yard-arm
with the “Drake.”
On the twenty-fourth of April, just two weeks after sailing from the
harbor of Brest, he hove to off the Lough of Belfast, where within the
harbor he could plainly see the tall spars of the Englishman swinging
at his anchorage. Paul Jones was puzzled at first to know how he was to
lure the “Drake” out to sea, for a battle under the lee of the land in
the harbor was not to be thought of. So he went about from one tack to
another, wearing ship and backing and filling, until the curiosity of the
English captain, Burdon, was thoroughly aroused, and he sent one of his
junior officers out in a cutter to find out who the stranger was. Jones
ran his guns in and manœuvred so cleverly that the stern of the “Ranger”
was kept towards the boat until he was well aboard. The young officer
was rather suspicious, but, nothing daunted, pulled up to the gangway in
true man-o’-war style and went on deck. There he was met by an officer,
who courteously informed him that he was on board the Continental sloop
of war “Ranger,” Captain Paul Jones, and that he and his boat’s crew were
prisoners of war.
In the meanwhile Captain Burdon, finding that his boat’s crew did
not return, got up his anchor, shook out his sails, and cleared ship
for action. He was already suspicious, and too good a seaman to let
unpreparedness play any part in his actions. There was not very much
wind, and slowly the “Drake” bore down on the silent vessel which lay,
sails flapping idly as she rolled, on the swell of the Irish Sea. As the
afternoon drew on the wind almost failed, so that it was an hour before
sunset before the “Drake” could get within speaking range. Hardly a ripple
stirred the surface of the glassy swells, and the stillness was ominous
and oppressive.
When within a cable’s length of the “Ranger” Captain Burdon sent up his
colors. Captain Jones followed his lead in a moment by running up the
Stars and Stripes.
Suddenly a voice, looming big and hoarse in the silence, came from the
“Drake,”--
“What ship is that?”
Paul Jones mounted the hammock nettings and, putting his speaking-trumpet
to his lips, coolly replied,--
“The American Continental ship ‘Ranger.’ We have been waiting for you.
The sun is but little more than an hour from setting, and it is time to
begin.”
Then he turned and gave a low order to the man at the wheel, and the
“Ranger” wore around so that her broadside would bear. Paul Jones always
believed in striking the first blow. When they came before the wind the
word was passed, and a mass of flame seemed to leap clear across the
intervening water to the “Drake.” The “Ranger” shuddered with the shock
and felt in a moment the crashing of the other’s broadside through her
hull and rigging. The battle was on in earnest. Yard-arm to yard-arm they
went, drifting down the wind, and the deep thundering of the cannonade was
carried over to the Irish hills, where masses of people were watching the
smoke-enveloped duel. The sun sank low, touching the purple hilltops, a
golden ball that shed a ruddy glow over the scene and made the spectacle
seem a dream rather than reality. Still they fought on.
It was a glorious fight--and as fair a one as history records. The “Drake”
pounded away at the “Ranger’s” hull alone, while Jones was doing all he
could with his smaller pieces to cripple his enemy’s rigging. First the
“Drake’s” fore-tops’l yard was cut in two. The main dropped next, and the
mizzen gaff was shot away. For purposes of manœuvring, the “Drake” was
useless and drifted down, her jib trailing in the water and her shrouds
and rigging dragging astern. She was almost a wreck. As she heeled over on
the swell, the gunners on the “Ranger” could see human blood mingling with
the water of the division tubs that came from her scuppers. The first flag
was shot away, but another was quickly run up to its place. In a moment
that too was shot away from the hoisting halyard and fell into the water
astern, where it trailed among the wreckage. But still she fought on.
On the “Ranger” the loss had been comparatively slight. Lieutenant
Wallingford and one other man had been killed and there were five or
six wounded men in the cockpit. Jones seemed to be everywhere, but still
remained uninjured and directed the firing until the end. He saw that the
sharpshooters in his tops were doing terrific execution on the decks of
his adversary, and at last he saw the imposing figure of Captain Burdon
twist around for a second and then sink down to the deck. Another officer
fell, and in a moment above the crash of division firing and the rattle
of the musketry overhead he heard a cry for quarter.
The battle was at an end in a little over an hour. It was almost as great
a victory as that of the “Bonhomme Richard” over the “Serapis.” Paul
Jones’s ship carried eighteen guns; the Englishman carried twenty. The
“Ranger” had one hundred and twenty-three men; the “Drake” had one hundred
and fifty-one and carried many volunteers besides. The “Ranger” lost two
killed and had six wounded; the “Drake” lost forty-two killed and wounded.
Against great odds John Paul Jones still remained victorious.
The people on shore heard the cannonading cease and saw the great clouds
of gold-tinted smoke roll away to the south. There they saw the two
vessels locked as if in an embrace of death and a great cheer went up.
They thought the “Drake” invincible. The gray of twilight turned to black,
and the ships vanished like spectres in the darkness. But late that night
some fishermen in a boat came ashore with a sail from the store-room of
the “Drake.” They said it had been given them by John Paul Jones. The
people knew then that the “Drake” had been captured.
When the “Ranger” returned with her prizes to Brest, and his people told
the tale of Paul Jones’s victory, France was electrified. Neither in
France nor in England would they at first believe it. France made him her
hero. England offered ten thousand guineas for his head.