Title: Paul Jones
Author: Seawell, Molly Elliot
Language: English
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                        By MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL

  DECATUR AND SOMERS
  LITTLE JARVIS
  PAUL JONES

                [Illustration: _The guns broke loose._]



                               PAUL JONES


                                   BY
                          MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL

                               AUTHOR OF
 LITTLE JARVIS, MIDSHIPMAN PAULDING, CHILDREN OF DESTINY, MAID MARIAN,
                           THROCKMORTON, ETC.

                     [Illustration: Publisher Logo]

                      D. APPLETON-CENTURY COMPANY
                              INCORPORATED
                           NEW YORK    LONDON
                                  1936

                            Copyright, 1893,
                      By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

     _All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, must not be
      reproduced in any form without permission of the publisher._

                Printed in the United States of America.



                             INTRODUCTION.


  “The fame of the brave outlives him; his portion is immortality.”
                _From the funeral discourse pronounced over Paul Jones._

The writer feels the most sincere diffidence in making use of the mighty
name and personality of Paul Jones, who, as Cooper justly says, was not
only a great seaman but a great man. An excuse, however, is not wanting.
It is justifiable and profitable to bring before the eyes of American
youth this heroic figure, and if it be done inadequately, the fault is
not in the intention. It is not too much to say that the achievements of
Paul Jones, the ranking officer in the Continental marine, had much to
do with placing the American navy upon that lofty plane of skill and
intrepidity which can only be matched by England, the Mistress of the
Seas.

Strangely enough, Paul Jones is but little known to the multitude, and
the misrepresentations concerning him that occasionally appear in print
to this day are the more inexcusable because few public men ever left a
more complete record. This record has been carefully studied by the
writer, and, although this story is professedly and confessedly a
romance, history has been consulted at every point. Log books, journals,
and biographies have been searched, especially the logs, journals, and
letters of Paul Jones himself. Much relating to him has been left out,
but nothing of consequence has been put in that is not historically
true. The language ascribed to him is, whenever possible, that used by
him at the time, or afterward, in his letters and journals. When it is
wholly imaginary it is made consistent, as far as lies in the writer’s
power, with what is known of his mode of expression. The mere recital of
Paul Jones’s actual adventures is a thrilling romance, and his character
was so powerfully romantic and imaginative that it lends itself readily
to idealization. But he is more than the type of mere daring. Technical
authors write of him with the most profound admiration, and among naval
men of all nations he stands as the model of resource as well as
boldness. His plans were far-reaching, and his most hazardous
undertakings were inspired by a sublime common sense. John Adams said of
him: “If I could see a prospect of half a dozen line-of-battle ships
under the American flag and commanded by Commodore Paul Jones engaged
with an equal British force, I apprehend the result would be so glorious
for the United States, and lay so sure a foundation for their
prosperity, that it would be a rich compensation for the continuance of
the war.” And Franklin, his steadfast friend, in one noble sentence
described him: “_For Captain Paul Jones ever loved close fighting._”
Washington, Lafayette, Jefferson, and Morris esteemed him, and left
evidence of it. Nor did his enemies fail to pay him the compliment of
wishing to ruin him, for at one time there were forty-two British
frigates and line-of-battle ships scouring the seas for him. He was the
first to raise the American flag on the ocean, and so well did he
maintain its honor that he kept it flying in the Texel, with thirteen
double-decked Dutch frigates menacing him in the harbor, while twelve
British ships lay in wait for him outside. He was offered comparative
security if he would hoist the French ensign and accept a commission in
the French navy. More than that, he was told that unless he agreed to
this he must give up the splendid trophy of his valor, the captured
British frigate Serapis—“the finest ship of her class I ever saw,” he
wrote. But cruel as this last alternative was, Paul Jones unhesitatingly
transferred his flag from the beautiful Serapis to the inferior Alliance
and got to sea in the face of the British fleet, with his “best American
ensign flying,” as he himself wrote at the moment. Well might Paul Jones
say proudly to the American Congress: “I have never borne arms under any
but the American flag, nor have I ever borne or acted under any
commission except that of the Congress of America.”

He served without pay or allowance, and made advances out of his private
fortune to the cause of independence. He was wounded many times in his
“twenty-three battles and solemn rencounters by sea,” as he expressed
it. Yet there is not one word of his wounds in any line of his official
correspondence, although the wounds of others are frequently called to
the attention of the Congress. He fought whenever he had a chance, and
he was never defeated. The two British war-ships he captured were taken
in the face of enormous odds and within sight of the three kingdoms,
when both seas and shores were swarming with his enemies. The captain
who surrendered to him was made a baronet for the defense of the British
ship. What, then, must have been the splendor of the attack! Truly, Paul
Jones deserved well of his country, and he was not without proof of its
gratitude. He was unanimously elected the ranking officer of the
American navy by the Continental Congress, which also gave him a gold
medal and the thanks of Congress. France showed her appreciation of his
services by awarding him the cross of the order of Military Merit, never
before given a foreigner, and a gold sword. Thus was the splendid roll
of American sea officers made lustrous from the beginning by the name of
Paul Jones.

The words of Lamartine about the great profession in which Paul Jones
served gloriously, and the language of Cooper regarding Paul Jones
himself, may be quoted. Lamartine says: “Among the illustrious men who
have filled the foremost ranks in great contests, men have always been
most dazzled and interested by the heroes of the sea.... The variety and
extent of natural and acquired faculties which must of necessity be
united in one individual to constitute a great seaman, astonish the mind
and raise the perfect sailor beyond all comparison above all other
warriors.”

Cooper says: “In battle, Paul Jones was brave; in enterprise, hardy and
original; in victory, mild and generous; in motives, much disposed to
disinterestedness, although ambitious of renown and covetous of
distinction; in his pecuniary relations, liberal; in his affections,
natural and sincere; and in his temper, except in those cases which
assailed his reputation, just and forgiving.” Moreover, he was a true
and patriotic American, and, except Columbus, the Admiral of the Ocean
Seas, Paul Jones was the very boldest man who ever sailed blue water.

                                                   Molly Elliot Seawell.



                         LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


                                                             FACING PAGE
  The guns broke loose                                    _Frontispiece_
  “Hooray for Cap’n Paul Jones!”                                      23
  The Ranger and the Drake                                            43
  “Haul away! Yo ho, boys!”                                           50
  At the first discharge two of the guns burst                        93
  Battle of the Bonhomme Richard and the Serapis                     102
  Paul Jones and Franklin at the Court of Louis XVI                  147
  Paul Jones                                                         162



                              PAUL JONES.


                  [Illustration: Squadron under sail]



                               CHAPTER I.


On a bright day in January, 1776, a lithe, handsome young man, wearing
the uniform of a lieutenant in the Continental navy, stood on the dock
at Philadelphia gazing keenly down the river. His eyes were peculiarly
black and beautiful, and had an expression of command in them that is
seldom absent from those of a man born to lead other men. His figure was
slight, and he was not above medium height; but he was both graceful and
muscular.

The river was frozen, except a tortuous channel cut through the ice and
kept open with difficulty. Innumerable masts and spars made a network
against the dull blue of the winter sky, and fringed the docks and
wharves; while far down the glittering sea of ice lay a small squadron
of five armed vessels, which was the beginning of the glorious navy of
the United States.

This young lieutenant, Paul Jones by name, looked about for a boat to
take him down the river to the squadron; and seeing a ragged,
bright-eyed boy about twelve years old sitting in a rickety skiff from
which a passenger had just been landed, he called the boy, and, jumping
lightly into the boat, said:

“Take me to that ship over yonder with ‘Alfred’ painted on her stern.”

The boy pulled away with a will, but kept his eyes fixed on Paul Jones’s
uniform and the sword which lay across his knee.

“Them ships is to fight the British, ain’t they?” he asked presently,
jerking his head toward the ships then just collected in the river,
whose crews and armaments were yet to be provided.

“Yes,” answered Paul Jones, smiling. “If you were a man I would enlist
you.”

The boy said nothing more, but pulled steadily toward the Alfred. When
they reached the side of the ship her decks were heaped with coils of
rope, piles of shot, some unmounted guns, and all the litter of a
merchant vessel being converted into a man-of-war. But the Alfred,
although not built for fighting, was yet a stanch little ship, and when
armed and manned had no cause to run away from any vessel of her class.

Paul Jones studied her with the eye of a seaman, as they approached.
Meanwhile a crowd of strange thoughts rushed upon him. “At last,” he
thought to himself, “I am at the beginning of my career. A poor Scotch
gardener’s son, shipping as a common sailor boy because there were so
many mouths to feed at home—coming, at thirteen, to this new country
that I have learned to love so well—left a modest fortune, and rising to
the command of a ship before I was twenty, I determined to cast my fate
with these people, to whom I owe all the kindness I ever knew, and I was
proud to be among the first to raise my arm in the defense of these
colonies against tyranny. All those I loved as a child in Scotland are
dead, and all that is now dear to me is in my adopted country. The cause
of these colonies is a just one, and I could no more refuse to fight for
that cause than any man born here. The chances for success and promotion
are all with the army; our few small vessels can hope for but little in
contests with England, the Mistress of the Seas; but I think I was born
a sailor, and my heart turns ever toward blue water. The day that I
received my commission as a lieutenant in the Continental navy was
surely the most blessed and fortunate of my life, and my adopted country
shall never have cause to regret giving it me.” Deep in his heart Paul
Jones had a strange feeling that glory awaited him; for those destined
to immortality have mysterious foreknowledge of it.

Occupied with these thoughts, Paul Jones did not come out of his
daydream until the boat’s nose touched the accommodation ladder over the
Alfred’s side. He rose with a start, and held out a piece of money to
the boy, who blushed, and shook his head.

“I don’t want no money,” he said diffidently, “for helpin’ my country.”

Paul Jones paused and looked steadily at the ragged lad, who looked back
steadfastly at him.

“You seem to be rather an odd sort of boy—and, by my life, I like such
boys,” said he. The quartermaster had then come down the ladder, and
stood ready to salute as soon as he caught the young lieutenant’s eye.
This man, Bill Green, was a remarkably handsome, bluff sailor of about
forty-five, with a fine figure, and was dressed with as much care and
neatness as if he were a quarter-deck officer. Paul Jones was instantly
struck by his admirable appearance, and more so when he spoke. His voice
was full and musical, and his manner extremely polite and respectful,
without being in the least cringing. The lad, too, seemed taken by the
quartermaster’s pleasant looks, and spoke again, after a moment, looking
alternately from him to Paul Jones:

“I’m a very strong boy—and I allus thought I’d like to be a sailor.
Won’t you take me now, sir, and let me fight the British?”

The quartermaster grinned broadly at this, but Paul Jones did not smile.

“What is your name, my lad?—and have you parents?”

“My name’s Danny Dixon, sir, and I ain’t got any father or mother or
brothers or sisters; and I’d ruther be a sailor, sir, nor anything.”

Paul Jones looked hard at the boy, and then turned to the quartermaster.

“We’ll see if his story is true, and if it is—why, we shall have use for
powder boys on this ship, and we might do worse than take this lad.”

“In course, sir,” responded Green. “I’ll find out something about him,
and I’m thinkin’ he’d make a good, strong powder monkey and maybe he’s
old enough to be helper to the jack-o’-the-dust.”

Danny’s eyes gleamed.

“I’ll go ashore now, sir, and bring you back some one to prove who I
am,” he cried eagerly; and Paul Jones had to step hurriedly out of the
boat to keep from being carried back to the dock, so keen was the boy to
put off. And in two hours he was back again on the Alfred, and regularly
entered on the ship’s books.

“Because,” said Bill Green, who was a foks’l wag, “when we comes to
fightin’ the British, most likely the cap’n will call you up and make
you a quarter gunner, or sumpin’ on the spot, boy; and you can’t git
your share of the prize money if you ain’t entered on the ship’s books,
reg’lar.”

Danny luckily did not mention his expectation of becoming a quarter
gunner to Paul Jones, who, as first lieutenant, had charge of the ship
in the absence of her captain. But he did ask that he might be put on
the books so he could get his prize money; which the young lieutenant
promised to do, laughing in spite of himself at Danny’s serious
expectation of a considerable fortune in prize money.

Captain Saltonstall was to command the Alfred, but he had not yet
arrived, and upon Paul Jones rested the duty of preparing the ship for
sea. From the day his foot first touched the deck his active spirit
pervaded everything, and the officers under him, as well as the men,
felt the force of his commanding energy. Besides working all day, he and
the other officers stood watch and watch on deck throughout the wintry
nights, to prevent desertions; and although every other ship in the
squadron had her crew lessened by desertion, not a single man was lost
from the Alfred.

“And I’m a-thinkin’, mates,” remarked Bill Green, in the confidence of
the foks’l, “as how we’ve got a leftenant as is a seaman; I seen it by
the cut o’ his jib; and if he was the cap’n o’ this ’ere ship, he’d lock
yardarms with a Britisher if he had half a chance.”

One day, in the midst of the bustle of fitting the ship out, Commodore
Hopkins, who was to command the little squadron, came on board the
Alfred. He was formally received at the gangway by Paul Jones and shown
over the ship by him.

The commodore was a big, burly man, who had spent the best part of his
life at sea. He examined the ship carefully, and his silence, as Paul
Jones explained what he had done and was doing with the means at his
command, made the young lieutenant fear that it had not met with the
commodore’s approval. But, secure in the consciousness that he had done
his duty, Paul Jones could afford to do without the praise of his
superiors. He was not, however, destined to this mortification. Standing
on the quarter-deck, surrounded by the officers, Commodore Hopkins
turned to Paul Jones, and said:

“Your activity has pleased me extremely, and my confidence in you is
such, that if Captain Saltonstall should be unable to reach here by the
time the ships can get away, I shall hoist my flag on this ship, and
give you the command of her.”

A flush rose in Paul Jones’s dark face, and he bowed with the graceful
courtesy that always distinguished him.

“Thank you, commodore,” he said, “and may I be pardoned for hoping that
Captain Saltonstall may not arrive in time? And when your flag is
hoisted on the Alfred, there will be, I trust, a flag of the United
Colonies to fly at the peak, and I aspire to be the first man to raise
that flag upon the ocean.”

Commodore Hopkins smiled.

“If the Congress is as slow as I expect it to be, it will be some time
yet in adopting a flag; and there will not be time to have one made for
the ship before we sail.”

“I think there will, sir,” replied Paul Jones.

The young lieutenant had good reason for his expectation. The Congress
had practically decided upon the flag, and Paul Jones, out of his own
pocket, had bought the materials to make one. Bill Green was an expert
with the needle, boasting that he could “hand, reef, and steer a needle
like the best o’ them tailor men,” and was fully capable of making a
flag.

On a stormy February day, when the channel had been freed from ice
enough for the little squadron to get out, the Alfred was made ready to
receive her flag officer. Captain Saltonstall had arrived some days
before, to Paul Jones’s intense disappointment. But he was as ready to
do his duty as first lieutenant as he had been that hoped-for duty as
acting captain.

The commodore’s boat was seen approaching on the wind tossed water. The
horizon was overcast, and dun clouds scurried wildly across the troubled
sky, with which the pale and wintry sun struggled vainly. The
boatswain’s call, “All hands to muster!” sounded through the ship, and
in a wonderfully short time, owing to the careful drilling of Paul
Jones, the three hundred men and one hundred marines were drawn up on
deck. The sailors, a fine-looking body of American seamen, were formed
in ranks on the port side of the quarter-deck, while abaft of them stood
the marine guard, under arms. On the starboard side were the petty
officers, and on the quarter-deck proper were the commissioned officers
in full uniform with their swords, and Paul Jones headed the line.

When it was reported, “All hands up and aft!” Captain Saltonstall
appeared out of the cabin. Paul Jones, having previously arranged it,
called out, “Quartermaster!” and Bill Green, neat, handsome and
sailorlike, stepped from the ranks of the petty officers.

From some unknown regions about his clothes Bill produced a flag, rolled
up, and, following Paul Jones, stepped briskly aft to the flagstaff. He
affixed the flag to the halyards, along with the broad pennant of a
commodore, saw that they worked properly, and then stood by. The
commodore’s boat was then at the ladder, and the commodore came over the
side. Just as his foot touched the quarter-deck the flag with the
pennant flew up on the staff like magic, under Paul Jones’s hands, the
breeze caught it and flung it wide to the free air, and the sun,
suddenly bursting out, bathed it in glory. Every officer, from the
commodore down, instantly removed his cap, the drummer boys beat a
double ruffle on the drums, and a tremendous cheer burst from the
sailors and marines. As Paul Jones advanced, Commodore Hopkins said to
him:

“I congratulate you upon your enterprise. The flag was only adopted in
Congress yesterday, and this one is the very first to fly.”[1]

“Such was my hope, sir,” answered Paul Jones, modestly. “I wished the
honor of hoisting the flag of freedom the first time it was ever
displayed; and this man,” pointing to Bill Green, who stood smiling
behind him, “sat up all last night in order to make this ensign for the
ship—an ensign which will ever be attended with veneration upon the
ocean.”

Bill Green came in for his share of congratulation too; and as if the
appearance of the flag had bewitched the wind, it suddenly shifted to
fair, the sun came out brilliantly, and within half an hour the squadron
of five ships—the Columbus, the Andrew Doria, the Sebastian Cabot, and
the Providence, led by the Alfred—had spread all their canvas, and were
winging swiftly toward the free and open sea.



                              CHAPTER II.


The first enterprise determined upon was an expedition to the island of
New Providence, in the West Indies. On the 17th of February the squadron
had set sail from the Delaware, and on the morning of the 1st of March
it appeared off the harbor of New Providence. There were two forts to
protect the town, but at that moment there was not a soldier on the
island. When the American squadron was sighted, though, an alarm gun was
fired, and the inhabitants manned the forts and turned the guns on the
American vessels just outside the bar. The little American squadron
carried only two hundred marines, and it was determined to land them
under the fire of the ships; but owing to the bar at the mouth of the
harbor the Alfred and the Columbus could not pass in; only the smaller
vessels could get in with any prospect of coming out at low tide. From
the lack of charts, the Americans had to take great risks in finding
safe anchorages. But the pilot taken on board the Alfred declared that
he knew of an anchorage, under a key three leagues to windward of the
harbor, where the larger vessels might safely await the result of the
attack on the town. This news was carried to Commodore Hopkins as he
restlessly paced the Alfred’s deck, looking at the white-walled town
lying before him in the warm March sunshine.

“But, Mr. Jones,” said he to Paul Jones, who had brought the pilot
aboard, “how can we answer for the faithfulness of these pilots? They
may cheerfully take the risk of being lost along with us rather than put
us in a position to take the town.”

“Quite true, sir,” answered Paul Jones, “but if you will give me leave,
I will undertake, with this pilot, to carry the ship to a safe
anchorage, and I will answer for it with my commission if I do not take
her safely.”

“Very well, then,” replied the commodore; “if you will assume the
responsibility, I will trust the ship.”

It had then fallen dead calm, and all through the long spring day they
waited for a puff of wind. The short twilight of the tropics was upon
them before the wind sprang up again. At the first breeze the Alfred set
every sail that would draw, and, followed by the Columbus, headed for
the key. The sky was a deep rose-red in the west, and overhead of a pale
and luminous green. The full moon was rising, round and yellow, over the
town, and a few solitary stars twinkled in the vast expanse of the sky.
Paul Jones, followed by the pilot, went aloft to the foretopmast head,
where a clear view of everything was to be had. In the deep and
breathless silence every occasional sound could be heard, and scarcely a
word was uttered except the orders, as the ship ran down the chain of
islands, with a fair wind, in the moonlit night. Bill Green was at the
wheel, while three or four officers, stationed at various points along
the deck, repeated the orders called out in Paul Jones’s clear and
penetrating voice, so that no mistake might be made. A man on the port
side and another on the starboard kept the lead going constantly.
Commodore Hopkins and Captain Saltonstall paced the deck together.

At intervals Paul Jones’s voice would be heard calling out:

“Port a little—hard aport—steady!” While the man with the lead on the
starboard side would sing musically, in the peculiar cadence used in
sounding:

“And a quarter—less—six.”

This meant they were in five and three quarter fathoms—plenty of water
for the ship. The sailor sounding on the port side would sing in the
same key:

“And a quarter—less—six.”

Paul Jones, with every nerve strained, listened to the soundings, the
sweet call ringing softly in the half darkness as the ship glided
through the purple night. Sometimes she was in the full light of the
moon, and then a shadow would descend upon the sea, and she would slip
through it like a phantom ship. Two cables’ length off, the Columbus
followed in her wake. Once the man sang out:

“And a quarter—past—_three_!”

Every soul on board gave a gasp—the water was getting shoal; and Paul
Jones shouted quickly from the fore-topmast, “Starboard—starboard your
helm!” The next sounding was four and a half fathoms, and at last, just
as the moon emerged in splendor from a thin white cloud, the Alfred
rounded the key, and the cable rattled out noisily as the anchor was
dropped in six fathoms of water. Paul Jones felt as if a hand clutching
his heart had been suddenly loosed. He had piloted the ship safely, and
had anchored her; his commission was safe; and he was from that moment
the best known junior officer in the squadron.

Next morning the marines were landed, a large quantity of arms and
stores were captured and embarked, and the squadron set sail for home.



                              CHAPTER III.


The morning of the 9th of April dawned clear and lovely. The American
squadron, on its return from New Providence, was making its way
cautiously along the New England coast, and although every part of it
was swarming with British vessels, it was determined to take the
squadron into Long Island Sound by the way of Narragansett Bay.

Paul Jones went about his arduous duties as first lieutenant with his
usual steady determination, but at heart he cherished a secret
dissatisfaction. His bold and enterprising spirit was not adapted to
submission. He could obey, but his destiny was to command. Commodore
Hopkins was a brave man, but he was not above the average in either
enterprise or intelligence. Several strategic mistakes that he made
during the affair at New Providence had not escaped the searching eye of
Paul Jones, and he felt a dread of encountering the British then, for
fear that the American commodore would not be equal to so great an
occasion. He knew that they would have to run the gauntlet of Commodore
Wallace’s fleet off Newport, and his brave heart trembled at the idea
that all of glory possible would not be reaped.

The day passed, though, without any adventures. Numerous white sails
were seen, but the squadron, sailing well together, was not molested.
Although not disposed to decline a fight, the value of the arms and
ammunition on board to the Continental army made Commodore Hopkins quite
willing to “let sleeping dogs lie.” But this was contrary to the
temperament of Paul Jones. He realized instinctively his capacity for
meeting extraordinary dangers with extraordinary resources of mind and
courage, and he could not but despise the risks that other men shunned.

Toward night they entered the blue waters of Narragansett Bay. A young
moon hung trembling in the heavens, the sky was cloudless, and the stars
shone brilliantly.

Although Paul Jones, being first lieutenant, had no watch on deck, he
remained above. About midnight the lookout on the quarter made out Block
Island, and almost at the same moment a cry was heard from the Cabot,
known as “the black brig,” of “Sail, ho!”

“What do you think it is, Mr. Jones?” asked Commodore Hopkins, with
night glass in hand, examining the shadowy form of a ship under light
canvas about half a mile off.

“I think it is a British frigate, sir,” replied Paul Jones, after
looking intently at her. “She is too small for a ship of the line, and
she does not carry sail enough for a merchant vessel with a good wind.
She is simply cruising about, and probably looking for us.”

The Cabot being in the lead, night signals were made to her to engage
the attention of the stranger, which had tacked, and was now making
straight for the American squadron. Paul Jones then, as first
lieutenant, saw the captain’s orders carried out to clear the Alfred for
action as quietly as possible. No drums were beat, and the men went
silently to their quarters. The batteries were lighted up, but by
keeping the ports closed as little was shown as possible. A string of
battle lanterns was laid in a row on the gun deck by little Danny Dixon,
who wagged his head knowingly at Bill Green, who happened to be passing,
and remarked:

“I say, Mr. Green, there will be some prize money for we arter this.”

“No, there won’t,” answered Bill, gruffly. “This ’ere commodore, he
ain’t got a very good appetite for fightin’. Now, if Mr. Jones was
commandin’—”

Just as the words were out of his mouth the quartermaster turned
suddenly and saw Paul Jones’s stern eyes fixed on him. The first
lieutenant, on making his last round, had come unexpectedly upon Bill,
who knew better than to express such opinions about the commodore.

A dead silence followed. Paul Jones did not speak, but the look in his
eye commanded discretion to Bill, who immediately began fumbling about
the lanterns and instructing Danny in his duty.

The incident, though, made a deep impression upon Paul Jones. “If that
is the feeling among the men, there is little hope of capturing the
British ship,” he thought bitterly to himself.

He then went above, and just as his foot touched the deck he heard the
frigate, which was now close upon them, hail the black brig.

“Who are you, and where are you bound?”

The black brig answered: “This is the Betsy, from Plymouth. Who are
you?”

Every ear was strained to catch the answer. It came ringing over the
smooth water:

“This is His Majesty’s ship Glasgow, of twenty-four guns.”

It was now about half past two o’clock in the morning. The moon had gone
down, and in the darkness the Glasgow evidently was ignorant of the
character of the five vessels strung out together. The Cabot had now got
very close on the lee bow of the Glasgow, and suddenly poured a
broadside into her. Instantly the British ship seemed to wake up to her
danger. She bore up and ran off to clear for action, but within a
quarter of an hour she came up gallantly to engage the whole American
squadron.

Paul Jones was in command of the gun deck. The Alfred was so heavily
laden that she was down in the water almost to her portsills; the sea,
however, being smooth, he was enabled to work his batteries whenever the
manœuvres of the ship made it possible. The two ships finally got into
such a position that they kept up a furious cannonade until daybreak.
The Glasgow was hulled a number of times, her mainmast was crippled, and
her sails and rigging almost destroyed; she had fifty-two shot through
her mizzen staysail, one hundred and ten through her mainsail, and
eighty-eight through her foresail, besides having her royal yards
carried away. But she had disabled the Cabot at the second broadside,
and then, concentrating her fire on the Alfred, the wheel block and
ropes of the American ship were carried away, and she came up into the
wind, giving the Glasgow a chance to pour in several raking broadsides
before the ship could be brought on the wind again. Daylight coming, the
Glasgow made signals to the rest of the British fleet, then plainly in
sight, and the American drew off.

The action might be considered a draw, taking into account the damage
done the British ship, and that she evidently had had enough of it. To
the impetuous soul of Paul Jones though it seemed from the first to be
what he afterward pronounced it—“the disgraceful affair with the
Glasgow.”

From that hour there was no longer any confidence possible between him
and Commodore Hopkins. The commodore had acted according to his best
judgment; but he was not a Paul Jones. As Bill Green expressed it in the
foks’l: “When the Glasgow went off howlin’ like a broken-legged dog,
there oughter been somebody to stop her; and, mates, if Mr. Paul Jones
had ’a’ been in command, we’d ’a’ had some prize money sure, as well as
savin’ our credit.” Although there was a subtile estrangement between
Commodore Hopkins and Paul Jones, each respected the other’s character.
But it was more agreeable to the commodore to have Paul Jones anywhere
than on the Alfred, so that in a very short while he was placed in
command of the sloop of war Providence.

In manning the sloop, Commodore Hopkins gave Paul Jones the privilege of
taking his petty officers from the crew of the Alfred. As soon as this
was known Bill Green begged hard to be of the number, and so he was
permitted to go.

In the bustle and excitement of the change Paul Jones had quite
forgotten Danny Dixon. While making his final preparations in his cabin
to change his quarters to the Providence, Danny appeared at the door
with his best clothes on and a bundle in his hand.

“What is it, Danny?” asked Paul Jones kindly.

“Nothin’, sir,” answered Danny, “’cep’ I’m ready to go, sir, whenever
you are.”

“What do you mean?” said Paul Jones, looking closely at the boy.

“Why, sir, ain’t I a-goin’ with you on the Providence?” replied Danny,
in a surprised voice. “When I heard you had done got your orders, I went
and made up my kit. Mr. Green, the quartermaster, come along, sir, and
he says you axed for him to go with you, and that you had said you was
goin’ to make me a boatswain’s mate, and for me to git my kit. I wanted
to go with you anyhow, sir, though I didn’t expect to be nothin’ but a
ship’s boy; but when you axed for me—”

The boy’s simplicity was so genuine that Paul Jones could not laugh at
him. He only said, smiling a little:

“Very well. Green is to be my quartermaster, and I’ll see the captain,
and perhaps he may let me have you.”

“Thankee, sir,” replied Danny gratefully, and sitting down outside the
cabin door he kept his earnest eyes fixed on Paul Jones, like a dog on
his master. Presently Paul Jones came out, and after a few words with
the captain, Danny was told that he might go along with the new
commander of the Providence. Paul Jones was touched by the boy’s
devotion, and took him for the captain’s cabin boy.

Paul Jones had good reason to be satisfied with all the people he had
brought from the Alfred. Bill Green, besides being a first-class
quartermaster, was such a pleasant, cheery, waggish fellow that he kept
everything forward in a good humor. Moreover, he had a very valuable
talent—he could sing beautifully, and had a store of sea songs, some of
which he had picked up in the British navy, where he had served some
time, and others were patriotic songs which were often composed and much
sung in those days. But Bill had a weakness—he always professed to have
composed all his songs himself, and to have written them out, when it
was a well-known fact that he could not write a word. He had signed the
ship’s books with a cross instead of his name, which he explained by
saying: “The officer, he was in a hurry, and it was gittin’ on toward my
watch, and I didn’t have no half hour to spend writin’ ‘Bill Green,’ so
I jest made a cross mark, not thinkin’ as how nobody would suspicion I
couldn’t write; and then, it takes so much o’ my time to write my songs,
I ain’t got none for to write my name.” All this was received with many
sly winks by the men, but they were willing to humor the handsome
quartermaster in anything, he was such a favorite with them. Bill, also,
like other artists, liked to be urged. This, too, was fully understood,
and he always yielded to pressure.

The Providence was a good sailer, but she carried only twelve small guns
and seventy men. She was employed in transporting men and stores along
the shores at the eastern entrance of Long Island Sound, and as this was
done in the face of overwhelming British fleets, the address and
seamanship of young Captain Jones was fully proved. So great was his
success in eluding the British, that the Cerberus frigate made it an
especial object to capture the little sloop. She got the Providence
under her guns several times, but the sloop always managed to edge away.
Once, while the Providence was convoying a brig loaded with military
supplies for General Washington, the Cerberus caught sight of her and
crowded on sail to overhaul her. Captain Jones signaled to the brig to
get out of the way as fast as possible, while he manœuvred with studied
awkwardness in sight of the Cerberus. On came the powerful frigate to
crush the little sloop, but as soon as Paul Jones saw the brig safe, he
made for shoal water, where the frigate dared not follow him, and
escaped as night came on.

Early in August he was regularly commissioned as captain, and sailed for
the Bermudas, on his first independent cruise. By that time the officers
and men under him had come to know what manner of man he was, and looked
forward to a glorious cruise with him.

It was characteristic of Paul Jones to make the best of all his
opportunities, and he managed out of a feeble sloop to make an efficient
and fast-sailing cruiser. He trimmed the ship so that she sailed well
both on and off the wind, and he was thus in condition either to fight
or run away, whichever he chose.

The officers and men were in fine spirits, and the very first evening
out, as they sailed along with a spanking breeze, Bill Green piped up an
inspiring song to his mates on the foks’l, which echoed even to the
quarter-deck. The officers listened with pleasure, while Bill sung in
his full, round, and musical baritone the following song:[2]

  “When the anchor’s weighed and the ship’s unmoored,
    And landsmen lag behind, sir,
  The sailor joyfully skips on board,
    And, swearing, prays for wind, sir.
            Towing here,
            Yeoing there,
            Steadily, readily,
            Cheerily, merrily,
    Still from care and thinking free.
    Is a sailor’s life at sea.

  “When we sail with a freshening breeze,
    And landsmen all grow sick, sir,
  The sailor lolls with his mind at ease,
    And the song and the glass go quick, sir.
            Laughing here,
            Quaffing there,
            Steadily, readily,
            Cheerily, merrily,
    Still from care and thinking free,
    Is a sailor’s life at sea.

  “When the wind at night whistles over the deep,
    And sings to landsmen dreary,
  The sailor, fearless, goes to sleep,
    Or takes his watch most cheery.
            Boozing here,
            Snoozing there,
            Steadily, readily,
            Cheerily, merrily,
    Still from care and thinking free,
    Is a sailor’s life at sea.

  “When the sky grows black and the winds blow hard,
    And landsmen skulk below, sir,
  Jack mounts up to the topsail yard,
    And turns his quid as he goes, sir.
            Hauling here,
            Bawling there,
            Steadily, readily,
            Cheerily, merrily,
    Still from care and thinking free,
    Is a sailor’s life at sea.

  “When the foaming waves run mountain high,
    And landsmen cry, ‘All’s gone!’ sir,
  The sailor hangs ’twixt sea and sky,
    And jokes with Davy Jones, sir.
            Dashing here,
            Splashing there,
            Steadily, readily,
            Cheerily, merrily,
    Still from care and thinking free,
    Is a sailor’s life at sea.

  “When the ship, d’ye see, becomes a wreck,
    And landsmen hoist the boat, sir,
  The sailor scorns to quit the deck
    While there’s a single plank afloat, sir.
            Swearing here,
            Tearing there,
            Steadily, readily,
            Cheerily, merrily,
    Still from care and thinking free,
    Is a sailor’s life at sea.”

A loud chorus of cheers greeted the song, and Bill retired, covered with
glory and embarrassment.



                              CHAPTER IV.


It was on the first day of September that the Providence sighted a large
ship, which was mistaken for an Indiaman, homeward bound. She proved to
be the Solebay, frigate, with twenty guns mounted on one deck. On seeing
the Providence, the Solebay made for her, and the sloop had to take to
her heels. But the Solebay proved to be a magnificent sailer on the
wind, and the Providence had evidently more than her match in speed. The
Providence, small as she was, had cleared for action, for, as Paul Jones
declared, “I will give her one round, if I go to the bottom for it.” The
men highly approved of this sentiment, and the little four-pounders were
run out to salute the flag the Providence carried—because her fire was
little more than a salute.

The day was warm and clear, and the breeze fresh. The little Providence
was legging it briskly over the water, but the Solebay gained upon her
every hour. The chase had begun about noon, and by four o’clock the
frigate was within pistol shot. Paul Jones was on the horse block of his
little vessel, and Bill Green was at the wheel. Danny Dixon had gravely
prepared for action upon the sly hints given by his friend and patron,
Bill. The boy had stripped to the waist, and, wrapping a handkerchief
about his head, instead of his hat, was all ready to take his place at
the head of the line of powder boys.

As the frigate gained more and more on the little Providence, every
heart sank except that of the dauntless captain. Paul Jones, however,
remained calm, and even confident.

“Look,” said he, “their guns in broadside are fast. They think they can
take us by firing a bow chaser, but they are mistaken. What would be
easier than to bear away before the wind under their broadside?”

The Providence had all her light canvas set, and was flying like a bird
from her pursuer; but the pursuer was nevertheless perceptibly gaining.

“We will show our ensign as well as give her a volley,” cried Paul Jones
gayly, and the next moment the American colors fluttered out.

To their surprise, the Solebay now hoisted American colors too.

“Lying, lying,” said Paul Jones, turning to his officers. “Would that we
had such a vessel in our little navy! She is British, depend upon it.
Her lines tell it too plainly.”

The Solebay though imagining that she was weathering on the chase and
sure to capture the saucy American, soon hauled down her American colors
and ran up the Union Jack.

The officers saw by the light in Paul Jones’s eyes that he still had a
trump card to play. All this time he was walking the quarter-deck with
his light and springy step, his face wearing a smile. Presently he
called out himself to Bill Green, at the wheel:

“Give her a good full, quartermaster.”

“A good full, sir,” replied Bill in a sailor’s musical singsong.

Paul Jones then ordered the square sails and then the studding sails
set.

            [Illustration: “_Hooray for Cap’n Paul Jones!_”]

The next moment the helm was put up, and before the astonished people on
the Solebay knew what was happening, the American sloop of war ran
directly under her enemy’s broadside and went off dead before the wind.
The keen eyes of Paul Jones had noticed that in the Solebay’s fancied
certainty of capturing the American she had not even cast loose and
manned her batteries in broadside, thinking a shot or two from her bow
guns would bring the Providence to when she was overhauled. But the
Providence had a captain the like of which the Solebay had never met
before, and he could dare and do unlooked-for things.

In vain the frigate came about in haste and confusion. Her prey was
gone, and the Americans were cheering and jeering.

“Boy,” said Bill Green in a hoarse whisper to Danny Dixon, who was
passing near him: “I can’t do no cheerin’ at the wheel, so you cheer for
me; and if you don’t pipe up as loud as the best of ’em I’ll tan your
hide for you the wust you ever see, jest as soon as my relief comes.”

Danny was disposed to cheer anyhow, but Bill Green’s promise of a
licking in case he did not do his full duty in the matter, tended to
encourage him. He took his stand by the foremast and a series of
diabolical whoops and yells resounded. “Hooray!” bawled Danny. “Hooray
for Cap’n Paul Jones! Hooray for the Providence! Hooray for Mr. Bill
Green! Hooray for the powder monkeys on this ’ere ship!” and so on
indefinitely.

“What is that youngster yelling?” asked Paul Jones, laughing at the
gravity and persistence with which Danny kept up his performance.

One of the officers went up to him, and returned laughing too:

“He says, sir, that Green, the quartermaster, told him to hurrah, and if
he doesn’t keep it up he is afraid Green will give him the cat.”

Everybody laughed, and they agreed the best plan was to let Danny and
the quartermaster settle it between them. Danny hurrahed for a solid
half hour, until Green’s relief came. The old sailor then went up to
him, grinning.

“You can shet that potato-trap o’ yourn now,” he said, “and I’ll take a
turn myself,” whereupon Bill, inflating his lungs, roared out solemnly:

“Three cheers for Cap’n Paul Jones!”

“Hooray! hooray! hooray!” piped Danny Dixon’s shrill treble.

Paul Jones’s daring exploit still further increased the respect that his
officers and men felt, and they showed it in a hundred ways.

Three weeks now passed, and the Providence steered to the northern seas.
One day, off Cape Sable, in Nova Scotia, the weather being brilliantly
clear, Bill Green and others of the men asked permission to catch for
their mess some of the fish that abounded. As they had been on salt
provisions for a long time, Paul Jones readily gave the desired
permission, and the ship was hove to. A sharp lookout was kept, however,
but nothing occurred to disturb the men in their amusement, until toward
afternoon, when a sail was made out to windward of them. Instantly the
fishing came to a stop, and the Providence, setting some of her light
sails, waited for the stranger on an easy bowline.

As the ship approached, Paul Jones plainly saw that she was no such
sailer as the Solebay, and thought he could amuse himself with her.

“That vessel, I take it,” he remarked to his first lieutenant, “is the
Milford frigate. I have expected to fall in with her, and we can outfoot
her, that is clear.”

The Milford, however, began to chase. When she got within cannon shot
Paul Jones doubled on her quarter; when, seeing he had the advantage of
her in speed, he began to lead her a wild-goose chase. For eight hours
the pursuit continued, the Providence keeping just out of range of the
cannonade which the Milford kept up unceasingly, wasting in it enormous
quantities of powder and shot. Paul Jones was much too astute to throw
away any of his ammunition in a perfectly useless cannonade, but as he
said, “I can not be so rude as to receive a salute without returning
it.” Turning to his marine officer, he said:

“Direct one of your men to load his musket, and as often as the Milford
salutes our flag with her great guns, we will reply with a musket shot
at least.”

The officer, smiling, went after his man, and stationed him on the
quarter-deck. The next time the slow-sailing frigate thundered out a
tremendous volley, the marine, with his musket at his shoulder, stood
ready for the word. The officer called out, “Fire!” and the marine
banged away at the frigate amid the uproarious laughter and cheering of
the American sailors. This was kept up for an hour or two, when, a good
breeze springing up, the Providence set all her canvas and ran off,
leaving the Milford completely in the lurch.

They had another brush with the Milford before the cruise was up.
Captain Jones had captured a fine ship, the Mellish, loaded with
clothing, which was badly needed by the army of Washington. While
convoying her, and with his ship filled with prisoners taken from other
prizes, he ran across the Milford. The frigate immediately gave chase.
As it was night, Captain Jones set lights at his topmast, and everywhere
a light could be put, while the Mellish, with her valuable cargo,
carried no lights at all, and slipped off in the darkness. When day
broke, Captain Jones found that the Mellish was not in sight, while the
Milford was crowding on sail to overhaul him. But the little Providence
again showed a clean pair of heels, and some days afterward the Mellish
was brought in, to the great rejoicing of the patriotic army.



                               CHAPTER V.


The repute of Paul Jones was now great, and the American Congress
intended sending him abroad to take command of a splendid frigate, then
building in Holland. But owing to the representations of the British
Government to Holland, and also to France, which had not then openly
joined the American cause, the frigate was handed over to the French
Government instead of to the American commissioners at Paris. These
commissioners were Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane, and Arthur Lee. The
next best thing to be done for Captain Jones was to give him command of
the Ranger, sloop of war. She was then fitting out at Portsmouth, New
Hampshire.

The Congress had adopted, on the 14th of July, 1777, the present
national ensign of the stars and stripes, and on the same day Paul Jones
received his orders to command the Ranger. He at once started for
Portsmouth, carrying with him one of the new flags, and as he had before
hoisted for the first time the original flag of the colonies, so he had
the honor of raising the new ensign upon the Ranger the first time the
Stars and Stripes ever floated over an American man-of-war.

There never was any trouble about manning Paul Jones’s ships, and
neither Bill Green nor little Danny Dixon could have been kept off with
a stick. Therefore, on the fair, bright summer day that Paul Jones
arrived at Portsmouth the very first creature he put his eyes on was
Danny.

“Why, how are you, my lad?” cried Paul Jones, as he sprang out of the
lumbering stagecoach, and saw Danny standing by the door of the inn
where it stopped.

“Quite well, sir,” answered Danny with shining eyes, and stepping up to
take Paul Jones’s luggage. He shouldered two portmanteaus manfully, but
Paul Jones held on to a large parcel that he carried under his arm.

“No, no,” he cried, “this is too precious to be trusted out of my own
hand. And how did you know I would be here to-day?”

“I didn’t know it for certain, sir, but Mr. Green and me, we has stood
watch and watch for two days lookin’ for you, and Mr. Green says, if he
ain’t the fust man aboard the Ranger to know you has come as how he’ll
take it out on my hide, certain. But that’s only Mr. Green’s way o’
jokin’, sir.”

Danny went through with this very respectfully, and Paul Jones’s smiling
eyes showed that he knew perfectly well the relations between the
devoted little cabin boy, and the sturdy quartermaster. “Come on, then,”
cried he, “and I have something here to decorate my ship with, that will
make her shine indeed.”

In a little while they reached the ship, Danny red and proud with the
honor of carrying the captain’s luggage. Sure enough, there stood Bill
Green at the gangway, and he took his hat off as soon as he caught sight
of Paul Jones. For his part, Paul Jones was delighted to know that he
could count upon such a reliable petty officer as Bill, and greeted him
warmly. Bill immediately snatched the luggage from Danny, who was left
disconsolate, without even the Captain’s portmanteau to comfort him. The
first lieutenant was on deck, and as soon as Paul Jones had greeted his
officers he went aft, and, unrolling his parcel, shook out a large and
handsome silk flag, the “Uncle Sam’s gridiron,” which he was destined,
as he himself expressed it, “to attend with veneration on the ocean.”
Bill Green fastened the flag to the halyards, but Paul Jones himself
drew it up to the peak, amid the cheers of officers and men. Thus had he
hoisted with his own hands the Stars and Stripes for the first time on
an American ship of war, as he had been the first man to hoist the
original flag of freedom.

From the day he stepped on board the Ranger, matters went on as they
only can under the direction of a perfect sailor. The officers were
enthusiastic and the crew made up of excellent material. Bill Green had
long ago proved himself a very valuable man. He continued, however, to
harass Danny Dixon with foks’l wit. But Danny had discovered that Bill’s
magnificent promises of promotion and assurances of Captain Jones’s
favor, were merely “pullin’ a leg,” in sailor language. Danny was now a
tall, stout boy of fourteen, and very active aloft. Therefore, a day or
two after Paul Jones got on board he said to the boy:

“Dixon, I think you can be classed as a seaman apprentice, and thereby
raise your rating.”

“I’d ruther wait on you, sir,” promptly answered Danny.

“But your share of prize money would be larger if you were rated as a
seaman apprentice, instead of merely a ship’s boy.”

“I’d ruther wait on you, sir—”

“And then you’d stand a chance of being rated as an able seaman in two
or three years.”

“I’d ruther wait on you, sir,” doggedly answered Danny.

Paul Jones smiled, and said no more.

This all occurred in July, but it was not until November that the ship
was ready to sail. She was by that time well manned, but owing to the
poverty and lack of resource of the struggling Government she was poorly
equipped. She had only one suit of sails, and those very indifferent,
and not a single spare sail in case any mishap should befall her canvas
in a wintry passage across the stormy Atlantic. There was likewise
another deficiency, which gave the men much disquietude, especially Bill
Green—there was only a single barrel of rum on board.

“I tell you what it is, youngster,” said Bill solemnly to Danny, it
being a favorite amusement of his to tell the most grewsome yarns he
could invent to the boy, “this ’ere’s a ornlucky ship—mark my words.”

“Why, Mr. Green,” answered Danny earnestly, “ain’t Cap’n Paul Jones
commandin’ of her?”

“W’y, yes, boy, but you know there’s lucky ships and ornlucky ships.
There ain’t nothin’ goin’ to happen to _we_—’cause Cap’n Paul Jones is
commandin’, as you say—but we ain’t goin’ to git no prize money to speak
of. Likely as not, we won’t capture nothin’ wuth havin’. We ain’t got
but one barrel o’ rum aboard, and that’s the ornluckiest thing that ever
was. It’s worse nor a black cat aboard ship. I’d ruther have ten black
cats and sail on a Friday, and meet all the pirates afloat, than to
start on a short ’lowance o’ rum. It’s dreadful ornlucky, boy, and it’s
dreadful tryin’ besides.”

Danny fully believed him, as Bill, with a huge sigh, cut a quid of
tobacco and began to chew dolefully.

Bill’s prediction was carried out to the letter, for from the cheerless
day the Ranger sailed out of Portsmouth harbor until she made the coast
of France no prize was taken.

This was partly due to Captain Jones’s desire to get to the other side
as quickly as possible. The weather was rough and the Ranger proved very
crank, and it was not until the 2d of December that the port of Nantes
was made. The guns were covered up, the portlids lowered, and everything
as far as possible done to conceal the warlike character of the ship.

Paul Jones immediately set out for Paris, and on the third day he
knocked at the door of a charming house at Passy, one of the most
beautiful suburbs of Paris. This was a house belonging to M. Ray de
Chaumont, a rich French gentleman whose sympathies with the American
cause were so strong that he offered the American commissioners the use
of his house until they could make permanent arrangements. Some instinct
had told Paul Jones that he should find a friend in Benjamin Franklin,
then at the zenith of his fame, and the most influential of the three
American commissioners at Paris. The first meeting of these two great
men, destined to be lifelong friends, was an event in history. Without
the confidence and support of Franklin, Paul Jones would probably never
had the means of achieving greatness, and this support and confidence
never wavered from the moment these two immortal men stood face to face
and looked through their eyes into each other’s souls. Franklin’s
venerable figure and grave, concentrated glance contrasted strongly with
Paul Jones’s lithe and active form and the piercing expression of his
clear-cut features. The two men grasped hands and so stood for a moment,
each fascinated by something in the aspect of the other.

“Welcome to France,” said Franklin. “I have heard of you, and every such
man as you is a mighty help to our cause.”

Paul Jones murmured some words expressive of the admiration he felt for
a man so truly eminent as Franklin, but his bold spirit was abashed in
the presence of so much greatness in this patriarchal old man. They
spent the whole of the short winter day in converse, each more and more
dazzled and charmed by the other. At twilight they said farewell at the
open door. As they clasped hands in parting, Paul Jones said:

“I had the honor of hoisting the flag of our country for the first time
upon the ocean, and I intend to claim for it all the honors that it
deserves. As soon as I am in the presence of the French fleet I shall
demand a salute; and I shall get it, mark my words.”

“I believe _you_, if any man can, will get it,” answered Franklin. “And
remember—if we can not secure you a ship worthy of you, and you are
still compelled to keep the Ranger, you shall at least have _carte
blanche_ for your cruise, for I do not believe in hampering spirits so
bold and enterprising as yours.”

As Paul Jones walked away in the dusk of twilight he glanced back and
saw Franklin still standing in the doorway, with the light from an
overhead lantern falling on his silvery hair. Paul Jones felt that the
day of his meeting with Franklin was a great, a memorable day for him.

The American commissioners were indeed unable to obtain a better ship
for him than the Ranger, and Paul Jones returned to his little vessel
sore-hearted from his disappointment, but with the authority to rank all
officers of American ships in European waters, and with perfect freedom
to make his cruise as he liked. He determined, as he always did, to make
the best of what he had. His first duty was to convoy a number of
American merchant vessels from Nantes into Quiberon Bay, where a large
French fleet, under Admiral La Motte Picquet, was to sail for America.
There was now no need for disguising the character of the Ranger, and
she sailed openly as a man-of-war. Paul Jones, with resistless energy,
had worked at his ship until he had remedied many of her defects. Her
lower masts were shortened; she was ballasted with lead; and she was
much improved, as every ship that he commanded was improved by him. He
also had, as a tender, the brig Independence.

It was on the 13th of February, 1778, that Paul Jones, flying the Stars
and Stripes for the first time in the presence of a foreign fleet,
anchored off the bay at Quiberon. He had a motive in not coming in the
bay, and this was, as he had told Franklin, to have the flag of the
United States saluted in open day by the French admiral. The treaty of
alliance between the United States and France was not then published,
and it required much address to obtain a salute.

As soon as the Ranger dropped her anchor Paul Jones sent his boat off to
the French admiral, desiring to know, if he saluted the admiral’s ship,
if the salute would be returned.

Paul Jones remained walking the quarter-deck of the Ranger until the
boat was seen pulling back. A letter was handed him from the French
admiral, which he eagerly opened.

The letter stated courteously that the salute would be returned, but
with four guns less than the American ship fired, as it was the custom
in the French navy to fire four guns less to a republic than the salute
offered.

Paul Jones immediately went below, where he wrote the following spirited
letter to the American agent at the port:

“I think the admiral’s answer requires some explanation. The haughty
English return gun for gun to foreign officers of equal rank, and two
less only by captains to flag officers. It is true my command is not
important, yet, as the senior American officer at present in Europe it
is my duty to claim an equal return of respect to the flag of the United
States _that would be shown to any other flag whatever_.

“I therefore take the liberty of inclosing an appointment[3] as
respectable as any the French admiral can produce. If, however, he
persists in refusing to return an equal salute, I will accept of two
guns less, as I have not the rank of an admiral.”

To this he added, that unless his flag should be properly saluted he
would certainly depart without coming into the bay.

Next day, however, he discovered that the French admiral was acting in
good faith, and could not, according to his regulations, return gun for
gun to the flag of a republic; and therefore Paul Jones determined to
accept of the salute offered.

The wind was blowing hard, and the sea very high, so that it was after
sunset before the Ranger could get near enough to the admiral’s ship to
salute. The brig Independence had been ordered to lay off the bay for a
particular purpose. Paul Jones was afraid that some advantage might be
taken of the salute being fired in semi-darkness—such as saying the flag
was mistaken for another—and he determined to have a salute also in
broad daylight.

The short February twilight was fast going, and the wind drove the
lowering clouds furiously across the sky, when the Ranger, under
close-reefed topsails, entered the bay and sailed close under the lee of
the admiral’s ship, where she hove to. Instantly her guns thundered out
thirteen times. The report echoed over the dark water, where the great
French fleet, looming up grandly in the half-darkness, lay majestically
at anchor. As soon as the last gun had been fired the admiral’s ship
promptly gave back nine guns. The Ranger then returned to the mouth of
the bay, where she anchored alongside of the Independence, the wind
having abated.

Next morning—a beautiful, bright day—Paul Jones sent word to the French
admiral that he intended sailing through the French fleet in the brig
and again saluting him, to which the admiral returned a courteous reply.

About ten o’clock in the morning Paul Jones went on board the
Independence, which then stood boldly in the harbor. She was a
beautiful, clipper-built brig, and as clean and fresh as hands could
make her. A splendid new American flag floated proudly from her mizzen
peak.

The French fleet was anchored in two great lines, rather wide apart,
with the flagship in the middle of the outer line. The Independence,
with all her canvas set, entered between the two rows of ships. Her guns
were manned, and Paul Jones, in full uniform, stood on the quarter-deck.
As the Independence came abreast of the flagship the brig fired thirteen
guns with the most beautiful precision and with exactly the same
interval between each report. The admiral paid the American the
compliment of having his guns already manned, and as the little
Independence passed gracefully down the line, enveloped like a veil in
the white smoke from her own guns, the flagship roared out nine guns
from her great thirty-six-pounders. Paul Jones’s satisfaction was seen
on his face, although he said no word; but as soon as he returned on
board the Ranger he wrote to Franklin a joyous letter, telling him of
the honor paid the American flag.

From this on the relations between the officers of the French fleet and
the two American vessels were most cordial. The Frenchmen had heard of
Paul Jones as an enterprising and promising officer, and his running
under the guns of the Solebay had become generally known in Europe, much
to the chagrin of the Solebay’s officers. The Count d’Orvilliers, one of
the highest officers in the service of France, thought that, as France
and America were bound to be shortly allied, that it would be well for
Paul Jones to hold a captain’s commission in the French navy as well as
an American commission. But this he declined. An American commission was
good enough for Paul Jones.



                              CHAPTER VI.


It was upon the 10th of April, 1778, that Paul Jones sailed from Brest
upon the first of his two immortal cruises.

The respect with which he had been treated, and the dignity he
maintained, had had great effect upon the officers and men under him.
They knew neither the time nor the place of the enterprise they were
entering upon; but that it was bold and venturesome they were well
assured. The seas were swarming with British cruisers, and alone among
this multitude of enemies the little Ranger sailed gallantly. As she
passed out of the harbor of Brest the sailors on the French ships gave
her a ringing cheer, to which the Americans responded.

Paul Jones then called his officers around him, and his daring words
were plainly audible to many of the men.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I propose to steer straight for the Irish Sea.
What my plans are I shall tell you when we are in sight of the three
kingdoms. I know every foot of the narrow seas, and every bay, inlet,
and headland on the shores of Scotland and Ireland. Give me your full
support, and we shall return covered with glory.”

A shout of applause greeted these brave words.

As soon as the Ranger was out of sight of land every effort was made to
disguise her as a merchantman. Her guns were hid, and her white sails
were daubed with lamp-black, to give the idea of being old and patched.
The crew was kept below as much as possible, to be out of sight, and in
this guise she made boldly for St. George’s Channel.

On the night of the 14th of April, while standing in between Cape Clear
and the Scilly Isles, the lookout on the quarter sang out, “Sail, ho!”

The sail was a fine, large brigantine, which allowed the strange ship,
which she took for a merchantman, to approach quite near her, as if to
pass on the opposite tack. Suddenly the strange ship doubled on her
quarter and came bearing down upon her, and at the same moment a blank
cartridge was fired across her bows. The brigantine hove to in obedience
to this peremptory command, and hailed the approaching Ranger. To this
hail the sailing master of the Ranger replied:

“This is the United States ship Ranger, and you are her prize.”

Resistance was useless. The ship contained a valuable cargo, but no
attempt was made to take anything except what could be easily
transferred to the Ranger. Paul Jones had determined not to fire the
ship, lest her burning should attract other vessels that swarmed the
narrow seas, and thereby raise an alarm on land. Therefore he sent the
carpenter and all his mates on board to scuttle her. The captain and
crew of the brigantine were brought off, and the carpenters went to work
with a will. In two hours from the time that she had been sailing
confidently along, unsuspicious of an enemy, the brigantine had
disappeared from the face of the ocean.

Three days now passed in cruising about St. George’s Channel. So great
was the number of ships, both men-of-war and merchantmen, in sight and
passing at all times, that Captain Jones did not consider it prudent to
attack, because no man excelled Paul Jones in the prudence of the
valiant. Several times during those three days and nights vessels that
would have been valuable prizes were close under the guns of the little
Ranger, but the presence of a frigate or two or other ship of war in the
distance made an attack impracticable. Back and forth for three days and
nights Paul Jones sailed dauntlessly among a multitude of enemies, thus
venturing boldly into the very nest of the hornets. On the evening of
the third day, the 17th of April, a large merchant vessel was seen off
the coast of Ireland. No ship of war was in sight, and the Ranger
therefore gave chase. Within an hour or two the vessel was overhauled,
almost at the mouth of the Liffey. A blank cartridge fired across her
bows and the Ranger’s hoisting the American ensign brought her to. She
proved to be the Lord Chatham, fast and new, bound for Dublin.

“We can not sink so good a ship as this,” said Paul Jones to his first
lieutenant. “And, besides, the scheme I have in view does not permit us
to encumber ourselves with prisoners. She will answer excellently to
carry our prisoners back to Brest.”

A prize crew and an officer were therefore thrown on board the Lord
Chatham, the prisoners transferred, and she was carried off when almost
within sight of her port. Paul Jones then put out to the open sea again,
and steered straight for the coast of Scotland.

On the 18th of April, a beautiful, mild evening, he entered the Frith of
Solway. It was the first time his eyes had rested on it, except for one
brief and unhappy visit, since his childhood. He was now an American
officer, of the highest rank possible to give him in the infant navy of
the colonies, and it was his plain duty to use the knowledge he had of
the Scotch coast in the service of his country.

The port of Whitehaven, on the opposite side of the Solway, was the
point Paul Jones meant to attack. Here was collected a great company of
shipping, estimated at between two and three hundred sail. The Ranger
was, as usual, closely disguised, and excited no suspicion as she
entered the Solway. The evening was beautiful and bright, but as the sun
went down the indications of a hard squall became evident. The furious
tides rushed in, driven by a rising gale from the Irish Sea, and the
wind blew directly on shore.

Paul Jones determined to wait for night to complete his design, and when
it grew too dark for the Ranger to be distinguished from another ship he
ordered the men mustered on deck. Then, in a few decisive words, he
announced his plan to them.

“We shall have a chance,” he said, “to avenge some of the dreadful
burnings practiced uselessly upon our own coasts; but this will not be
useless. The fleet now collected at Whitehaven is the coal fleet for
Ireland. To destroy it would be to embarrass the enemy greatly. I call
for thirty volunteers to assist me in this patriotic work. No man need
go unless he wants to. But those who share with me the danger of this
enterprise will also share with me the glory.”

It seemed as if every man on the deck shouted “I, sir,” and “I!” and
“I!” and “I!” and loud among the voices sounded the piping treble of
little Danny Dixon. Paul Jones raised his hand to command silence.

“I shall have to choose thirty men, because I can not take you all. I
shall take the strongest and most active men.”

At that he told off thirty men, including Bill Green, the quartermaster.
But when the number was selected, and the men had gone forward, Paul
Jones noticed that Danny, the cabin boy, lingered.

“If you please, sir,” said Danny, diffidently, “you surely ain’t a-goin’
to leave me behind, sir?”

“Why, you are nothing but a lad,” answered Paul Jones. “This is an
enterprise for men, not boys.”

“I know it, sir. But I ain’t afraid o’ nothin’.”

Paul Jones was about to reply, but at that moment Mr. Stacy, the sailing
master, came up hurriedly, to say that at the rate the wind was rising
and shifting it was necessary to claw off the land, and he thought a
landing would be impossible that night. A few minutes convinced Paul
Jones that his sailing master was right, and that the enterprise would
have to be postponed. The Ranger was driving furiously before the wind,
and at every lurch she buried her nose deep in the foaming waves. The
gale shrieked angrily, and a bank of coppery clouds in the west darkened
ominously. The ship was therefore brought about, and under straining
canvas she beat her way back to the mouth of the Solway.

No man slept on the Ranger that night. The weather was thick, and Paul
Jones was averse to running into the open sea for safety. The next
morning dawned clear, but windy. The ship was close enough to the shores
of Scotland to be seen from a hundred hamlets, and her situation became
too risky to let anything escape that could tell on her. A revenue
wherry was seen, chased and cannonaded, but escaped. A coasting vessel
was overhauled, her crew taken out of her, and she was then scuttled and
sunk; so was a Dublin schooner, while a cutter seen off the lee bow was
chased into the Clyde, and up as far as the Rock of Ailsa. The weather
still prevented a descent upon the coast, but Paul Jones boldly awaited
his chance to make it, in spite of the enemies that swarmed around him.

Boldness meant prudence in the affair Paul Jones had undertaken, and
therefore, not wishing to remain too long in any locality, he again
stood across the Irish Sea, and entered the Lough of Belfast, off which
lay the town of Carrickfergus.

It was on the afternoon of the 21st of April. The Ranger, sailing with a
long leg and a short one, cautiously approached the roadstead. Never was
there a lovelier scene. The harbor was of a deep ultramarine blue, and a
faint golden haze enveloped sky and sea and castle and ships. Upon a
grandly projecting cliff stood the stern gray castle, with its
twenty-two great guns, frowning upon the rippling water. Out in the
soft, yet dazzling, afternoon light lay a sloop of war, about the size
of the Ranger. A gentle breeze fanned the Union Jack that floated from
her mizzen peak. Over the whole scene was the still beauty of “a painted
ship upon a painted ocean.”

The officers of the Ranger were all on deck, for in that perilous cruise
neither officers nor men went below except for necessary food and sleep.
Paul Jones, with his glass, carefully examined the ship, and then,
turning to his officers, said quietly:

“Gentlemen, here is the chance we have all longed for. Yonder is a ship
of war of a rate that we can give battle to. We will fight that ship,
and we will take her.”

Scarcely were the words out of the captain’s mouth when “Ahoy!” sounded
from the port side of the Ranger. A fishing boat had come alongside,
with three fishermen in it. One of them held up a string of beautiful
fish.

“Yes, we want your fish, and you, too,” cried Stacy, the sailing master,
at Captain Jones’s orders; and in a few moments, to the astonishment of
the fishermen, they were on the Ranger’s deck, and their boat was
hanging astern.

              [Illustration: _The Ranger and the Drake._]

“What is that vessel yonder?” asked Captain Jones of the elder man, for
they proved to be a father and two sons.

The man looked about him dazed for a moment. He did not recognize
Captain Jones’s uniform, nor did he understand the character of the
vessel that looked so peaceable, but which a close inspection proved was
well able to take care of herself in a fight. He hesitated a moment, but
one commanding look from Paul Jones brought the truth out.

“It is the Drake, sir; sloop of war.”

“Of how many guns?”

The man looked helplessly at Captain Jones, but one of the sons
answered, in a low voice:

“Some says twenty, sir, but I counted twenty-two on ’em when I went
aboard to carry my fish.”

“And who commands her?”

“Burden, sir; Cap’n Burden they calls him.”

Paul Jones’s eyes gleamed. No better news could be brought him.

“Very well,” he said, “I shall have to keep you from your families for a
few days, but you shall not lose by being my guests.”

Paul Jones’s plans were made rapidly. He was alone, on a hostile coast,
with enemies before him, behind him, and around him. None the less did
he intend to give battle. Moreover, he knew that he was fighting with a
halter around his neck, for there was but little doubt that if he were
captured he would be hanged as a pirate, so little were the British then
disposed to recognize the navy of the colonies. But this could not
appall his dauntless soul. He had the warm support of the best among his
officers, and among the men there was an instinctive belief that he was
always ready to fight, and nothing so inspires a crew as the knowledge
that they have a fighting captain. Bill Green, passing back and forth,
remarked, with a wink, to a group of his messmates forward:

“The Cap’n’s goin’ to fight that ’ere Johnny Bull, sure; and I tell you
what, them Britishers will have to coil up some o’ their nonsense about
there ain’t no sailors except Britishers, and take in their slack about
Britannia rulin’ the waves. Something’s goin’ to happen soon, that
reminds me of a old song I heard once:

  “‘Heave the topmast from the board,
    And our ship for action clear;
  By the cannon and the sword
    We will die or conquer here.
  To your posts, my faithful tars!
    Mind your rigging, guns, and spars!’

Ay, ay, sir! coming, sir!”—this to Mr. Stacy, the sailing master, who
called out sharply, “Quartermaster!”

Just as Bill had foreseen, the order was passed to clear for action
without the drumbeat. The guns were made ready to run out, but kept
covered, and the portlids were not raised. The breeze was fresh, and the
Ranger was enabled to carry all her canvas. She kept warily outside the
harbor, on and off the wind, until about ten o’clock at night, when she
stood boldly in, to bring up athwart hawse the Drake, intending to
grapple and fight it out.

Everything was in readiness, as the ship stole silently in through the
misty darkness of a moonless night. Stacy, the sailing master, brought
her safely within a cable’s length of the Drake’s quarter. But the
anchor was let go too soon, and, instead of laying aboard the Drake, she
drifted about half a cable’s length off. In an instant the mistake was
realized. Without a moment’s hesitation Captain Jones gave orders to cut
the cable, and the Ranger passed directly astern of the Drake, under her
stern chasers. No alarm was given on the war-ship; a muttered growl from
the lookout on the after quarter informed them that they had better
“keep off” with their lubberly craft, which Paul Jones promptly did,
intending to return on the next tack. But the wind, which had been
squally for several days, now suddenly rose in a fierce gust, and he was
compelled to beat out of the harbor. The gust increased to a furious
gale, and it took all of Captain Jones’s skill to get sea room enough
for safety. The night grew pitch dark, and it was midnight before they
weathered the lighthouse point, where the warning light shone dimly over
the tempestuous sea and upon the laboring ship. The gale continued all
the next day, but the Ranger had found a lee on the south coast, where
she awaited the abatement.

“Never mind, my brave boys,” said Paul Jones to his men when they were
driving out of the harbor. “That ship shall yet be ours. We can cut and
come again.”

The men fully believed him.



                              CHAPTER VII.


For six days the weather continued to be very uncertain, and the Ranger
ran from point to point between the Scotch and Irish coasts, waiting for
a chance to slip in the port of Carrickfergus and have it out, yardarm
to yardarm, with the Drake. At last, on the morning of the 24th of
April, Paul Jones found himself off the harbor’s mouth. The bay, the
castled crag, the picturesque town, and the handsome sloop of war looked
as lovely in the brilliant morning light as in the soft afternoon glow
when the Ranger had first reconnoitered the town.

But no longer was the American vessel unsuspected. By the time she had
passed the headland and got in full view of the town and shipping her
warlike character was suspected, although she showed no colors, her
ports were closed, and only a few of her company were allowed upon deck.
But the Carrickfergus people had heard about the daring American cruiser
that had been hovering off the coasts of the three kingdoms for ten
days, and the Drake felt disposed to find out the standing of the
strange ship in the offing. As the Ranger neared the harbor’s mouth her
people could hear the creaking of the capstan and the hoarse rattle of
the hawser as the Drake’s anchor was being rapidly tripped. Nothing
could have pleased Paul Jones more than this, and he smiled as he said
to his sailing master:

“Keep off a little, Mr. Stacy. The Drake evidently wishes for a personal
interview with us, and I would like to oblige her. I think, though, we
will come about, so as to show her as little as possible of ourselves,
in order that she may come out as far as possible.”

The Ranger then went completely about, as if she were running away.
Still she had thrown her main topsail aback and had hauled up her
courses.

The Drake then determined to send out a boat to reconnoiter. As the
Ranger’s stern was still kept toward the boat nothing could be
discovered of her character, and the boat came on within hailing
distance. The Ranger, however, did not hail. The boat continued to
advance, and finally hailed. Stacy, under Paul Jones’s orders, answered
the hail.

“What ship is that?” was called from the boat.

Paul Jones, standing at Stacy’s elbow, told him in a low voice what to
say.

“The Mind-your-business-and-keep-off,” Stacy rattled off so fast that he
could not possibly be understood.

The boat stopped for a moment and then pulled a little nearer, and the
officer in it stood up and shouted in a clear voice:

“What ship is that?”

“The worst we’ve seen for ten years,” bawled Stacy, pretending that he
understood the hail to be about the voyage.

“You are a fool,” called the officer, examining the ship carefully as
the boat rapidly pulled nearer and nearer, but still puzzled by her. “I
asked the name of your ship.”

“Much obliged for your information,” Stacy answered, “particularly as
it’s the hardest thing in the world generally for a respectable merchant
vessel to get a civil word out of you cocky man-of-war’s people.”

By this time the boat was directly under the Ranger’s quarter, and there
could be no pretense of not understanding the officer’s final hail.

“I ask you, for the third time, what ship is that?”

“And I answer, for the third time, she is the Lord Chatham, bound for
Leith from Dublin, short of——”

“Water,” suggested Paul Jones. “That’s the only thing we are not short
of.”

“Short of water,” continued Stacy; and then, prompted again by Paul
Jones, he cried:

“Have you heard anything of that American cruiser which has been
prowling about, capturing merchant ships and frightening the coast
people out of their wits?”

“No,” said the officer, now completely off his guard. “We would give a
thousand pounds to meet her.”

“Our captain says come aboard, then,” said Stacy, “and he can give you
some information about the Ranger that he guarantees is absolutely
true.”

The boat then came alongside, a ladder was lowered, and the officer came
up on the port side. Just then one of the Ranger’s boats was dropped
from the davits; it was quickly filled with men, and in another minute
the men in the Drake’s boat were informed that they were prisoners. As
the officer stepped upon deck Paul Jones advanced.

“I am sorry to begin our acquaintance so unpleasantly, sir, but you are
my prisoner. This is the American sloop of war Ranger, and I am Captain
Paul Jones.”

The officer uttered an exclamation of anger. The name of Paul Jones was
already well known, and one glance had shown him the true state of
affairs.

“Make yourself as easy as possible,” said Paul Jones. “Yours is the
fortune of war; but you will be treated with every consideration, and
will, no doubt, be shortly exchanged.”

The other officers then came forward and politely condoled with the
unlucky officer, while his men were sent below.

The whole thing had been witnessed from the Drake, which now had no
doubt of the Ranger’s character, and lost no time in preparing to come
out. The alarm had been given, and five vessels, filled with people
anxious to see the contest between the two ships, put off from the
shore. Alarm fires were set blazing, and the black smoke was wafted high
in the noonday light. The tide was unfavorable, so that the Drake worked
out very slowly. The Ranger now threw off every disguise. Her guns were
run out and her men called to quarters by the tap of the drum, and she
waited gallantly for her adversary. She drifted fast to windward, so
that she was several times forced to put up her helm in order to run
down toward her enemy, when she would throw her main topsail aback and
lie with her courses in the brails.

The men were at their quarters, but laughing, joking, and singing, as it
was the custom to permit them a little jollity at the moment of going
into battle. They watched the Drake making her way slowly, with light
and baffling winds, toward mid-channel, and exchanged squibs and songs
about her. Bill Green was in his glory. As he was to take the wheel as
soon as the ball opened, he was relieved until the first lieutenant
called him. Paul Jones was very glad to have him relieved, as his songs
inspired the men. Bill, seated on one of the long guns, with folded arms
and his cap stuck rakishly on the back of his head, proceeded to troll
out, in his rich voice, one of his favorite songs, which he claimed to
have composed expressly for the occasion.

  “Yankee sailors have a knack,
        Haul away! Yo ho, boys!
  Of hauling down a British Jack,
        Haul away! Yo ho, boys!
  Come three to one, right sure am I,
  If we can’t beat them, still we’ll try
  To make Columbia’s colors fly.
        Haul away! Yo ho, boys!”

The sailors caught the refrain at once, and every time it was repeated
they roared out a musical chorus of

        “Haul away! Yo ho, boys!”

  “Yankee sailors when at sea,
        Haul away! Yo ho, boys!
  Pipe all hands with merry glee
        While aloft they go, boys!
  And when with pretty girls on shore,
  Their cash is gone, and not before,
  They wisely go to sea for more.
        Haul away! Yo ho, boys!

  “Yankee sailors love their soil,
        Haul away! Yo ho, boys!
  And for glory ne’er spare toil,
        But flog its foes, you know, boys!
  Then while its standard owns a rag
  The world combined shall never brag
  They made us strike the Yankee flag.
        Haul away! Yo ho, boys!”

Loud cheers and laughter greeted this song, the officers smiling at the
enthusiasm aroused, and Paul Jones handed Bill two gold pieces.

“That’s for your rattling good song, my man,” said he, “and the Ranger
will never discredit the flag she fights under.”

Thus, in good spirits and with bold composure, the Ranger’s people spent
the golden hours of the forenoon and a part of the afternoon, waiting
for their gallant enemy.

              [Illustration: “_Haul away! Yo ho, boys!_”]

It was well on toward four o’clock before the Drake weathered the
headland, and lay a straight course for the saucy American, that was
waiting for her under easy canvas. As the Drake stood for the American
ship she set her colors, and at the same moment the Ranger flung out the
Stars and Stripes. No more songs and laughter then. Everybody was ready,
and grimly expectant. Danny Dixon, beating the drum, walked once around
the ship to give warning that the action was about to begin.

The Ranger filled on the starboard tack, and stood off the land so as to
engage in mid-channel. Here was indeed an enterprise that would have
appalled a less daring spirit than that of Paul Jones. He was alone, in
the narrow seas of the greatest naval power on earth, with the land as
well as the water crowded with his enemies. The hillsides were full of
people, and the shores were alive with boats. The three kingdoms were in
plain sight, and he, with one small sloop of war, stood ready to give
battle to a hitherto unconquered foe. But literally, the sense of fear
seemed unknown to Paul Jones, and great as might be the odds against
him, greater was the genius with which he could withstand them.

The Drake, having approached within hail, spoke the Ranger, as a matter
of form. The voices echoed clearly over the water in the still, sunny,
spring afternoon, and it was plainly seen in the mellow light that Paul
Jones, who stood by the sailing master’s side on the Ranger, dictated
the reply, which was a cool defiance in these words:

“This is the Continental ship Ranger. We wait for you, and beg you will
come on. The sun is but little more than an hour high, and it is time to
begin.”

Scarcely were the words spoken, when the Ranger’s helm was ported, and,
bringing her broadside to bear on the advancing ship, she roared out the
first volley. The Drake answered it promptly, and in another moment the
ships were running free, close together, under a light wind, and keeping
up a furious cannonade.

On board the Ranger, Paul Jones walked the quarter-deck unharmed, amid a
shower of musketry, which the Americans returned with interest. Captain
Burden, of the Drake, showed an equal disregard of danger, but within
half an hour of the firing of the first broadside he was mortally
wounded by a musket shot in the head. The fire of the Ranger was much
more effective than the Drake’s, and the damage done by her guns was
terrific. The Drake’s fore and main topsail yards were completely shot
away, the main topgallant mast and mizzen gaff hanging up and down the
mast, her jib hanging over her lee into the water, her sails and rigging
in rags, and she had been hulled repeatedly. Twice had her ensign been
shot away, and twice the gallant British tars had hoisted it, but just
as the sun was sinking, when the captain and first lieutenant of the
Drake and forty of her officers and men lay killed or wounded upon her
decks, the ensign was dragged down from the shattered spar to which it
hung, and a cry for “Quarter! quarter!” resounded. Instantly the
Americans ceased firing, and in another minute they had boarded the
Drake and hoisted an American ensign upon what was left of the foremast.
The sun was now going down, and the long spring twilight was upon them.

Paul Jones had seen Captain Burden fall, and his first inquiry was,
“Does the captain still live?” He indeed breathed a few times, but in a
little while all was over. The first lieutenant, who was mortally
wounded, survived for two days.

Like most men of great imaginative qualities, Paul Jones had a tender
heart. The sight of the dead and wounded always affected him, and the
spectacle of brave men dying in gallant combat with him touched him
peculiarly. In spite of his hazardous position—for he was still in the
midst of enormous danger, with a crippled ship to take care of—he
ordered the dead removed below, the captain being laid out in the cabin
and covered with the tattered ensign he had so well defended, and the
wounded promptly attended to. Meanwhile the Ranger, which was
comparatively uninjured, and had only lost one officer and one man, gave
a tow-line to the Drake, and passed out of the lough and up St. George’s
Channel. As soon as a place of comparative safety was reached, about
midnight, the Ranger hove to, and preparations were made to bury the
dead with suitable honors.

The night sky was clear, and overhead, in the blue-black vault, the
cold, bright stars shone steadily. A fair wind slightly ruffled the
surface of the ocean, and the two ships looked huge and shadowy in the
mysterious half darkness. Few lights were shown, and in the midst of a
deep and awful stillness the boatswain’s pipe resounded with the solemn
call, “All hands on deck to bury the dead!” The flags on both ships were
half-masted out of respect to the dead. On the quarter-deck lay the body
of Captain Burden, wrapped in the flag for which he had given his life.
Next him lay the body of Lieutenant Wallingford, of the Ranger, covered
with the American flag. Then came the bodies of eight British sailors
and one American, sewn up in canvas, and on them, too, lay the colors of
their country. The gangway was open and the plank lay ready. The British
officers were on deck to see the last honors paid their shipmates, while
the other prisoners were permitted to watch from the open portholes.

Paul Jones, in the absence of a chaplain, read the burial service
himself over the brave men who had so gallantly fallen that day in fair
and patriotic fight. His voice sounded inexpressibly solemn as he raised
it in the inspiring words: “I am the resurrection and the life. If a man
shall believe on Me, though he be dead, yet shall he live.”

When the short but impressive ceremony was over, the body of Captain
Burden was first dropped overboard, followed by that of poor
Wallingford. The sailors’ bodies followed in order. As the last dull
splash showed that the melancholy duty was over, the flags were run up
as if by magic on the two ships, and the bugler piped a merry call. Then
every man went to work with a will, taking advantage of the clear night
and good weather to get the shattered Drake into condition, and the
sounds of cheerful toil resounded the whole night through.

It was Paul Jones’s determination to carry the captured Drake directly
to France, for he was the last man in the world to abandon so gallant a
trophy. He had on board the Ranger about a hundred and forty prisoners,
including the wounded, and with his small crew he managed to take care
of them and repair partially the damage done the unfortunate Drake.

The men continued to work with the fierce energy that characterized
those acting under Paul Jones’s command, and within twenty-four hours
jury masts had been set up and rigged, new sails had been bent, the
holes in the hull planked over, and Paul Jones was ready to make his way
to France.

He had, indeed, struck terror to the trading vessels of the region, but,
the alarm being given, he knew that war-ships were already after him.
The wind shifting and threatening a gale, he determined to pass by the
north of the channel and around the west coast of Ireland, which would
bring him directly in the spot of his performance the day before. This
Paul Jones considered an advantage, as his enemies would scarcely be
looking for him in the very place he had just left. As he passed so
close to the port of Carrickfergus, from which he had taken the three
fishermen on the evening of the 21st, he concluded to send them to their
homes, much to their delight. Their own boat had been lost, and he
determined to give them a good one out of the many he had on board. It
was toward dusk when the boat was lowered and the men called upon deck.

Among the prisoners were two sick men from Dublin, that Paul Jones also
determined to send to their homes, and these two were also sent for on
deck. When they arrived, Paul Jones handed them some money.

“This is the last shilling that I have in the world at present, but you
are welcome to it,” he said to the sick men. They responded with a
feeble but grateful “Thankee, sir.” To the fisherman he said: “The boat
I give you is yours, and in it you will find a sail of the Drake’s. That
will show what has become of her.”

The fishermen looked completely dazed by their good fortune, for the
boat given them was much larger and better than their own. They
recovered their senses, though, after they got into the boat, and as
they passed under the Ranger’s quarter they gave three rousing cheers
for Captain Jones. The captain raised his cap in reply, and in another
moment the ship was sailing past the harbor, past the town, with its
lights dimly visible, past the castle on the rock, where a brightly
lighted tower stood watch, and, weathering the headland, she was soon
steering a straight course for the North Channel.



                             CHAPTER VIII.


It was a fair and lovely May morning when the Ranger, still towing the
Drake, appeared off the bay of Brest. The American ensign was hoisted on
the Drake over the Union Jack, and this told the glorious story. Word
flew from mouth to mouth among the French men-of-war in the roads to the
people in the dockyards and the town. A fleet of pilot boats put off,
each eager to have the honor of taking the Ranger and her prize in
through the narrow and dangerous channel of Le Goulet. Paul Jones stood
on his quarter-deck, as calm and easy as ever, but his soul thrilled
with patriotic pride. The British had denounced him as a pirate, a
traitor, and a felon, and he had had first, the justifiable revenge of
showing himself alone and undaunted in the midst of his enemies,
capturing a ship of equal size and force, and afterward, the nobler
revenge of treating his prisoners with the utmost kindness and courtesy.
As the Ranger passed the flagship she gave thirteen guns, and every ship
in the French squadron in return saluted the flag flying at the Ranger’s
mizzen peak. The French sailors manned the yards of the flagship without
orders, and a volley of cheers mingled with the hoarse thunder of the
guns as the little American vessel made her way cautiously up the narrow
channel. The great clouds of white smoke rose in the clear May sunshine,
and almost hid the Ranger’s hull and that of her consort: but high above
the white and drifting mist the American ensign floated proudly.

Paul Jones was greeted with the most intense enthusiasm among the naval
men at Brest, and France rang with his exploits. Benjamin Franklin wrote
him letters of affectionate praise, and the French Minister of Marine,
M. de Sartine, requested the American commissioners to detain Captain
Jones in Europe, as it was desired to employ him against the British, in
conjunction with the French fleets. War between France and England was
then imminent, and, in fact, was declared within a few weeks. Paul Jones
therefore wrote to the Congress, saying he desired that no command be
reserved for him, as he had been directed by the American commissioners
to remain in France.

And now, in place of these bright anticipations came a long and
torturing period of suspense for Paul Jones, mingled, it is true, with
many compliments on his prowess, and sustained by the friendship of
Franklin, of the King of France, of the Duke de Chartres, and the
admiration of all the naval and military men of France. More than that
was the gratitude and respect of the men who had fought under him, and
of the two hundred prisoners from the Drake—for Paul Jones’s conduct at
this time gained him the lasting good will of these men. The affairs of
the American Government had then reached their most desperate state, and
the French Government was a government by intrigue and corruption,
which, not many years after, produced the bloodiest revolution the world
ever saw. No money was forthcoming as the prize justly earned by the
Ranger’s officers and crew, nor were they even paid their wages while
waiting at Brest for a promised ship for Paul Jones. Worse still was the
condition of the English prisoners, who would actually have starved but
for Paul Jones himself paying out of his own pocket for food to keep
them alive. It was his earnest desire to secure an exchange of
prisoners, so that he could get a crew made up wholly of Americans, but
with the general trickery, inefficiency, and jealousy of the French
administration he could do nothing. One fine ship after another was
promised him, through Benjamin Franklin, who looked to Paul Jones as the
hope of the new nation upon the seas, but disappointment followed
disappointment.

Paul Jones’s restless spirit was the last one to submit to this enforced
idleness, and he complained in his letters that “this shameful
inactivity is worse to me than a thousand deaths.” Every moment lost to
the service of his country was, in Paul Jones’s esteem, “shameful.”

So months passed, Paul Jones in his small lodging at Brest vainly
endeavoring, with Franklin’s earnest help, to get afloat once more in
any sort of a ship. The King of France requested him to write a full
account of the Ranger’s daring cruise, which Paul Jones did. But
fighting, not writing, was his choice when his country needed every arm
that could be raised in her defense.

Bill Green, the quartermaster, whose time was up, had elected to stay
with Paul Jones until he had another ship, and little Danny Dixon
followed him about like a dog. The two humble friends gave Paul Jones
more real comfort than all the compliments showered upon him by people
of rank and consequence. Danny was still “the captain’s boy,” and Bill
Green had a humble sleeping place close by the captain’s lodgings. When
successive disappointments had preyed upon Paul Jones’s bold spirit, and
he would return home in the evening sad and dispirited, the sight of
Danny’s affectionate eyes and anxiety to serve him would sometimes
console him a little. Bill Green was always at hand to carry a letter or
a message, and Paul Jones, in his temporary distress, did not lack for
two devoted friends. Bill had quite adopted Danny by this time, but was
always growling and grumbling about “ships’ boys as is more trouble than
they’re wuth,” and “boys as oughter have the cat reg’lar along with
their ’lowance.” He did not sing much, though; and when Danny would
tease him to sing “Come, all ye tars that brave the sea,” or “I’m here
and there a jolly dog,” Bill would shake his head and say dolefully:
“No, boy. I can’t sing them songs without I can hear the water runnin’
against the ship’s side and the wind makin’ music through the riggin’,
and the bo’s’n’s pipe once in a while. Them is sea songs, and the only
land song _I_ knows is ‘Land lubbers lie down below,’ and that ain’t no
song to speak of. Landsmen ain’t got no music of no account; and as for
their songs—Lord! they’re all about love and the moon, and that sort o’
loblolly that sailormen ain’t got no appetite for.” Danny, perforce, had
to put up with this explanation, and do without Bill’s music.

Meanwhile, so great had been the alarm upon the coast of the United
Kingdoms that the British Admiralty had issued a circular letter warning
the people living on the coasts that a descent by Paul Jones might be
expected. This further stung the daring sailor, who beheld the days go
by fruitlessly while he lingered at Brest, unable to get a vessel. At
one time it was thought a ship had been secured for him, and the young
Lafayette, then on a visit from America, desired to sail with him in
command of some troops that he was to carry. Afterward this design
failed, and Lafayette wrote to Paul Jones: “I can not tell you, my good
friend, how sorry I am not to be a witness of your success, abilities,
and glory.” At last, nearly a year after his glorious cruise in the
Ranger, Paul Jones, in despair of doing better, accepted the command of
the Duc de Duras—the ship that, under the new name of the Bon Homme
Richard, was to immortalize herself and the great man who became her
captain. She was reported to be new and fast, but turned out, though, to
be old and much decayed. She was a long ship, and carried twenty-four
guns in broadside and eighteen smaller guns. She had a crew of three
hundred and eighty men, of all nationalities under the sun. Not more
than thirty of them were Americans, but among these Americans, besides
Bill Green and two or three other men who had sailed with him in the
Ranger, Paul Jones had Stacy, his old sailing master. He had the name of
the ship changed from the Duc de Duras to the Bon Homme Richard, in
compliment to Dr. Franklin, whose Poor Richard’s Almanac was then making
a great stir in the world.

The Bon Homme Richard was to be the first ship in a motley squadron made
up of the Alliance, a fine American frigate of thirty-six guns, with an
American crew, but commanded by a French captain. Of this man—Captain
Landais—it is proper to say in the beginning that he had a distinct
tinge of madness in his composition, and it is generally agreed that he
was not thoroughly sane at any time during the memorable cruise he made
with Paul Jones. He had been compelled to leave the French navy upon the
ground of an intolerable temper, which was the beginning of the insanity
from which he undoubtedly suffered at one time during his life. He had
been considered a brave and faithful officer under the old _régime_ of
the French navy, and therefore his subsequent conduct to Commodore
Jones, as Paul Jones had now become, is entitled to the doubt that he
was not responsible for what he did. Franklin, however, did not think
this, and in a letter written afterward to the officers and men of the
Bon Homme Richard, expressed the difference between Paul Jones and
Landais thus: “For Captain Paul Jones ever loved close fighting, but
Landais was skillful in keeping out of harm’s way.”

The third ship of the squadron, the Pallas, was frigate built, and
carried thirty-two guns. Then there was the Vengeance, a brig carrying
twelve guns, and a small but beautiful cutter of eighteen guns, the
Cerf. Paul Jones was the commodore of this little squadron, but there
seems to have been great uncertainty about his powers.

Not more than thirty Americans were available for the Bon Homme Richard
at first, but Commodore Jones managed so that most of the petty officers
were Americans. The rest of the crew were a motley set, of every nation
under the sun. But along with his good luck in having Mr. Stacy and Bill
Green, of his old company, he was to have a young lieutenant who was
worthy to carry out the orders of such a man as Paul Jones.

The Bon Homme Richard was fitting out at L’Orient, when one day, as Paul
Jones was standing on the dock looking at the ship, that resounded with
the clamor of preparation, a handsome young fellow of twenty-three,
wearing an American naval uniform, stepped up to him and spoke, saluting
at the same time.

“This is Commodore Jones, I presume, and I am Lieutenant Dale,” he said.

Paul Jones grasped his hand cordially.

“I have heard of you, Mr. Dale. And how did you get the British uniform
with which you escaped from Mill Prison?” he asked.

Dale shook his head and smiled.

“That secret must remain with me until the end of time,” he said. “But I
have had enough of British prisons. After my first escape and recapture
every amusement was forbidden me; and so, as I had nothing else to do, I
was forced to sing patriotic songs to keep up my spirits; and for that I
spent forty days in the Black Hole.”

Something like a smile shone in Paul Jones’s dark and somber eyes. He
had heard of the young lieutenant captured on the Lexington, confined in
Mill Prison, and who had once escaped only to be recaptured, but this
time had succeeded in getting out of harm’s way while the British police
scoured the city of London for him.

“Were you ordered to report to me, Mr. Dale?” asked Paul Jones.

“No, sir,” answered Dale; “but I desire to see service, and those who
serve under you will stand an excellent chance of immortality, for, as
Dr. Franklin says, ‘Captain Paul Jones ever loves close fighting.’”

Paul Jones took off his cap at the mention of Dr. Franklin’s name.

“The praise of that great man is ever dear to me; and for yourself, Mr.
Dale, your skill and intrepidity are well known, and your escape from
Mill Prison shows that you are no ordinary man, and I shall be happy to
have you as my first lieutenant on the Bon Homme Richard,” said he.

At this Dale’s fine face turned crimson with pleasure. He expressed his
thanks with a confusion that was more eloquent than the most finished
periods.

There were two other American lieutenants attached to the Bon Homme
Richard—Henry Lunt and Cutting Lunt—but Bill Green, after inspecting
them all, reported as follows to little Danny Dixon, who religiously
believed everything Bill Green told him:

“They all do tollerbul well; but Mr. Dale, he’s a seaman, he is. I
knowed it. And I tell you, boy, he ain’t never goin’ to surrender. He’s
been took prisoner now three times, and he’s a-goin’ to die ruther ’n go
back to the Black Hole. And you mind your eye, young ’un, when you’re
round Mr. Dale.”

“Lord knows I does,” earnestly responded Danny.

Early in June the squadron started on a cruise that was destined to be
only the prelude of the immortal cruise that made Paul Jones’s name
known all over the civilized world. On the very night they left the
roads of Groix Paul Jones discovered the manner of man he had to deal
with in Captain Landais. The tide was running in powerfully strong from
the Bay of Biscay, and the Bon Homme Richard and the Alliance were
coming dangerously near each other. Dale, who had the deck, had the helm
put up, expecting the Alliance to put her helm up also to avoid a
collision. Instead of that, the Alliance, under Captain Landais’s
direction, deliberately kept her luff and crashed into the Bon Homme
Richard, carrying away some of the lighter spars of both ships. Paul
Jones, who was in the cabin, ran on deck, and in a few minutes the ships
were free. The damage was not great, but Dale’s account of the way the
Alliance was manœuvred was very disquieting.

“The captain was on deck, sir, and with a pistol at the helmsman’s head
forced him to keep his luff, and swore at him most frightfully all the
time.”

“Dale,” said Paul Jones in a troubled voice, “we have undoubtedly a
madman to deal with. What terrible thing may he not yet do!”

Landais’s conduct during the whole cruise was of the same character, but
there was so much malice in his cunning, and his seamanship, when he
chose, was so good, that no man in the squadron really knew whether
Landais was insane or not.

The spirits of the crew were excellent, and Bill Green and the other
members of it who had been on the expedition with the Drake did not let
them forget that they were with a “lucky cap’n.” On the very first night
out, when those that were off duty were sitting around the foks’l, Bill
announced that he had composed a song, words and music, descriptive of
the capture of the Drake.

“Let’s have it, quartermaster,” said the boatswain.

“It ain’t hardly fittin’ to sing,” answered Bill deprecatingly. “It
begins sumpin’ about you: ‘“A sail! all hands!” the boatswain cries.’”

“Seems to me,” said the boatswain, with a wink to the men, “I heard that
’ere song, or one monstrous like it, while we was at L’Orient, and
somebody said as it were composed by a officer—”

“You ain’t heard no sich a thing,” tartly answered Bill. “I thought it
out in the dog-watch last night, and I wrote it out at nigh eight bells
this mornin’. I ain’t got no need to sing other folks’s songs. _I_ got
the savey to make ’em up and sing ’em too.”

“Then shake out your reefs and go ahead,” said the boatswain; and after
the regulation amount of urging from his mates Bill began:

  “‘A sail! all hands!’ the boatswain pipes,
    And instant at the signal sound,
  Beneath the waving Stars and Stripes,
    Each sailor at his post is found.

  “Due south, close hauled, in trim array,
    A gallant frigate’s on our lee;
  She hoists her flag.—My hearts, huzza!
    Huzza! the English ensign see.

  “O’er all the crew, with heart elate,
    Our captain glanced his eagle eye,
  And saw each tar impatient wait
    To meet the veteran enemy.

  “And see! with topsail to the mast,
    The foe destructive fires prepare
  As ship to ship, approaching fast,
    All calm and silent, down we bear.

  “But, when yardarm and yardarm met,
    Our cannon swept his decks amain.
  In vain that boasted flag he set
    Which long had awed the subject main.

  “In vain unto the mast he nails
    That flag; for, carried by the deck,
  Like shattered oaks in wintry gales,
    Each, crashing, falls—a lumbering wreck.

  “No Frenchman now the conflict wage—
    The Briton finds another foe,
  And learns, amid the battle’s rage,
    Columbia’s hearts and hands to know.

  “What shall the desperate captain do?
    Around his bravest men expire!
  No hope is left! He speaks—his crew
    A leeward gun, reluctant, fire.

  “Columbia! from your youthful sleep
    Arise, your tars, your rights to save!
  Thus guard their freedom on the deep,
    Thus claim your empire on the wave!”

This song was greeted with great applause, and Bill stoutly claimed the
honor of its composition.

The cruise was uneventful except for the capture of a few prizes, and,
battered by the storms in the Bay of Biscay, the squadron returned to
L’Orient to refit. Here Paul Jones had the good luck to find a
considerable number of Americans who were anxious to enlist with him.
Every quarter-deck officer was an American except one midshipman. Paul
Jones distributed the Americans among his crew, so that nearly all the
petty officers were of the sort described by Washington when he said,
“Put none but Americans on guard.” Many of the ordinary seamen, though,
were of other nationalities.

At last the necessary repairs were made, and at daybreak on the morning
of the 14th of August Paul Jones set sail, with a premonition that, even
with an inferior ship and a squadron unworthy to serve under him, he
would yet do great things. This feeling was shared by Dale, and by every
officer and man on the Bon Homme Richard.

Several prizes were taken, but within a week the extraordinary temper of
Captain Landais manifested itself. On the 21st of August it fell calm;
the squadron was then off Cape Clear, and was motionless on the still
and glassy sea. The sun was sinking redly. In full view lay a fine
brigantine, her sails hanging limp in the perfectly still August air.
Paul Jones at once gave orders to hoist out the boats, and, putting
Lieutenant Dale in charge of the expedition, they pulled off to capture
the brigantine.

In the clear atmosphere everything could be plainly seen on the surface
of the water, and Paul Jones could almost hear, in the perfect silence
of the fast waning afternoon, the orders of his favorite lieutenant, who
hailed the brigantine and demanded her surrender. There was, of course,
no resistance to be made to armed boats, and in a very short time a
hawser was passed aboard, and the men started to tow the captured vessel
to where the Bon Homme Richard lay.

The twilight had come on fast, and the flood tide was rising. The Bon
Homme Richard begun to drift dangerously near the Skelligs, that are
among the most dangerous rocks on the wild Irish coast. It became
necessary to tow the ship, so as to keep her head to the tide, and the
commodore’s barge, being the only large boat on board, was hoisted out,
with a tow line to keep the ship off the rocks.

Danny Dixon, being a strong boy, and many of the crew being absent, was
in the barge. It grew dark rapidly, and in the dusk the barge looked
like a black shadow ahead of the ship, as the men bent slowly to their
oars, just enough to hold the ship against the tide. Suddenly Lieutenant
Dale, who had the deck, noticed that the ship’s head was wearing round.
At the same moment he heard a splash in the water. The boat, however,
was still pulling ahead, but much faster than it had been.

For a moment he was puzzled at this, but he called out in a moment,
“Avast, there! the line has parted!”

The boat, however, paid no attention to his cry, but continued to pull
away faster and faster. It dawned upon him then that the line had been
cut purposely, and he shouted the louder, “Return to the ship at once!”
He had seen a shadow upon the water, and a continual splash after the
first one, and in a moment or two he saw Danny Dixon’s tow head just
under the ship’s quarter.

“Give me a line, please, sir,” called Danny, and the next moment he was
landed on deck dripping wet.

“They’ve stole the barge, sir,” he gasped out, sputtering, “and run
away, some o’ the Portygees and Malays—there warn’t no ’Mericans among
’em. They wanted me to go along, but I jest slipped overboard and swam
for the ship, and here I is.”

Angry and indignant as Dale felt at the conduct of the barge’s crew,
Danny’s matter-of-fact way of telling of his loyalty both pleased and
amused him. He said hastily to Danny, “Go below and report to the
captain,” and without waiting for orders, the only boat left on the ship
was manned, and, with Mr. Lunt in command, put briskly after the
deserters. Lieutenant Dale also brought one of the ship’s long twelves
to bear on the retreating boat and fired several shots, but both the
barge and her pursuers were soon lost in the increasing darkness. In a
little while the other boats reached the ship towing the brigantine. The
vessel proving stanch and her cargo valuable, Paul Jones threw a prize
crew on her and sent her to L’Orient.

As the night wore on a dense white fog descended upon the ocean, and the
calm continued. There was no sign of Mr. Lunt’s boat. The Bon Homme
Richard fired signal guns all night, and all the next day, as the fog
showed no sign of lifting. The Cerf was sent in the morning to
reconnoiter the coast for the missing boat. The same degree of cowardice
or insanity appeared to possess the cutter as the Alliance. She was seen
by the boat and would have been rejoined, but, the Cerf hoisting British
colors, and firing at the unfortunate boat, Mr. Lunt was forced to run
ashore, when he and all his boat’s crew were captured. Thus did the
commodore lose the services of one of his best officers and two boats
full of men, amounting to twenty-four in all.

The morning after the boat was lost the captain’s gig of the Alliance
was seen at the side of the Bon Homme Richard. In a few minutes the tall
and imposing figure of Captain Landais appeared upon the ship. Paul
Jones was on deck at the time, and, advancing to greet Captain Landais
courteously, he was struck by the savage scowl upon the Frenchman’s
countenance. The general repute of Captain Landais’s ungovernable temper
and Paul Jones’s previous experience made him prefer to see the captain
in the cabin. He invited a French marine officer on board, M. de
Chamillard, and an American army officer, Colonel Weibert, who had
volunteered to serve on the Bon Homme Richard, to accompany him and hear
what passed.

As soon as they reached the cabin, Landais, throwing his glove violently
on the table, exclaimed in English, “So you have lost your boats!” This
he immediately repeated in French for De Chamillard’s benefit, who did
not understand English.

“What do you mean?” asked Paul Jones calmly.

“That you have lost your boats—and this comes of attacking a brigantine
with boats.”

“But my boats were not lost while attacking the brigantine,” replied
Paul Jones, thinking that Landais was under a mistake. “My barge was cut
adrift while towing the ship, and the deserters absconded. The
brigantine was captured.”

“And yet I was not allowed to cruise on my own responsibility upon this
coast!” shouted the captain.

Something in the wild gleam of his eye gave Paul Jones the calmness to
reason with him.

“Do you know the Irish coast?” he asked.

“No,” shouted Landais, excitedly, “but I was willing—I and my brave
officers—to risk it.”

“But I was not willing to risk a ship under my command, with a captain
who is entirely ignorant of this coast, the most dangerous one I know,”
replied Paul Jones.

All this time De Chamillard and Weibert sat amazed spectators of the
scene. Paul Jones’s swarthy skin had turned a shade darker. A kind of
lambent flame shone in his dark, inscrutable eyes. He strongly suspected
a taint of madness in the infuriated man before him, and was careful not
to exasperate him unnecessarily. Landais continued translating his
insubordinate language into French, and looking at De Chamillard. But
the French marine officer looked steadily away, blushing for the
language of his superior. Again Landais burst out violently:

“But you lost your boats through the folly of attacking with them.”

“It is an untruth,” answered Paul Jones, rising. His manner was still
composed, but his eyes were blazing.

“Do you hear that, gentlemen?” shouted Landais furiously, in French; and
turning to De Chamillard, “He has given me the lie direct.”

Paul Jones then said coolly, “M. de Landais, your boat is ready.”

The words were calm, but even the half-mad Landais was recalled to his
senses by them. Paul Jones fixed his dark eyes on him. Slowly, yet
inevitably, the expression of Landais’s face changed, he sank into a
sullen silence, and then abruptly walked out of the cabin.

Paul Jones turned to De Chamillard and Weibert in deep agitation.

“You see, gentlemen,” he said in French, “what I have patiently endured
for the sake of the great cause in which we are all engaged. M. de
Landais was in my power, and you see how merciful I have been to him.”

“And we will remember it,” answered De Chamillard, also much moved.

The Bon Homme Richard remained on and off the coast until the 26th of
August, hoping to find the missing boat, but at last was forced to give
it up, and steered for the northward. The Cerf had never reappeared, so
the squadron was reduced to the Bon Homme Richard, the Alliance, the
Pallas, and the Vengeance.

On the morning of the 27th of August, when Paul Jones came on deck at
daybreak and swept the horizon with his glass, the Alliance was not in
sight, nor did she turn up any more until the 31st, when her appearance
proved most inopportune, as it always seemed to be during the memorable
cruise.

The Bon Homme Richard was then off Cape Wrath, and was chasing an armed
vessel—the Union, of twenty-two guns. The American cruiser was flying
British colors, hoping by that means to get very near before her
nationality was discovered, so that if the Union had any valuable
dispatches (which were often carried by fast letter-of-marque vessels)
there would not be time or opportunity to destroy them. But as soon as
Landais got near enough to the Bon Homme Richard, although he must have
known that the commodore for some purpose did not desire American colors
to be shown, the Alliance set two American ensigns. That was warning
enough to the Union. She, indeed, carried important dispatches from the
home Government addressed to the authorities at Quebec, and upon seeing
the Alliance hoist her ensign knew what to do.

When the British captain was brought on board the Bon Homme Richard, his
first remark to Paul Jones, as he handed out his papers, was:

“I had letters containing important information, but the warning so
kindly given me by the frigate yonder enabled me to destroy them.”

Paul Jones ground his teeth with rage. He was tempted for the twentieth
time to put Captain Landais under arrest, but a mistaken clemency
induced him to forbear.

On the 4th of September the commodore signaled all the captains to come
on board the Bon Homme Richard. In a little while boats were seen coming
from the Pallas and the Vengeance, but none from the Alliance. Seeing no
motion toward Captain Landais obeying orders, although the signal had
been flying for half an hour, M. Mease, the purser of the Bon Homme
Richard and a Frenchman, asked for a boat without saying what he wished
to do. It was granted, and the purser went on board the Alliance and
implored Captain Landais to save himself and his ship the disgrace of a
disobedience of orders. Captain Landais appeared inclined to yield at
first, but finally refused. M. Mease returned to the Bon Homme Richard,
and, thinking that some other of the captain’s countrymen might have
better luck, persuaded De Chamillard and the captain of the Pallas
(Cottineau) to return with him. They went and found Landais on his
quarter-deck. He had worked himself into a passion, and as they
approached he roared at them:

“Tell your Commodore Jones that we must have a meeting on shore, and one
or the other of us must die. I will not longer bear his tyranny!”

The three officers looked at each other significantly. First Captain
Cottineau spoke soothingly, but it had no effect upon Landais. Then De
Chamillard tried to reason with him, but to no effect. M. Mease was not
suffered to speak at all by the infuriated captain. As the officers
passed along the deck to take their boat they noticed the sullen looks
and mutinous air of the men, who firmly believed that they had either a
traitor or a madman for a commander.

When they returned on board the Bon Homme Richard and reported to Paul
Jones, he heard them through patiently. De Chamillard then declared that
he believed Landais was crazy—that his language and countenance were
wild and his conduct utterly irrational. To this Captain Cottineau
disagreed. He was furiously angry with Landais, and thought him
treacherous. Between these opposing views Paul Jones concluded to wait
and have a personal interview with Landais. Within a few hours, however,
the wind rose to a terrible gale, and the Alliance again disappeared,
not to be seen until she made her appearance in a manner as unlooked for
as usual.

Some days of alternate storm and fog followed. Paul Jones knew that he
was off the Scottish coast, but not until the evening of the 13th of
September was it clear enough for him to see the blue line of the
Cheviot Hills in the distance.

Being in want of provisions and water, Paul Jones in the middle of the
night sent an armed boat to bring off some sheep and oxen that were seen
near the shore. Lieutenant Dale was in charge of the boat, and had with
him money to pay for the cattle and sheep. This he did, allowing the
owners a generous amount. He managed to extract a good deal of
information from the peasantry, who told him of the capture of Mr.
Lunt’s boat, and that the nature of the expedition was well known, as
well as the fact that Paul Jones was in command, and that no less than
eleven men-of-war were scouring the seas for the audacious Bon Homme
Richard.

Upon their return to the ship Lieutenant Dale reported to the commodore.
When he spoke of the eleven British captains, each one of whom was
eagerly in search of the honor of capturing Paul Jones, a faint smile
passed over the somewhat sad face of the commodore. England, the
mistress of the seas, put forth all her strength and skill against this
bold intruder into her very strongholds. But he was not to become her
captive, but her continued defiance.

The coasts of England, Scotland, and Ireland were in an uproar by this
time. Signal fires blazed on every hill, and expresses were sent to
London announcing the danger. But Paul Jones knew he was in no danger
from the shore, and he trusted to himself to take care of his ship at
sea. Never since the days of the sea kings had any seaman so struck
terror into his enemies as Paul Jones.



                              CHAPTER IX.


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.



                               CHAPTER X.


At daybreak on the morning of the memorable 23d of September Paul Jones
appeared on the Bon Homme Richard’s deck. A short distance off lay the
Pallas and the treacherous Alliance, which the Bon Homme Richard had
chased during the latter part of the night, mistaking her for a British
frigate.

All three ships were now off Flamborough Head. The day came clear and
bright, with a gentle wind from the south. The delicate chill of the
early dawn crept over the waters, and the eastern sky was aflame with
yellow and pink and purple lights. A rosy mist enveloped the bold
headland, and the waves that eagerly lapped it caught the crimson glow.
The somber North Sea shimmered with a thousand hues, in the golden glory
of the morning. Afar off, the castled height of Scarborough shone white
in the radiant light, and the milky sails of fishing boats flecked the
blue sea. There were no vessels in sight except the two French ships,
for the name of Paul Jones kept the merchant fleets hugging the shore
except under convoy. Something in the lovely scene inspired Paul Jones
with renewed hope. As Dale went up and greeted him on the quarter-deck,
Paul Jones said cheerfully: “Dale, I believe you are right. We have one
more day before us, in which we may immortalize ourselves; therefore I
take heart.”

The men were piped to breakfast at six o’clock, and just as they came on
deck afterward a brigantine was observed, apparently hove to far to
windward. Chase was given, and it was plain that she could not escape.
About noon, however, as Paul Jones, with Dale by his side, was watching
the pursuit of the brigantine, they happened to turn their eyes at the
same moment toward the rocky promontory of Flamborough Head. Just
weathering the headland, they saw a large, white ship, sailing
beautifully, the wind filling her snowy canvas. There was nothing
remarkable in her appearance, but something prophetic seemed to strike
both Paul Jones and Dale. Their eyes met with a meaning look.

“Sir,” said Dale, “that ship—that ship—”

“Is the first ship of the Baltic fleet,” replied Paul Jones in a low,
intense voice. “I feel it, I know it; and there must be more than one
war-ship giving convoy to the fleet.”

The next moment, though, it became necessary to order a boat out to
capture the brigantine, which was now at their mercy. Sixteen of the
best hands on board the Bon Homme Richard were told off for this duty,
and put under the command of Lieutenant Lunt.

“Look out for my signals, Mr. Lunt,” were Paul Jones’s last orders, “for
I expect to fight this day.”

Every eye on the Bon Homme Richard was fixed on the ship that had glided
so beautifully around the promontory. Within ten minutes another sail,
and another, appeared in the wake of the large ship, all rounding the
point. Paul Jones, in a passion of suppressed excitement, seized Dale by
the arm. “Look!” he cried. “It is the Baltic fleet! It is not less than
forty sail, and their convoy, I have heard, is the Serapis frigate,
commanded by Captain Pearson, and the sloop of war Countess of
Scarborough. Ah, Dale, well may your presentiment come true! This is our
day to fight! Call the bugler, set the signal for a general chase, and
prepare for action; and we will fight at close quarters.”

Dale fairly rushed off to give the necessary orders. The men sprang into
the rigging with cheers, and set the fore and main sail. As soon as they
were at quarters, the men, two by two, gave nine cheers for Commodore
Paul Jones. Paul Jones, with sparkling eyes, took off his cap and waved
it.

Just then Bill Green ran across Danny Dixon, who was hanging over the
side, gazing at the stately ships as they came swiftly around the point,
like a flock of huge swans.

“I say, boy,” said Bill, “you’d better be gittin’ that sawdust and
sprinklin’ the deck, to keep your spirits up—’cause I see flunk in your
eye.”

“Well, Mr. Green,” answered Danny, who had a long score of practical
jokes and chaff to pay off, “I’ll be careful and throw a plenty o’
sawdust around the wheel to soak up your blood in case you is welterin’
in gore, and I’ll be proud to take your last messages to your afflicted
widder—”

“Go along with you!” bawled Bill, who was not pleased with these
grewsome suggestions. “I ain’t got no afflicted widder, nor no afflicted
wife neither, you billy-be-hanged imp! I don’t see what boys is made for
no-how, excep’ to be tormentin’ and aggerawatin’! Maybe you ain’t heerd,
youngster, that the British Government has put a price on your head, and
the man that carries you, livin’ or dead, aboard a British ship, gits a
pile o’ money?”

“W’y, that’s very kind and complimentary of the Britishers,” answered
Danny, with a knowing grin. “That’s what they done for Cap’n Paul Jones,
and I’m mighty proud to be rated with him.”

“Jest wait,” answered Bill, “till these ’ere guns gits to barkin’ and
the spars begins to fly ’round like straws when you’re threshin’, and
I’m a-thinkin’ you won’t be as brave as the cap’n.”

“’Tain’t nobody as brave as the cap’n,” answered Danny stoutly, “but I
ain’t a-goin’ to flunk, Mr. Green, and I’m a-goin’ to give you a extry
handful o’ sawdust for to drink up your blood when I begins to lay it on
the deck.”

It seemed as if the ships that came around Flamborough Head were of an
endless fleet. But as soon as they caught sight of the black hull of the
Bon Homme Richard to windward of them, waiting in grim expectancy, with
the American ensign flying and preparations for action going on, they
gave her a wide berth. They also raised the alarm by firing guns,
letting fly their to’gallant sheets, tacking together, and making as
close inshore as they dared.

Meanwhile, the Bon Homme Richard had cleared for action, sent down her
royal yards, the crew were beat to quarters, and signals were made to
the other ships to form the line of battle. The Pallas, under the brave
Cottineau, obeyed the signals with alacrity. The Vengeance was ordered
to bring back the boat with Lunt and his men in it, and to enter the men
on the unengaged side of the Bon Homme Richard if the action should be
begun, and then the Vengeance was to attack the convoy. She, however,
disobeyed all of these orders, and never came into action at all. The
Alliance disregarded all orders and signals, and reconnoitered
cautiously. Captain Landais shouted to the Pallas as she passed, that if
the man-of-war which they knew must convoy such a fleet proved to be the
Serapis, all they would have to do would be to run away!

It was now long past noon, and still the end of the line of merchant
ships had not been reached. At last, as the forty-first vessel rounded
the point and took refuge inshore, a beautiful white frigate with a
smart sloop of war following her appeared. The men on the Bon Homme
Richard had seen a boat putting off from the shore for the frigate, and
they surmised correctly that it was to inform the British frigate that
the American ship was commanded by Paul Jones. Captain Pearson, of the
Serapis, was a brave man, and was delighted at a chance of a fair and
square fight with the American commodore. As Paul Jones had instantly
recognized the Serapis and knew her commander, each captain was
perfectly well aware whom he was fighting.

Captain Pearson first prudently and gallantly secured his convoy by
clawing off the land so that he was outside his ships, and then tacking
inshore so as to be between them and the Bon Homme Richard. The Bon
Homme Richard was now coming down under every sail that would draw. The
Serapis was unmistakably ready to fight, but she stood out to sea, with
the view of drawing the American ship under the guns of Scarborough
Castle. But Paul Jones was too astute for her, and determined to wear
ship, so as to head the Serapis off. By that time Bill Green was at the
wheel, and a good breeze was blowing, enabling the ship to manœuvre
easily. Dale was officer of the deck, and gave the orders, under Paul
Jones’s direction, to steer straight for the British frigate, that was
waiting for the Bon Homme Richard under short fighting canvas.

The whole afternoon had passed in the previous manœuvres, and the early
twilight of September had come before the Bon Homme Richard had
shortened sail, and the two ships were slowly but determinedly
approaching each other for the mortal encounter. The moon had not yet
risen, but the stars were lighted in the deep-blue sky of night, and in
the west a faint opaline glow still lingered. On the chalky cliffs a
moving black mass showed, where thousands of people had assembled to see
the fight, and far in the distance the frowning masses of Scarborough
Castle loomed up, with myriad lights showing like sparks in the purple
twilight. The strong, white flame from the lighthouse at Flamborough
Head flashed like a lance of fire over the dark ocean. The silent
manœuvres of the white-winged ships, the stillness only broken by the
orders given and the “Ay, ay, sir!” of the sailors, which echoed
beautifully over the water, made the ships seem almost like a phantom
fleet. The battle lanterns were lighted, and every preparation was made
for a fight to the death. The Bon Homme Richard was short-handed not
only for men but for officers, and Richard Dale was the only sea
lieutenant Paul Jones had in the unequal fight before him. The men were
stripped to their shirts, except Bill Green and a few others, Bill
alleging that “’Twarn’t wuth while to take off a man’s jacket till he
got warmed up with fightin’!” Danny Dixon, as usual, had discarded his
jacket early in the day, and had made every preparation for a
hand-to-hand fight, although, as he was only a powder monkey, it was not
likely that he would have any fighting at all to do.

It was Danny’s place, though, with another boy, to sprinkle sawdust
along the decks to keep them from becoming slippery with blood. As he
got to the wheel, where Bill Green stood, he threw the sawdust around
liberally, and, although he dared not address the quartermaster, he
remarked in a sly whisper to the other boy:

“Mr. Green, him and me is pertickler friends, so I’m a-goin’ to give him
a extry handful o’ sawdust to soak up his blood, that’ll likely be a
foot deep round about here.”

“Drat the boy!” growled Bill under his breath.

It was now about seven o’clock in the evening, and the ships were
steadily closing. Paul Jones, night glass in hand, walked the
quarter-deck. The Alliance and the Vengeance lay off two miles to
windward, perfectly inactive, and apparently meant to be mere spectators
of the great fight on hand. Their indifference and disobedience to the
signals infuriated the officers and men of the Bon Homme Richard, but
Paul Jones took it with the utmost coolness and composure.

“Let them do as they like,” he said; “the greater glory ours if we win
without them.”

Captain Cottineau, of the Pallas, on seeing the Bon Homme Richard change
her course and wear, rashly concluded that the crew had mutinied, had
killed the commodore, and were running away with the ship. It is a
singular instance of the faith which his associates had in Paul Jones,
that Captain Cottineau should have been convinced of Paul Jones’s death
before the command of the ship could be taken from him.

The captain of the Pallas therefore hauled by the wind and tacked,
laying his head off shore. He did not follow the Bon Homme Richard,
until, seeing her begin the action, he knew that Paul Jones still lived
and commanded.

The ships were now within two cables’ length of each other. Paul Jones
then tacked, in order to cross the bow of the Serapis. At this moment he
perceived a man, at the order of Captain Pearson, fastening the Union
Jack to the mizzen peak.

“Look!” said Paul Jones to Dale, “they are nailing the flag to the mast.
There is no need to nail mine, for the first man that dares to touch it
will never breathe again.”

The Serapis was within pistol shot and to windward, and both ships were
on the port tack. The Serapis hailed as follows:

“This is his Majesty’s ship Serapis, forty-four guns. What ship is
that?”

Stacy, the acting sailing master, answered the hail after Paul Jones’s
directions, who wished to get in a raking position on the bow of the
Serapis.

“I can’t hear what you say,” was the reply through the trumpet.

“What ship is that?” was again called out from the Serapis. “Answer
immediately, or I shall be under the necessity of firing into you.”

At this, Richard Dale, who commanded the gun deck, cried to his men,
“Blow your matches, boys!” and in another instant the Bon Homme Richard
thundered out her broadside. So promptly was this returned from the
Serapis that both reports seemed almost simultaneous. The roar was
tremendous, and echoed and re-echoed over the sea and from the chalky
cliffs.

    [Illustration: _At the first discharge two of the guns burst._]

In an instant both ships were enveloped in smoke and utter darkness. By
this time the Bon Homme Richard’s bow was just across the forefoot of
the Serapis. In order to keep the wind and to deaden her way, the Bon
Homme Richard’s topsails were backed, and she passed slowly ahead of the
Serapis, taking the wind out of her sails. The Serapis was a short ship,
and answered her helm beautifully, in contrast to the lumbering Bon
Homme Richard. As soon as the wind reached him again, Captain Pearson,
keeping his luff, came up on the weather quarter of the Bon Homme
Richard, fairly taking the wind out of the American ship’s sails in
turn. The Serapis let fly her starboard batteries, and the Bon Homme
Richard replied with her port batteries; but at the very first discharge
of the six eighteen-pound guns on the Bon Homme Richard, the pieces
being old and defective, two of them burst with a terrific concussion,
tearing out the main deck above them and killing nearly all of the guns’
crews that served them. As soon as the shock subsided, although the
shrieks and groans of the wounded still resounded, Paul Jones ran to the
companion ladder and saw Dale, with a pale but undaunted face, standing
on the shattered gun deck, surrounded by wounded men and the awful
_débris_ of the exploded guns. Most of the ship’s lanterns had been put
out by the concussion, and there was only a dim light that struggled
with the darkness. The moonlight streamed in through the portholes
clouded by the smoke from the Serapis’s guns, which thundered
incessantly, hulling the Bon Homme Richard at every round.

“Two of the guns are gone, sir,” Dale said coolly, “and some of our
brave boys. But we will fight the other four guns as long as they will
hold together.”

“You are a man after my own heart!” cried Paul Jones, “and every gun on
this ship will be fought as long as they will hold together; and if we
go down, it will be with our ensign flying.”

In the midst of the smoke and confusion Dale then saw Danny Dixon
running about picking up a row of cartridges that he had just laid down
for the use of the guns, and which a stray spark might have ignited.

“Right for you, boy!” cried Dale; and then, turning to the men at the
other four eighteen-pounders, he ordered the guns examined. Two of them
were cracked from the muzzle down. This was a terrible blow to the Bon
Homme Richard, as the loss of this battery would leave only thirty-two
twelve-pound guns to fight fifty eighteen-pounders; for, although the
Serapis was classed as a forty-four, she really carried fifty guns.

“Mr. Dale, I’ve got a good crew here as ain’t afeerd o’ nothin’,” said
one of the gun captains, seeing that Dale hesitated to give the order to
load and fire, “and I’ll resk it with these ’ere two eighteens.”

An instant later both of them were fired, and, as soon as the smoke
drifted off, Dale, speechless with dismay, pointed to the two guns. Both
of them were defective, and there was no possibility of firing them
again; the only wonder had been that they had not exploded as the first
two did.

The gun captain, sent by Dale, went up to the commodore on deck, where
he stood calmly giving orders that were distinctly heard above the
uproar, and manœuvring his ship with the same coolness as if he were
working her into a friendly roadstead.

“Sir,” said the man, touching his cap, “Mr. Dale says as how not another
shot can be fired from the eighteen-pounders. They is cracked from
breech to muzzle.”

“I knew it,” answered Paul Jones; “the instant the firing stopped, I
knew it was impossible to fire another shot, for Dale would never have
given it up as long as he could work his guns. Tell Mr. Dale I think the
enemy will soon silence the smaller guns, and that if the ship should
catch fire—”

“She’s a-fire, sir, in a dozen places—”

“Or should leak badly—”

“The water, sir, is pourin’ in by the hogshead through the holes in the
hull—”

“To fight both the fire and the water, and to keep her afloat as long as
possible; and as long as she floats she shall be fought.”

The men on deck heard these gallant words, and a rousing cheer rang out
over the furious din of the cannonade.

Just at that moment a new enemy appeared. The Countess of Scarborough,
that had been gradually drawing within gunshot, delayed by the wind,
which had become light and baffling, now suddenly loomed up in the faint
moonlight on the lee bow of the Bon Homme Richard, and made her presence
known by pouring a raking broadside into the American ship. But seeing,
through the shattered sides of the ship, the blaze and smoke which Dale
and his men were fighting as stubbornly as Paul Jones was fighting the
British, and noticing that nearly every gun on the Bon Homme Richard was
silenced, the sloop of war drew off, to let, as it was mistakenly
thought, the Serapis finish up the unequal fight. The Alliance lay off,
out of gunshot, a picture of beauty in the pale splendor of the night,
but apparently without any intention of taking part in the fight. The
Countess of Scarborough turned her attention toward the cowardly ship,
which finally began to return the cannonade the Countess of Scarborough
opened upon her. The Pallas, though, as if stung by the conduct of her
consort, steered for the Countess of Scarborough, and engaged her with
great spirit.

De Chamillard had held the poop of the Bon Homme Richard with twenty
marines, but after losing several of his men he was driven back step by
step. Paul Jones watched the brave Frenchman; and if he felt agony at
the defeat that threatened him on every hand he gave no sign of it, but
said to De Chamillard, as he came up, grimed with powder, “See, the
Pallas is making amends, like yourself, for the treachery of the
Alliance.”

The slaughter on the decks of the Bon Homme Richard was frightful, and
below she was both leaking and burning. Moreover, there were over a
hundred prisoners on board, that might be liberated by the fire and the
water. But Paul Jones had in young Dale a man like himself, and he felt
sure that Dale was no more likely to lose heart than himself.

The steady and uninterrupted broadside of the Serapis had now silenced
every gun on the Bon Homme Richard, except two small nine-pounders on
the spar deck.

“But there’s another gun on the quarter-deck, my lads,” cried Paul
Jones, “and she’s not so big we can’t haul her over.”

At this the men rallied with a cheer, and as quick as thought the gun
was dragged across the deck, Paul Jones himself helping.

“Now we will make play on her mainmast, boys,” said he, and, pointing
the gun himself, a shot whizzed out and struck the Serapis’s mainmast,
fair and square. Her rigging had caught fire, and the masts, being
painted white, were plainly visible against the background of fire and
smoke.

“A good shot!” shouted the men.

The shot had not been large enough to shatter the great spar, but half a
dozen others following caused it to weaken plainly.

And so, with three nine-pounders against the twenty great guns and
thirty small ones of the Serapis, Paul Jones maintained the honor of the
American flag, and gave no sign of surrender.

The American tops, though, were well served, and Paul Jones saw that the
decks of the Serapis were being swept by the musketry fire of the Bon
Homme Richard, which was but little injured aloft, although her hull was
almost a wreck. He could see on the deck of the Serapis the tall figure
of Captain Pearson, and, although men were falling at every moment
around him, he seemed to possess a charmed life. Besides small arms, the
Americans in the Bon Homme Richard’s tops had hand grenades, which they
threw on the Serapis’s decks with unerring aim. But, although the decks
were swept, the frigate’s batteries were uninjured, her hull was sound,
and she worked beautifully in the light breeze that blew fitfully.
Meaning, therefore, to rake the Bon Homme Richard, she worked slowly
past, keeping her luff, intending to fall broadside off and cross the
Bon Homme Richard’s forefoot. But there was not sea room enough, and the
Serapis, answering her helm perfectly, came up to the wind again, to
keep from fouling her adversary. This movement brought the ships in
line, and, the Serapis losing headway, the Bon Homme Richard’s jib boom
touched her; so the two ships lay for a minute in this singular
position, where neither could fire a gun.

It was then about eight o’clock. The moon, which was rising, passed into
a cloud, and a dense mass of sulphurous smoke enveloped both ships. Not
a gun was fired for several minutes, and a strange and awful silence
suddenly followed the frightful uproar of battle.

In the midst of the darkness and silence a voice shouted from the stern
of the Serapis:

“Have you surrendered?”

To this Paul Jones made that answer which will always mark him as the
bravest of the brave. With his ship aleak and afire in a dozen places,
his guns silenced, his decks swept by uninjured batteries, his hull
riddled, and a hundred mutinous prisoners ready to spring from below
upon him, he called out in a dauntless voice:

“We haven’t begun to fight yet!”

A tremendous cheer burst from the Americans at this, and the Serapis
perceived that she must destroy her enemy before she could conquer him.
She therefore managed to swing clear of the Bon Homme Richard,
determined to get in a raking position, either across the bow or the
stern of the ship. Laying her foresail and fore-topsail aback, and
keeping her helm down while she shivered her after sails, she attempted
to wear short around on her heel. Seeing the Serapis coming down on him,
the Bon Homme Richard drew ahead to lay athwart her. But in the darkness
neither captain could see very well what he was doing, and both ships
came foul, the jib boom of the Serapis passing in over the Bon Homme
Richard’s poop and becoming entangled in the mizzen rigging.

As soon as Paul Jones saw the Serapis’s spar passing over the poop, he
called to the acting sailing master:

“Mr. Stacy, fetch a hawser immediately, and get grappling irons!”

But as the jib boom of the Serapis touched the mizzen rigging of the Bon
Homme Richard, Paul Jones himself, without waiting for the hawser,
seizing the ropes that hung to the bowsprit, with his own hand lashed
the two ships together. In another moment Stacy came running up with a
hawser. In the midst of the uproar, the smoke, the flame, and the
confusion, Stacy bungled with his work, and an oath burst from his lips.

“Don’t swear, Mr. Stacy,” said Paul Jones. “In another moment we may all
be in eternity, and this is no time for blaspheming our Maker.”[4]

Stacy glanced at the great man, who could remember such things at such a
moment. The commodore’s face was pale, and a thin stream of blood
trickled down the side of his head.

“Commodore, you are wounded!” he cried.

“It is nothing,” answered Paul Jones calmly.

The ships were now made firmly fast, but in the smoke and darkness it
was not perceived on board the Serapis. Captain Pearson gave orders to
drop an anchor under his bow, thinking his bold adversary would drift
away.

The tide was strong, and both wind and tide were in the same direction,
so that the ships drifted rapidly together. Their spars, spare anchors,
and every possible object became interlocked, and soon the ships were
fast in a mortal embrace. As the Serapis swung round, with her stern to
the bows of the Bon Homme Richard, her portlids were lowered to prevent
the Americans from boarding her through her ports. The guns were then
fired behind the closed portlids, blowing everything before them. The
British gunners would then have to lean forward into the shattered sides
of the Bon Homme Richard to pass the rammers in the muzzles of their own
guns. The ships caught fire repeatedly from each other, and so terrible
was the smoke and flame upon the lower decks of the Bon Homme Richard
that the men were forced above. They assembled on the foks’l, where they
did good service with muskets and hand grenades.

The Serapis now appeared to have the Bon Homme Richard at her mercy. She
had completely cleared everything out on the gun deck, and the fire was
rapidly gaining on the ship in spite of Dale’s heroic efforts. On the
spar deck Paul Jones still worked the two or three nine-pounders, but
they were nothing against the tremendous metal of the British ship.

But the forcing of the American gunners to the upper deck enabled them
to make it as hot for the British above as the British made it hot for
them below. An awful fusillade was kept up on the spar deck of the
Serapis, and so terrible was it on the quarter-deck that the brave
Pearson, although remaining himself and giving his orders coolly,
ordered all the men below. So effectually were the lower-deck batteries
of the Serapis worked that the Bon Homme Richard was cut entirely to
pieces between decks, especially from the mainmast to the stern. The
rudder and stern frame were cut completely off, and soon the shot began
to pass clear through the ship without finding anything to strike.

The moon was now bright, and the wind having caused the smoke to drift,
Paul Jones perceived the Alliance approaching to windward. He turned to
Dale, who had come on deck. “Thank God,” he said, “the battle is now
over! Yonder is the Alliance.”

The Alliance came on under a fair wind, but, to the consternation of
every one on the Bon Homme Richard, on passing close to leeward she
deliberately fired a broadside into the stern. Immediately every voice
on the commodore’s ship was raised:

“For God’s sake,” they shouted, “stop firing into us!”

The Alliance, though, as she sailed by, fired into the side and the head
of the ship as well as the stern. In vain were three lanterns shown—the
signal of reconnoissance; the Alliance paid no attention to the signal,
and her fire dismounted one or two guns, killed and wounded several men,
and cut the ship up aloft a good deal. One of the men on the Bon Homme
Richard yelled:

“The crew has mutinied, and they are taking the ship to the British!”
This induced several of the faint-hearted to leave their quarters.

Not so Danny Dixon; although but a powder boy of fourteen, he was as
cool as any old hand on board. Paul Jones himself, still bent on
carrying the mainmast of the Serapis, was directing the fire of the
little nine-pounder.

“One more shot,” he called, “and the mast goes!”

The gunner asked for a wad, but none was at hand. Danny Dixon, quietly
stripping off his shirt, handed it to the gunner, saying:

“This ’ere shirt off my back’ll make a good many wads.”

Paul Jones saw the action and heard the words.

“Ah, my brave lad,” he cried, “I shall not forget this.”

“Thankee, sir,” answered Danny with sparkling eyes.

The Bon Homme Richard was getting lower and lower in the water, and at
the same time only the most tremendous exertions kept the fire from
reaching the upper decks. Suddenly the carpenter, the master at arms and
a master gunner came rushing up from below. They had been down in the
hold where the prisoners were, and working the pumps to keep the water
down, which poured in from shot holes below the water line. One of the
pumps had been shot away, and that had demoralized these three men.
Lieutenant Dale was on deck, and as the carpenter rushed up, shouting to
the commodore, “She’s a-sinkin’, sir, and we can’t do no more at the
pumps!” Dale caught the man by the throat.

“You abandoned coward, come below with me instantly! The ship shall not
sink!”

Paul Jones heard every word, and, coming up quickly to Dale, said in his
ear:

“Put the prisoners to the pumps. They are doubtless so terror-stricken
that they are at their wits’ end, and a determined man like you, Dale,
can manage the whole hundred of them”—for there were not less than a
hundred in the hold.

Dale was the very man to carry out this audacious order. He instantly
ran below, and, just as Paul Jones had foreseen, the bold promptness of
one determined officer, armed and resolute, cowed them all. They went to
work at the pumps, when, if they had retained their senses, they might
have stepped on board the Serapis.

In a minute or two more Dale was again on deck, and, going up to the
commodore, said calmly but in a loud voice, so that the men around could
hear him:

“She’s not sinking, sir. I have put that coward of a carpenter to work
with an honest man to watch him, and everything will shortly be right.”

This very much reassured the men, who had no idea of the terrible
destruction below.

Within a few minutes Danny Dixon came up to the young lieutenant with a
solemn face.

“Mr. Dale, please, sir,” he said, “I can’t git no more powder. The
gangway to the powder room is all chock-a-block, and the sentinels won’t
let me pass. I ain’t afeerd o’ the fire, though its blazin’ pretty close
to the magazine. I ain’t afeerd o’ that, sir, but I can’t—”

Before Danny had finished speaking Dale saw a dozen strange faces
crowding up the companion way. In an instant the truth flashed upon
him—some of the prisoners had escaped from the hold. Drawing his pistol,
he marched them immediately back, where again they went to work at the
pumps.

Meanwhile numbers of the men were called from their quarters to put out
the fire in the magazine. Upon going to it, with Danny Dixon following
at his heels, Dale found that the reason the sentinels would not let any
one pass to the magazine was on account of the number of strange faces,
which they, too, knew to be the prisoners, crowding around, and who
might have easily captured the magazine. But Dale, animated by the
spirit of his commander, with two or three resolute men like himself
kept down both the fire and the water in the hold. As a matter of fact,
the Bon Homme Richard was on fire continuously almost from the very
beginning of the engagement.

    [Illustration: _Battle of the Bonhomme Richard and the Serapis._
The bold headland of Flamborough is seen on the right. The force of the
  explosion on the _Serapis’s_ deck blew the British flag against the
                                 wind.]

The mainmast of the Serapis was still being pounded by the three small
guns on the Bon Homme Richard’s deck, which were worked under the eye of
Paul Jones. Sometimes he himself took a part in the handling and
pointing of the guns, and his indomitable coolness seemed communicated
to the men. The spar deck of the Serapis was still pretty effectually
cleared, but she was unbeaten below. The gun captain, though, who had
come up from below when the great guns burst, now filled a bucket with
hand grenades and climbed into the maintop. The main yard of the Bon
Homme Richard lay directly over the main hatch of the Serapis. He then
lay out on the main yard, until he got to the sheet block, where he
fastened his bucket. Then, with perfect deliberation and unerring aim,
he began to throw his grenades at the open hatchway. Every one went
straight, and every one exploded. Paul Jones, who was on the poop,
called out to him:

“If you could get one down on the gun deck, where there is no doubt some
loose powder about—”

“That’s what I’m arter, sir,” responded the sailor coolly, and within
two minutes one had rolled down the hatchway and had dropped upon a row
of cartridges. An instant and terrific explosion followed. It seemed as
if the whole interior of the ship had been blown out. Every gun was
silenced, and an awful stillness prevailed for a moment or two. Just
then the gunner, who had been below, ran up on the Bon Homme Richard’s
deck, and, terrified out of his life, cried, “I don’t see the
commodore!” and running, aft, he intended to strike the colors. The
ensign had been shot away, however, and was dragging in the water; the
man therefore yelled for “Quarter! quarter!”

Scarcely were the words out of his mouth when he saw a figure at his
side, and felt a stunning blow from a pistol’s butt.

“Do you see the commodore now?” cried Paul Jones; “and let me not hear
any man on this ship beg, like a cur, for quarter!”

The cry for quarter had been heard on the Serapis, and Captain Pearson
called out in the half darkness:

“Do you ask for quarter?”

“No, by heaven!” shouted Paul Jones. “We will give quarter, but we never
ask it.”

About this time one of the prisoners stepped through the side of the Bon
Homme Richard into the Serapis, and reported the desperate condition of
the American ship. Immediately the bugler on the Serapis sounded the
call for boarders, and a number of them, armed with pikes and cutlasses,
appeared at the bulwarks. But Paul Jones, seizing a boarding pike, stood
in the gangway to receive them. It never occurred to the boarders that
there was not a large body to repel them, besides the sailors on deck,
and they retired. But it is a fact that no man touched a pike except
Paul Jones.

It was now about half past ten o’clock. The pallid moon showed the whole
dreadful scene. The Pallas, which had very gallantly made the Countess
of Scarborough haul down her colors, had her hands full transferring the
prisoners from the British ship. As the Alliance, which had been sailing
around the combatants and had fired another broadside into the Bon Homme
Richard, passed the Pallas, Captain Cottineau begged Landais to go to
the assistance of the gallant Bon Homme Richard.

Captain Landais did indeed approach the Bon Homme Richard, but it was
only to fire one last broadside, that did as much harm to the American
as to the British ship. After that he hauled off and did no more damage.

Then the mainmast of the Serapis began to totter, and it was seen that
it must soon go by the board. The small nine-pounders, worked under Paul
Jones’s own eye, the shower of skillfully thrown hand grenades, and the
sharpshooters in the Bon Homme Richard’s tops, made the deck of the
Serapis so hot that scarcely a man dared show himself. On the
quarter-deck especially was this so; and the brave Pearson, while
keeping his place coolly, ordered the men forward, and remained the only
man upon the quarter-deck of his ship.

The Bon Homme Richard now managed to bring one or two more guns to bear,
although her hull was almost destroyed by the Serapis. Both ships were
in a desperate case, but Paul Jones was no nearer surrender than he was
at the beginning of the fight. Pearson, though, realized that he was in
the last extremity, and then, and then only, with his own hand he
managed to lower the flag he had caused to be nailed to the mast. His
action was visible by the light of the full moon, and the lanterns that
made blazing points of flame all over the two warrior ships in spite of
the drifting clouds of black smoke.

Paul Jones’s first order was:

“Cease firing!” and his next words were, “Where is Dale?”

“Here, sir!” cried Dale, coming up. The young lieutenant’s face was
blackened with powder, his epaulet was gone, and he was deathly pale
with suppressed excitement.

“Go immediately on board that ship with such men as you may need, and
bring off her captain and her ensign,” said Paul Jones.

There was no occasion for a bridge between the two fast-locked and
burning ships. Dale ran to the gangway, and with one bound landed on the
bloody deck of the Serapis.

Although the fire of the Bon Homme Richard had ceased, those upon the
lower decks of the Serapis did not know that the colors had been struck,
and they kept up their cannonade through the riddled hull of the Bon
Homme Richard. The smoke still drifted in a sulphurous mass, but Dale at
once distinguished Captain Pearson’s tall figure, as he stood calmly,
with folded arms, on the quarter-deck. Going up to him, Dale removed his
cap and said respectfully:

“Sir, I am directed to bring you on board the Bon Homme Richard.”

Captain Pearson inclined his head silently and stepped forward.

Scarcely were the words out of Dale’s mouth when the first lieutenant of
the Serapis came up from below. Advancing eagerly, he said to his
captain:

“Have the rebels struck, sir?”

Captain Pearson uttered no word, but looked into the lieutenant’s eyes
with an expression of agony.

Then Dale spoke.

“No,” he said. “_You_ have struck, and this ship is our prize.”

The lieutenant, rudely ignoring Dale, again asked the captain:

“Sir, have they struck?”

For answer, the brave Pearson covered his face with his hands. The
lieutenant, turning on his heel, said:

“I have nothing more to say.”

Dale then remarked quietly:

“You will proceed on board the Bon Homme Richard.”

“If you will permit me to go below, I will silence the firing on the
lower deck,” said the lieutenant.

“No!” replied Dale firmly.

By that time the Bon Homme Richard’s men had swarmed over the side, and
some of the British sailors and officers, running up from below and not
knowing that the ship had struck, dashed upon the Americans, and several
blows were exchanged. The officers, though, on both sides quelled the
_mêlée_ and the British sailors then quietly submitted. But another row,
worse than the first, was likely to be precipitated by Danny Dixon. He
marched up to one of the Serapis’s cabin boys, who was about twice as
big as himself, and who was armed with the cabin broom as the most
available weapon he could find at short notice. Getting close up, Danny
bawled at him:

“You are my prisoner!”

The Serapis boy looked with undisguised contempt at Danny, and for
answer said sulkily:

“Go along with you. I ain’t none o’ your prisoner. I’m took by that
pirate Paul Jones, I am.”

Before the words were well out of his mouth Danny hauled off and hit the
boy a resounding slap in the face. The boy promptly responded by
knocking Danny down with his broom.

Just then Bill Green, who had been relieved for a few moments from the
wheel, appeared at Danny’s side, and, collaring him with one hand as
Danny scrambled up, while with the other he seized the cabin boy’s
neckerchief, Bill gave them both a powerful shaking.

“If you two chaps don’t behave yourselves,” he shouted, “I’ll report you
both, and I’ll give you a private wallopin’ o’ my own besides. That’s
the wust o’ boys—they never knows how to behave theirselves. D’ye see
Cap’n Paul Jones and the British cap’n a-maulin’ and a-poundin’ each
other? And don’t you know prisoners ought to be treated kind? That’s why
the officers sets a example to the men and to the wuthless, triflin’,
good-for-nothin’ boys!”

“B—but, Mr. Green,” said Danny, struggling to get his breath in Bill’s
brawny grasp, “he said as the commodore were a pirate, and that’s for
why I hit him.”

“He did, did he?” snorted Bill, highly incensed, and letting Danny go,
while he devoted both hands to the unlucky cabin boy. “Then I wish you’d
’a’ hit him twice as hard; and if it warn’t for them officers over
yonder,” he yelled to the Serapis boy, “I’d give you sech a keel haulin’
as nobody but a Dutchman never had afore. You say Cap’n Paul Jones is a
pirate, do yer?” Here he lifted the boy completely off his feet, while a
well-directed kick emphasized his remarks. “Now, you take that back, or
by the almighty Joshua, I’ll heave you overboard!”

The boy, scared out of his life, sputtered:

“I take it back.”

Bill then turned to Danny, and said, excitedly:

“You oughter git some smart money for that ’ere lick he give you, and
I’m goin’ to see as the commodore knows about it.”

“But, Mr. Green,” said Danny, slyly, “you said as we was to imitate the
cap’ns, and not be maulin’ and poundin’ each other—”

“I didn’t say no sech a thing,” answered Bill, angrily; “I said, as if
anybody was to say Cap’n Paul Jones were a pirate you was to knock his
eyes down into his shoes, and not to leave a whole bone in his skin.
That’s what I said, boy, and you misunderstood me.”

Dale now accompanied the British captain politely to the gangway, where
not even a plank was necessary to step on board the Bon Homme Richard.
As the young lieutenant glanced up and saw Paul Jones waiting to receive
his distinguished prisoners, he saw a red stream had trickled down the
side of the commodore’s head, and one of his epaulets was soaked with
blood.

“My captain, you are wounded!” cried Dale.

“It is but a trifle,” quickly replied Paul Jones. Captain Pearson at
that moment stepped upon the Bon Homme Richard’s deck. He silently
unbuckled his sword and handed it to Paul Jones, who received it with
one hand, and immediately returned it with the other, saying:

“I return it to you, sir, because you have bravely used it.”

The other British officers and men were then passed rapidly aboard the
Bon Homme Richard. The Americans, as if they had only then realized the
magnitude of their victory, suddenly stopped work at the pumps, at
fighting the fire, and at the usual preparations for taking possession
of a ship, and, as one man, they gave three thundering cheers. Paul
Jones, taking off his cap, listened to this heroic music with ineffable
thoughts crowding upon his mind. The moon was now at the full, and
blazed upon the dark bosom of the water with solemn grandeur. Afar off
rose the white cliffs off England, while nearer, but still far, were the
black hulls and shadowy spars of the Alliance, the gallant Pallas, and
the conquered Countess of Scarborough. The air was yet full of the smell
of burned powder and smoldering wood. Across the still and blue-black
sea they could see the lights of Flamborough Head and Scarborough Castle
like star points in the sky.

Paul Jones was roused from the strange mood of triumph, and of sadness
too, by a frightful crash which resounded through both ships.

The tottering mainmast of the Serapis gave one mighty lurch, and then
fell over the side, striking with a sound like thunder. A deep and
terrible silence followed for a moment, and even the exultant cheering
of the Americans, which had not quite ceased, was stilled. There was
something overwhelming in the sight of the brave and lovely Serapis,
that only a few hours before had sailed proudly and defiantly in her
beauty and freedom, now beaten, dismasted, and her colors struck. But
this one short moment of solemnity was followed by another burst of
cheers, and all the fierce commotion of a victorious ship.



                              CHAPTER XI.


The first thing to be done on board the Bon Homme Richard was to attempt
to check the fire. The ceilings had caught, and were burning slowly but
determinedly. The fire having got within a few inches of the powder
magazine, Paul Jones ordered all the powder brought up on deck. There
were more than a hundred prisoners on the Bon Homme Richard before the
fight, and the men taken from the Serapis brought the number up to over
five hundred. Those who were not disabled were put to work at the pumps,
where they toiled with the desperate energy of men struggling for their
lives. Paul Jones himself escorted Captain Pearson to the cabin, saying:

“I beg that you will make yourself as comfortable as circumstances will
admit. You will have the consolation of knowing that no man ever made a
better defense of his ship.”

Captain Pearson bowed, and answered:

“Your conduct is most generous—” and hesitated, as if to express
surprise at such good treatment.

“You will find, I hope, that all American officers are generous in
victory; and should we have the misfortune to be forced to haul down our
colors, I trust that we would show the fortitude of the brave who are
unfortunate,” said Paul Jones, with dignity—and, with a low bow, he
retired from the cabin, leaving Captain Pearson alone.

As soon as the commodore returned to the deck he ordered the lashings to
be cut, as the ships continued to catch fire from each other, and there
was great danger to the powder on both.

“And both ships must be saved, my lads!” cried he to the men, who were
working like Trojans to save the Serapis from the flames.

“Ay, ay, sir,” answered the men heartily.

As soon as they were free, the Bon Homme Richard drifted rapidly off.
The Serapis was hailed and ordered to follow.

On board the Serapis Dale was in command. Exhausted by his five hours of
work and fighting, he sat down on a dismounted gun near the binnacle.
The reaction had come. A profound sadness seized him, and he could
almost have wept when he saw the destruction around him. But nothing
made him forget his duty for a moment. As soon as the ships parted he
ordered the wreck of the mainmast to be cleared away, the headyards
braced aback, and the helm put hard down. This was promptly done, but
still the ship did not pay off. Imagining that her steering gear was cut
to pieces, he ordered it examined, but, to his surprise, found it
uninjured. Puzzled by so strange a state of things, Dale jumped from his
seat, only to fall his length upon the deck. Bill Green ran to him and
helped him up; but Dale could not stand upon his feet.

“And natural you can’t, sir, seein’ as your ankle is wounded,” said
Bill.

“Is it?” answered Dale, faintly. “I did not know until this moment I was
hurt.”

Just then the pilot boat containing Lieutenant Lunt and sixteen men
hailed the ship alongside.

“For Heaven’s sake, Lunt, come aboard!” cried Dale; “your services are
needed here.”

As Lunt came over the side the sailing master of the Serapis appeared,
and, going up to Dale, said:

“Sir, the ship can’t pay off, because she has an anchor under foot.”
This was the anchor dropped by Captain Pearson when the ships first
fouled. The cable was cut, and the ship instantly answered the helm. She
was much cut up aloft, but her hull was sound, and she had no water in
her. Preparations were at once made to repair her. A jury mast was
rigged in place of the mainmast, and new sails were bent instead of
those that had been torn to pieces by hand grenades exploded in her
rigging.

The night was now far spent. The moon, that had shone so brilliantly
during the fury of the battle, now hung low in the misty night sky that
glimmered with a pale and waning light. A white fog was creeping slowly
in from the Atlantic, and a fitful wind ruffled the black and
phosphorescent water.

The first thing to be attended to, while the carpenters were at work
upon the crippled Serapis and the almost wrecked Bon Homme Richard, was
the care of the wounded and the burial of the dead. As there was great
doubt whether the Bon Homme Richard could be kept afloat until daylight,
no wounded were removed from the Serapis, where the British surgeons
attended to them. Her dead also were buried from her deck, one of the
British lieutenants reading the service of the Established Church, in an
agitated voice. On board the Bon Homme Richard, Paul Jones, as he always
did, read the Psalms for the dead over the brave men who had fallen
around him. Everything was done quickly, but with proper reverence, for,
no matter how much encompassed by danger Paul Jones was, he never forgot
to give fitting burial to the departed brave. Like all men of feeling
heart and deep imagination, Paul Jones, after the inspiration of battle
and the glory of victory, always felt a keen distress at the ruin and
desolation it wrought. The sight of the gallant men cold in death, that
lay in rows upon the reeking deck of the Bon Homme Richard, covered by
the flag whose honor they had so gloriously maintained, wrung his heart
and filled his eyes with tears. And this man, who had dared death from
battle, fire, and water rather than strike his flag, faltered and almost
wept as he read the solemn words of the Psalmist before the dead were
laid at rest in the ocean.

As each body fell swiftly and silently overboard a heavy blow seemed
struck upon the heart of Paul Jones. The officers and men crowded the
deck, standing with uncovered heads, while a little way off the Serapis
loomed up in the fast rising mist, and from her side a frequent dull
splash showed that the same solemn ceremony was taking place upon her
decks.

At last it was over. The men with a sudden alacrity folded up the flags,
quickly carried the grewsome planks and canvas below, and the
boatswain’s pipe sounded cheerily calling the men to work.

The reaction from the burial of the dead at such a time is always great,
and the officers and men vie in their quick rebound to cheerfulness.
Paul Jones felt this instant and magnetic change. Ten minutes from the
time that the last sad ceremonies were over he walked the deck with his
usual graceful and alert step, ordering, overlooking, and encouraging
everybody.

Meanwhile a boat had pulled off from the Serapis, and when Paul Jones,
who had gone below for a moment to see how the carpenters were getting
on, came upon deck, Dale was being helped over the side. Paul Jones went
immediately up to him. Dale leaned heavily upon a sailor, and Paul Jones
at once saw that his favorite lieutenant was lame.

“My lieutenant, you are wounded!” he cried; and Dale, at hearing the
very words he had addressed to the commodore, smiled faintly.

“Yes, sir,” he answered; “I did not know it until a little while ago. I
don’t know when I was hurt, or how, but I was forced to give up the
command to Mr. Lunt and return to you. But how is your wound?”

“It is nothing—nothing!” cried Paul Jones, but really, although his
wound in the head was not dangerous, he had lost much blood, and only
his indomitable will kept him upon his feet.

Wretched indeed was the plight of the brave Bon Homme Richard.
Immortalized she was, but she had given her life for her victory. So
desperate was her condition between decks that many of the sailors,
regarding her as a floating coffin, sprang overboard and swam to the
still stanch Serapis, and to the Alliance, that now appeared off the
weather quarter of the gallant ship she had so treacherously deserted.

It was now nearly daylight, but the fog enveloped everything, and the
eye could scarcely penetrate a hundred yards. A wind still blew
fitfully, driving the fog hither and thither, but as fast as it was
drifted landward another great fog bank would come rolling sullenly in
from the open Atlantic. It deadened the sounds of the saw and the hammer
and the constant creaking of the pumps as the men toiled at them. Once
it almost lifted. It was just at sunrise, and a great golden lance
seemed to penetrate it straight from heaven. Like magic, the white mist
parted, the sky, the sea, and the air were suddenly flooded with a
rose-pink glow, and the fair and lovely light shone full upon the lithe
figure of Paul Jones as he stood on the poop with his face turned to the
east. His arms were folded, and his inscrutable dark eyes, full of a
strange rapture, were uplifted to the sky. Glory was the breath of his
life, and here was glory enough for a lifetime, as he saw his own
shattered ship, and the Serapis conquered but still majestic.

For five minutes he stood motionless. He was recalling the same hour the
day before, and now his proudest wish was fulfilled. Alone and
single-handed he had beaten an enemy at least twice as strong as
himself. He had made the name of the American navy respected from
thenceforward, and his far-seeing mind realized the mighty effect of his
victory. After a while he roused himself from his reverie, which was a
sort of exaltation, and swept the horizon with his glass. Not a sail was
in sight where twenty-four hours before they had whitened the seas
around him. The very name of Paul Jones had frightened them into harbor.

But soon the fog descended again, and Paul Jones devoted himself to one
intense and long-continued effort to save the smoldering, leaking, but
glorious Bon Homme Richard. It was his ardent wish to save his ship, the
eloquent witness of his prowess, and to that work he turned with almost
superhuman energy. The dim morning wore on. The men were mostly below,
fighting the leaks and the fire, and the decks were comparatively
deserted, when Paul Jones, still on the poop, caught sight of Danny
Dixon running aft as hard as he could clip it.

“Hold on!” cried Paul Jones. “There is work for everybody on this ship.
Why are you idle?”

“I ain’t idle, sir,” answered Danny, touching his cap. “The flag as was
most shot to pieces is hangin’ astern now, under water; and I thought,
sir, as you wouldn’t want to lose that ’ere flag, I’d git it out o’ the
water for the honor o’ the ship, sir.”

“You are right; go and get it,” answered Paul Jones, smiling.

Danny disappeared astern, and presently came up dripping. But he had the
torn flag, and was wringing it out as he came along.

“Here she is, sir,” said he, as Paul Jones took it; “and here’s a little
rag o’ it, sir, that I hopes you’ll let me keep in my ditty box.”

He showed a scrap a few inches square that he had torn from the
shattered flagstaff.

“Yes, you may,” replied Paul Jones. “That is in place of the shirt you
took off and gave for a gunwad. I see you have another.”

“Yes, sir,” answered Danny, who had on a shirt about twice too big for
him. “Mr. Green, he flung it to me jist now. I dunno where he got it
from.”

As the hours passed on the terrible situation of the Bon Homme Richard
became plainer. She was literally cut to pieces between decks, from her
spar deck to the water line, and there was not planking enough in the
whole squadron to patch her up. The wind also began to rise, and Paul
Jones, remembering that where eleven British cruisers had been searching
for him the day before, knew that probably fifty would be after him by
sundown, and that he must make his way toward the Texel as quickly as
possible.

About ten o’clock in the morning the fire was at last out, and Paul
Jones called Captain Cottineau, with all the carpenters in the squadron,
on board, to consult with them as to the possibility of carrying his
ship into port, which he could scarcely bring himself to believe was
impossible. Captain Landais’s opinion was not asked, nor was he suffered
to come on board the Bon Homme Richard. The carpenters examined the ship
thoroughly, and all of them agreed that she could not possibly be made
to last more than a few hours. Such also was Captain Cottineau’s
opinion. When it was communicated to Paul Jones, this man, so insensible
to fear, yet felt the loss of his ship so deeply that tears dropped from
his eyes; but he realized that the ship was now in a hopeless condition,
and that while he might risk his own life further, he could not risk
those of the brave men under him. When once his mind was made up to the
cruel necessity he acted with characteristic promptness. Immediately all
the boats were pressed into service transferring the wounded to the
captured Serapis. There was but little worth saving on the Bon Homme
Richard, and the Serapis was full of stores of all sorts. It took the
whole day and the following night to place the wounded and the prisoners
on the Serapis and to repair damages. Even to the last, Paul Jones could
not utterly abandon the hope of saving the old ship, made forever
glorious in that short September night. He left an officer on board and
a gang of men, who were directed to work the pumps as long as possible.
The boats were in waiting in order to take them off if the water gained
on them too fast. An American ensign was hoisted, and the officer was
directed to leave it flying. About nine o’clock Paul Jones, from the
quarter-deck of the Serapis, saw the signal made for the boats—the Bon
Homme Richard was sinking. The men were taken off, and Paul Jones
watched her last moments as one watches by the deathbed of one’s best
beloved. She sank lower and lower in the water after she was left, while
her ensign fluttered bravely in the wandering breeze. At last, about ten
o’clock, as Paul Jones watched her agonizingly through his glass, he saw
her give a lurch forward. She went down head foremost, and the last
thing seen of her as she settled into her ocean grave was the mizzen
to’gallant mast, and the flag at the peak.

“Good-by, brave ship!” cried Paul Jones with a deep sob, as the waters
closed over the ship of immortal memory.



                              CHAPTER XII.


The wind continued to freshen as the squadron, with its two prizes, made
for the open sea. Bad weather followed, and for ten days the Serapis,
with her make-shift masts, and the other ships, were tossed about the
angry North Sea. At last, though, the wind proved kind, and on the
morning of the 3d of October anchor was cast off the island of Texel.

The sight of a splendid British frigate with an American ensign flying
proudly over the Union Jack, and a twenty-gun sloop of war in the same
plight, was an inspiring sight to the few Americans and friends of the
cause of independence at the Texel. News of the victory had preceded the
arrival of the ships, and it was a matter of the keenest interest how
Holland, a neutral power, would receive these victorious enemies of
England, which literally ruled the seas. The fact is, the brave and
prudent Hollanders felt deeply sympathetic with the young republic of
the West in her fight against Holland’s ancient maritime enemy; but the
court and the court party were absolutely under British influence, and
it was not long in manifesting its animosity to the flag that Paul Jones
carried.

Scarcely were the ships at anchor before news came that a British line
of battle ship was waiting outside of the Texel. According to the rules
of war, the American ship should have remained long enough to have what
was necessary done for her in the cause of humanity. The British
ambassador, Sir Joseph Yorke, was highly incensed at the American ship
being accorded succor, and openly and bitterly spoke of Paul Jones as
“that pirate.” But the “pirate,” when he went up to Amsterdam a few days
after his arrival, received such an ovation from the enthusiastic
Americans and the brave Dutchmen as any man on earth might have been
proud of. Huzzas and waving handkerchiefs saluted him from the French
and Americans in Amsterdam, while the Dutchmen bowed low to him. When he
appeared upon the Exchange, wearing proudly his American uniform and his
Scotch bonnet, edged with gold, the crowds pressed around him so that he
was forced to retire into a room fronting the public square. The
plaudits of the crowd becoming uproarious, he was obliged to show
himself at the window and bow, after which he hastily retreated.

This reception very much affronted Sir Joseph Yorke, who, on the 9th of
October, wrote to the Dutch Government demanding that the American ships
“be stopped,” and declaring Paul Jones to be “a rebel and a pirate.”
Other measures than writing letters were used to “stop” him. The battle
ship watching off the Texel had been joined by eleven other ships of the
line and frigates. Eight were stationed at the north entrance to the
harbor, where they expected Paul Jones would come out, and four at the
south entrance. Here, on every fine day, they might be seen cruising
back and forth. Small squadrons were also on the lookout for him on the
east coasts of England and Scotland, the coast of Norway, the Irish
Channel, the west coast of Ireland, and in the Straits of Dover. In all,
there were forty-two British ships after Paul Jones, and two of them
were lost while on the watch for him.

Within the Texel he had powerful enemies in the British ambassador and
the royal court. In spite of both, though, by courage and firmness he
forced the Dutch authorities to grant him the asylum that the laws of
civilized warfare give to ships in distress. He demanded, and was given,
leave to establish a hospital under the American flag on shore for his
wounded, to dispose as he pleased of his five hundred prisoners, and to
have the drawbridges at the fort hauled up whenever he desired. Thus
menaced as Paul Jones was with dangers outside, he had still many to
encounter within the port. He had great trouble in getting the Serapis
refitted, and then he was told plainly by the French ambassador that he
must accept a French commission and fly the French flag if he desired to
hold on to the ship which was the noble spoil of his victory; otherwise
he must transfer his flag to the Alliance, a ship in every way inferior
to the Serapis. Landais, it may be said in passing, had been detached
from the ship and ordered to Paris to answer for his conduct. It was
bitter enough to the British ambassador to see the American colors
flying on an American ship—the Alliance—but it was intolerable to see it
over a beautiful British frigate like the Serapis; and he had influence
enough with the Dutch Government to have this intimation given the
French ambassador, who was obliged to notify Paul Jones.

The Bon Homme Richard had found an ocean grave, and grievous as this
blow was to Paul Jones, more grievous still was it to give up the lovely
Serapis, which, as he wrote Benjamin Franklin, was the finest ship of
her class he had ever seen. But he did not hesitate a moment. Never
during the battle for independence would he serve under any except the
American flag, or bear any but an American commission. So, with a sore
heart but an unflinching determination, he gave the Serapis up to his
French allies, and with Dale and his old company of the Bon Homme
Richard he transferred his flag to the Alliance. But day by day his
enemies grew stronger, and the Dutch yielded more and more to the angry
domination of the British. Every obstacle was put in his way to prevent
the refitting of his ship, while at the same time he was told that, if
he did not go to sea with the first fair wind, the Dutch fleet of
thirteen double-decked frigates would force him out. And that would be
to force him into the very jaws of destruction, so they thought, with
twelve British ships cruising in full sight.

But, menaced from within and without, the indomitable spirit of Paul
Jones only maintained itself the more undauntedly. As every morning
dawned the American colors were hoisted at the mizzen peak of the
Alliance, and flew steadily until the sunset gun was fired—and that in
the face of twenty-three Dutch and British ships, any one of which was
more than a match for the Alliance.

However the officials might treat him, the sympathy of the people was
with Paul Jones and his gallant companions. The Dutch naval officers
paid him marked respect and attention, although they were ready, at the
word of command, to fire into him. He had other consolations too. His
letters from Franklin were frequent and affectionate. One of them Paul
Jones handed Dale to read. It said: “For some days after the arrival of
your express nothing was talked of except your cool conduct and
persevering bravery during the terrible combat.” And Franklin had
sternly denounced Landais, who was now held in universal contempt.

The American cause was extremely popular among the masses in Holland,
and the sailors were always well treated on shore. Whenever Bill Green
could get leave, he usually spent it at a clean and orderly Dutch
tavern, where, surrounded by stolid Dutchmen gravely smoking their long
pipes, Bill would hold forth upon the glories of the fight with the
Serapis. About this time he picked up a new song, which he brought on
board the Alliance, written out in a fair and clerkly hand, with
innumerable flourishes.

“I s’pose,” remarked the boatswain, skeptically, “you’ll want us to
believe as you wrote that out with your own flipper?”

“Why, yes, I did,” answered Bill, somewhat sheepishly.

“Well, then,” continued the boatswain, “it’s a shame for you to be
nothin’ but a quartermaster. The purser hisself, he don’t write no such
handwritin’ as that. But pipe up the song, though.”

Bill, to avoid awkward discussions, piped up with unusual promptness,
and sang as follows:

  “Heave the topmast from the board,
    And our ship for action clear.
  By the cannon and the sword
    We will die or conquer here.
  The foe, of twice our force, nears fast:
    To your posts, my faithful tars!
    Mind your rigging, guns, and spars,
    And defend your Stripes and Stars
          To the last.

  “At the captain’s bold command
    Flew each sailor to his gun,
  And resolved he there would stand,
    Though the odds were two to one,
  To defend his flag and ship with his life.
    High on every mast displayed,
    ‘God, Our Country, and Our Rights.’
    E’en the bravest braver made,
          For the strife.

  “Fierce the storm of battle pours;
    But unmoved as ocean’s rock
  When the tempest round it roars,
    Every seaman breasts the shock,
  Boldly stepping where his brave messmates fall.
    O’er his head, full oft and loud,
    Like the vulture in a cloud,
    As it cuts the twanging shroud,
          Screams the ball.

  “Before the siroc blast
    From its caverns driven,
  Drops the sheared and shivered mast,
    By the bolt of battle riven,
  And higher heaps the ruin of the deck.
    As the sailor, bleeding, dies,
    To his comrades lifts his eyes,
    ‘Let our flag still wave!’ he cries,
          O’er the wreck.

  “Long live the gallant crew,
    Who survived that day of blood!
  And may fortune soon renew
    Equal battle on the flood!
  Long live the glorious names of the brave!
    O’er these martyrs of the deep
    Oft the roving wind shall weep,
    Crying ‘Sweetly may they sleep
          ’Neath the wave!’”

The attentions shown Paul Jones personally by the Dutch naval officers
were very displeasing to the British ambassador, and by intrigue he
succeeded in having Captain Rimersima, who had been very polite to the
Americans, superseded in favor of Vice-Admiral Reynst, as commander of
the Dutch fleet. This vice-admiral belonged to the court party, and was
notoriously unfriendly to Paul Jones. On the 12th of November he sent
Paul Jones a peremptory order to sail with the first fair wind. In spite
of every effort, the American ship was not yet in condition to keep the
sea. But, for this very reason, the vice-admiral constantly urged Paul
Jones to depart, and even threatened him in case he did not. At last, on
the 28th of November, a positive threat was made. The vice-admiral wrote
that, unless Paul Jones went out, the Dutch fleet would drive him out.
The wind at the time was contrary. Paul Jones received this message from
a junior Dutch officer on the quarter-deck of the Alliance, and replied,
in a loud, firm voice that not only all the men on the Alliance could
hear, but all the sailors in the Dutch man-of-war’s boat:

“The vice-admiral demands impossibilities,” he said. “Can any ship get
out of the road in such a wind as this?”

Then he called up an old Dutch pilot that he had kept on board for a
week past—Peter Maartens.

“Maartens,” said he, “will you undertake to carry this ship out?”

The pilot, a stolid old Dutchman with a great beard, looked at Paul
Jones very solemnly for a long time.

“Not if I keep sober,” he answered gravely; at which even the
vice-admiral’s junior officer was forced to smile.

“Then I will have that statement written out, and you shall sign it,”
promptly replied Paul Jones.

The paper was written and read to the pilot, who signed it in the
presence of the Dutch lieutenant. For ten days they were left
unmolested. Sir Joseph Yorke thought, however, that he had succeeded at
last in ruining Paul Jones, for, forced to put out as soon as the wind
permitted, there was a British squadron waiting for him at either
entrance to the harbor. It seemed as if Paul Jones was at last destined
to be caught. But Fortune favors the brave—and she had never yet
deserted this daring sailor. Everything had been done with the
insufficient means at hand to get the Alliance into good condition. Much
of her sailing qualities had been destroyed by the crazy Landais’s
method of ballasting. This was remedied, and the ship was in fairly good
order. As Paul Jones wrote to Franklin: “The enemy still keeps a
squadron cruising off here, but this will not prevent my attempts to
depart whenever the wind will permit. I hope we have recovered the trim
of the ship, which was entirely lost the last cruise; and I do not much
fear the enemy in the long and dark nights of this season. The ship is
well manned, and shall not be given away!”

How does the gallant spirit of Paul Jones ring in those last words!

About the middle of December the Dutch vice-admiral one day sent word to
Paul Jones, desiring him to come on board the Dutch flagship. To this
Paul Jones sent a polite but determined refusal. As the Dutch boat
pulled off, he said, laughing, to Dale:

“Does that puppet of kings think that an American commodore will obey
like a dog the orders of a Dutch admiral?”

Failing to get him on board, Vice-Admiral Reynst wrote him a peremptory
note, asking if the Alliance was to be considered a French or an
American vessel. If French, the captain’s commission was to be shown to
the Dutch vice-admiral, the French flag and pendant displayed, and a gun
fired to announce it. If American, the ship was to leave at the earliest
possible moment.

To this Paul Jones replied in these characteristic lines:

  “Sir: I have no authority to hoist any colors on this ship except the
  American, and whenever the pilot will take it upon himself to conduct
  the ship to sea he shall have my best assistance.

                                                             Paul Jones,
                  “_Commanding the American Continental ship Alliance_.”



                             CHAPTER XIII.


The officers and men were as anxious to get away from the inhospitable
Texel as was Paul Jones, and the sight, day after day, of the low-lying,
monotonous landscape, the frozen dikes, and the pale, wintry sky was
dreary enough to them. Dale kept the wardroom in a good humor, though,
and Bill Green spent much of his enforced leisure, as usual, in learning
songs which he claimed to have composed.

At last, as Christmas approached, it was known on board that they were
ready to sail, and that a day or two at most would find them at sea. The
officers and men were all on board, and no more shore leave was granted.

The wind was already veering round to the east, and although they would
have to wait for the wind, there would be no waiting for weather, for
the fouler the weather the fairer the chance of running the gauntlet of
the British fleet, which would then be dispersed, each ship looking out
for herself. Therefore the Americans prayed for bad weather as ardently
as sailors usually pray for good.

On Christmas night there was great jollification aboard. Paul Jones
dined in the wardroom by invitation of the officers, and afterward
announced to them:

“Gentlemen, in forty-eight hours we shall be at sea, with our best
American ensign flying, and then we can take care of ourselves.”

A burst of cheering followed this. The only person present besides the
officers of the ship was the celebrated Captain Cunningham, who had
suffered horrors in an English prison. Paul Jones had at last succeeded
in having Cunningham exchanged, and was taking him to France as a
passenger.

The jollity aft was quite equaled by the fun forward, and from the
foks’l sounds of cheering, laughing, shouting, and the noisy clatter of
feet, as the sailors danced reels and hornpipes, was plainly audible.
Danny Dixon, who waited behind Paul Jones’s chair, when asked what the
noise meant, whispered artfully:

“Please, sir, Mr. Green he’s got a new song, all about ‘a Yankee ship
and a Yankee crew, tally hi ho, you know.’ It’s a beautiful song.”

“Is it?” cried Paul Jones, whose spirits rose high at the prospect of
once more taking his ship to sea. “Gentlemen, shall we send for Green to
give us a new patriotic song he has?”

“Yes, yes,” they all exclaimed, “a song, by all means!”

Danny therefore was sent after Bill, who was found trolling forth in his
rich baritone to the admiring foks’l people, and occasionally getting up
and shaking a leg to give emphasis to his music.

“Mr. Green,” said Danny, going up to him, “you must report to the cap’n
immediate for a song. He knows as how you’ve got a good ’un, and the
cap’n and the officers wants to hear it—that there one about a Yankee
ship and a Yankee crew.”

“Sho!” said Bill with an affectation of great reluctance, “I knows as
you wuthless, tale-bearin’ lubberly boy went and told the cap’n I had a
new song, and I’ve a great mind to give you the cat for it.”

“Lord, Mr. Green, I ain’t done no harm,” said Danny apologetically, who
understood the case perfectly, and knew there was no danger of the cat.
“The cap’n knows you sing grand, and ’twarn’t my fault he axed for you.”

“Well, mates,” said Bill, rising with a delighted grin, “it’s mighty
hard on me havin’ to leave you. I’d ruther not sing if I could help it,
but orders is orders, you know. Howsomedever, young’un,” he remarked to
Danny, “the very next time you gits me in a singin’ scrape like this,
I’m a-goin’ to skin you, mind that!”

“Yes, sir,” answered Danny very meekly.

The officers were all sitting around the table with pipes, and full of
talk, laughter, and jollity, when Bill Green’s handsome figure and face
appeared in the wardroom door. Bill, as usual, pretended to be quite
overcome with bashfulness, and twiddled his cap modestly.

“Give him a glass of punch to wet his whistle,” cried Paul Jones, and
Danny Dixon officiously filled a glass from the punch bowl and handed it
to him.

After gulping down the punch, Bill cleared his throat and remarked that
he “had thunk out a little song and had wrote it out”—Bill forgot that
the wardroom officers knew he could not write a line—“and as the men got
arter him to sing it, he had tried it oncet or twicet, and he’d do his
best to pipe it up reg’lar.”

He then began, his rich voice echoing musically through the low-pitched
wardroom. The officers soon caught the refrain, and whenever it came
they accompanied it with much clinking of glasses, and trolled out a
chorus, Dale leading. This was the song:

  “A Yankee ship and a Yankee crew,
        Tally hi ho, you know,
  O’er the bright blue waves like a sea bird flew;
        Sing hey aloft and alow.
  Her wings are spread to the fairy breeze,
    The sparkling spray is thrown from her prow,
  Her flag is the proudest that floats on the seas,
    Her homeward way she’s steering now.
  A Yankee ship and a Yankee crew,
        Tally hi ho, you know,
  O’er the bright waves like a sea bird flew;
        Sing hey aloft and alow.

  “A Yankee ship and a Yankee crew,
        Tally hi ho, you know,
  With hearts on board both gallant and true,
        The same aloft and alow.
  The blackened sky and the whistling wind
    Foretell the quick approach of the gale;
  A home and its joys flit o’er each mind—
    Husbands! lovers! ‘On deck there!’ a sail,
  A Yankee ship and a Yankee crew,
        Tally hi ho, you know;
  Distress is the word—God speed them through!
        Bear a hand, aloft and alow!

  “A Yankee ship and a Yankee crew,
        Tally hi ho, you know;
  The boats all clear, the wreck we now view,
        ‘All hands’ aloft and alow.
  A ship is his throne, the sea his world,
    He ne’er sheers from a shipmate distressed.
  All’s well—the reefed sails again are unfurled;
    O’er the swell he is cradled to rest.
  A Yankee ship and a Yankee crew,
        Tally hi ho, you know,
  Storm past, drink to ‘wives and sweethearts’ too,
        All hands, aloft and alow!

  “A Yankee ship and a Yankee crew,
        Tally hi ho, you know,
  Freedom defends, and the land where it grew—
        We’re free, aloft and alow!
  Bearing down is a foe in regal pride,
    Defiance floating at each masthead;
  One’s a wreck, and she bears that floats alongside
    The Stars and Stripes, to victory wed.
  For a Yankee ship and a Yankee crew,
        Tally hi ho, you know,
  Ne’er strikes to a foe while the sky is blue
        Or a tar’s aloft or alow.”

Roars of laughter and applause greeted this, and Bill was compelled to
respond to an encore. The evening and a part of the night passed in
gayety and merriment, and the sober Dutchmen were much astonished at the
hilarity on the American ship. Paul Jones had had the ship dressed for
Christmas, and the British at the Texel were obliged to endure the sight
of an American flag flying from every masthead on the Alliance. At last,
two days after Christmas, Peter Maartens, the pilot, was sent for. The
weather was thick, and a tremendous gale seemed to be rising. When Paul
Jones proposed to take the ship out, Peter shook his head very solemnly.

“Any pilot who takes a ship out in this weather is likely to lose his
license, and I can’t risk it,” he said.

Peter had rather a weakness for the bottle, although it was said that he
was as good a pilot when he was half seas over as when he was quite
sober. It was Christmas time, and Peter was liable to yield to
temptation. Paul Jones was therefore not surprised when, as night was
falling, a few hours after, Peter Maartens’s boat hailed the ship, and
he announced that he was ready to carry her out. Immediately the anchor
was lifted, and within an hour the Alliance stood down the river in the
teeth of a northeast gale.

It was a murky December night when, with a strong wind, the ship started
on her way toward the open sea. A perfectly new American ensign had been
run up for the occasion, and Sir Joseph Yorke had the mortification of
knowing that the ship went boldly out to run the gauntlet of her
enemies, without any disguise whatever. Dale, as first lieutenant, was
on deck. Bill Green was at the wheel. Peter Maartens’s orders, although
very judicious, were not very distinct, as he had been indulging in the
flowing bowl, and the first thing the Alliance knew she was afoul of a
Dutch merchantman. The Alliance dropped her best bower anchor, in the
effort to get clear, and in the wind, the darkness, and confusion, the
cable parted or was cut by the Dutchman. Peter Maartens then declared
that nobody but the devil himself would put to sea in such a gale, and
flatly refused to carry the ship out that night. However, he brought her
to anchor so close inshore that in the morning they were forced to cut
the cable themselves in order to get out, thus leaving both their bower
anchor and sheet anchor in the roads of Texel; but they were out of the
Dutch port, or purgatory, as Paul Jones himself expressed it, and under
close-reefed topsails they were heading for the ocean in the midst of a
roaring gale. But the American ensign flew as long as they were in sight
of land, and until they were three marine leagues out. The Alliance
hugged the shoals so close, in order to keep to windward of the
blockading British squadrons, that several times they had hard work in
clawing off. At last, however, they were clear.

Paul Jones, wrapped in a cloak and with a sou’wester pulled down over
his eyes, called to him Lieutenant Dale, who had the deck.

“Dale,” he said, carelessly, “what passage, think you, shall we take to
France?”

“The northward, I presume, sir,” replied Dale, astonished at the
question from his commander.

“And do the officers and crew expect we shall go north, and away from
the British Isles?”

“Certainly, sir,” replied Dale, still more surprised.

“Then,” said Paul Jones, laying his hand on Dale’s shoulder, “you may
depend upon it, if all my officers and men expect me to avoid the
English Channel, every British captain that is hunting for me likewise
will look for me to the northward. But I will sail through their
channel, under the very noses of their fleet at Spithead.”

“Sir,” said Dale, who was a very matter-of-fact young man, “surely
nobody will think of hunting for you in the lion’s mouth.”

Paul Jones at this laughed one of his rare laughs.

“You will go with me willingly into the lion’s mouth?” he said; to which
Dale replied coolly:

“Of course, sir.”

In spite of the bad weather the ship made a good run, and the next day,
it being perfectly clear, they passed boldly through the Straits of
Dover, and were in full sight of the whole magnificent British fleet in
the Downs. They then made the Isle of Wight, which they passed, and for
more than an hour they were within a very short distance of the fleet
assembled at Spithead. The forest of masts, the huge dark hulls of the
ships, the fluttering ensigns, made a lovely picture in the bright air
of December. What would not one of those brave British captains have
given to know that Paul Jones, the invincible, was sailing under their
very lee!

Paul Jones resorted to his usual ruse. The ports of the Alliance were
closed, her guns covered with spare sails and tarpaulins, she flew the
British ensign, her crew were kept below, and she presented the
appearance of a smart British merchant ship, or possibly a letter of
marque.

Two days was Paul Jones in the British Channel, much of the time in
sight of the chalk cliffs of England, and scarcely an hour of the night
or day that he was not in view of the British cruisers, which, as Dale
justly said, did not think it worth while to look for him in the lion’s
mouth. He kept well to windward, though, for this man, so daring in his
undertakings, yet carried the details out with the most consummate
prudence.

After getting clear of the channel, and in easy reach of the French
harbors, he cruised about off Cape Finistère for some days. A furious
January gale coming up in the Bay of Biscay, and having but one anchor
left, Paul Jones put into the port of Corunna, in Spain. The fame of his
exploits had preceded him, and he and his officers received the utmost
attention, especially from some Spanish naval officers there. Paul Jones
greatly admired the Spanish ships, which were sheathed with copper, and
expensively fitted; but, like Nelson, he had no great faith in the
ability of the Spaniards to take care of their fine ships.

On this cruise the Alliance seems to have been indeed a stormy petrel,
and encountered much bad weather, so that it was the 10th of February
before anchor was cast in the roads of Groix, before L’Orient.

Shouting multitudes received him. Letters of enthusiastic praise from
Franklin and Lafayette and many distinguished Americans and Frenchmen
awaited him, and he was hailed as the hope of the infant navy of his
country.



                              CHAPTER XIV.


The wound in the head which Paul Jones had received, and which he had
made light of, turned out to be more serious than he would at first
acknowledge. He had had one or two other hurts, of which he had said
nothing, and his labors and the mental strain to which he had been
subjected seriously affected his health and particularly his eyes. The
multitudes that lined the quays and streets of L’Orient to greet him
when he came ashore for the first time, were touched to see that the
great sea warrior’s eyes were bound with a white handkerchief, and he
leaned upon the arm of his faithful Dale. Danny Dixon trotted close
behind, and during the days of Paul Jones’s illness and partial
blindness the boy became eyes and hands to him. Paul Jones took a
lodging on shore, leaving the ship in Dale’s command, as she lay in the
roads. Every day he walked out for exercise, Danny following sedately
behind him and gazing at him with a peculiar expression of reverence
that often made Paul Jones smile. But the intensity of the boy’s
affection was sweet to him. He spent the early spring months at L’Orient
very quietly, trying to regain his health. He had the society of his
faithful young lieutenant, and whenever he appeared in public he was
greeted with the utmost enthusiasm. Repeated messages were sent him from
the French court to visit Paris; but not until he felt it necessary, in
order to secure his gallant crew their prize money, did he determine to
go. Dale was to be left in command of the Alliance; Danny Dixon was to
go to wait on the captain, and was overwhelmed with delight at the idea
of seeing the world under such distinguished auspices.

When Paul Jones went on board the Alliance to say farewell before
leaving for Paris, he received the applause dearest to him—that of his
officers and crew. The men were piped aft, and, standing surrounded by
his officers, he made them a short speech. He was still pale, and the
wound in his head was not fully healed.

“I go to Paris, my men,” said Paul Jones, “chiefly to secure the prize
money that you have so gloriously earned. I shall not rest until I have
got it for you. I leave in command my trusty Mr. Dale. Behave to him as
you would to me. You have seen his gallantry in action, and you will now
see his justice and probity in calmer times. I thank you all”—here Paul
Jones’s voice broke, and it was a moment or two before he could proceed.
“I thank you all, officers and men, for the courage that enabled us to
capture the Serapis. The victory was as much yours as mine, and you have
the word of Paul Jones that your just reward shall be secured. I shall
return shortly, and, till then, farewell!”

The sailors gave Paul Jones not only three cheers, but three times
three, and the officers joined in the cheering with a will. Dale had
been appointed to reply for the officers, and he stood with moist and
glowing eyes as he spoke:

“All that we have acquired of glory is through you. Can we ever forget
that you commanded our ship in the unequal battle, fought the guns in
person, lashed the ships together with your own hand, took up a pike
like the humblest man on board to repel the enemy when they would have
boarded us, and succeeded against water, fire, treachery, and valor? As
long as ships traverse the ocean will your name be known; and as long as
life lasts will we esteem it the highest honor that we can claim, to
say, ‘We fought with Paul Jones on the Bon Homme Richard!’”

Another round of cheers followed this, when Bill Green was put forth as
the spokesman for the men.

“’Tis said, sir,” began Bill, hitching up his trousers before starting
in on his oratorical effort, “that there’s two things no sailor-man can
do—one is, to make a speech, and t’other is, to ride a horse. ’Tain’t
reasonable as a sailor could ride a horse, sir, ’cause horses is
ornnateral beasts, that is always yawin’ about from side to side, no
matter how straight you lay your course, nor what quarter the wind is
from. But we don’t need to make no speech about our commodore. That ’ere
British ensign we has got speaks loud enough; them two British ships you
took agin the awfullest odds we ever see—_they_ speaks; that gallant
ship o’ ourn, the Bunnum Richard, that went to the bottom—_that_ ship
speaks; that ’ere cut acrost your forehead, sir—_that_ speaks; and, as
for we in the foks’l, give us the name o’ Paul Jones for our cap’n and
we kin wallop anything afloat. The cap’n on the S’rapis, he nailed his
flag to the mast and then he had to haul it down. But we don’t need for
to nail our flag to the mast, sir, because we all knows that the man who
touches that ’ere flag is a dead man, if Commodore Paul Jones is
commandin’. And so we says, commodore, health and long life to you! and,
as Mr. Dale has said, the proudest thing we kin ever say is, ‘We fought
under Paul Jones on the Bunnum Richard, sir!’”

Another tremendous round of cheers followed this. Paul Jones, with his
eyes full of tears, shook hands silently with each of his officers, and
then, with a profound bow to the men assembled, he stepped to the side.
In an instant, as if by magic, every sailor sprang aloft, and in less
time than it takes to tell it the yards were manned. Two fine French
frigates that lay close by the Alliance also manned their yards, and
thundered out a salute of thirteen guns to the commodore’s broad
pennant, which was about to be hauled down. The Alliance responded with
thirteen guns; and so, amid the applause and cheers of his men, the
thunders of artillery, and all the honors that could be heaped upon him,
Paul Jones left his ship.



                              CHAPTER XV.


Within an hour he was on the road to Paris, traveling by the
_diligence_.

It was his intention to get to Paris as quietly as possible, and for
that reason he wore plain citizen’s clothes, and wrapped himself in a
large cloak; but Danny Dixon, swelling with the importance of the charge
of his commander’s portmanteau, had no notion of letting the great man
pass unknown through the world. Danny sat in the rumble along with a
very smart and dapper little valet, who was accompanying his master, a
French officer, to Paris. As Danny was not by any means as elegant as
the Frenchman, he was subject to much contempt, all of which he bore
with stoical good humor.

The May morning was fresh and beautiful, and as they dashed along the
broad and level road they saw green fields on each side of them, and
comfortable homesteads in sight, while occasionally a noble chateau
reared its towers in proud seclusion, half hidden by great trees. The
trees were just budding, and when the _diligence_ rolled occasionally
over the moss-grown stone bridges the streams beneath ran over their
pebbly beds with the laughing fullness of the spring. The air was
deliciously soft and fresh, and as Paul Jones sat on the box seat,
inhaling the beauty and glory around him, he felt a subtile joy and
satisfaction in life. Presently he looked back to see how Danny was
getting on. Danny, with the commodore’s portmanteau tightly clasped
between his knees, was looking a picture of satisfaction.

“How do you like this?” asked Paul Jones, amused at the boy’s rapt look
of enjoyment.

“Fust-rate, sir,” answered Danny, touching his cap. “This ’ere’s
mightily like being on the topsail yard, sir, and I think she rolls and
pitches a good deal. But maybe that’s because she ain’t ballasted
right—all the dunnage is aft, sir—”

Here Paul Jones frowned at Danny, which immediately checked his
eloquence.

“_Sacre bleu!_” said the dandy valet, who was dressed quite as well as
his master, and who spoke what he thought was English; “you talk ze
rubbish. Your master, he is vidout doubt, a man of seafaring, who goes
to home with a hundred louis d’or in his plocket—poket—pocket—for a
jollitime.”

“He is, is he?” answered Danny wrathfully. “I’ll have you to understand,
sir, that I serves Commodore Paul Jones, o’ the Bunnum Richard, what
took the S’rapis, and the Britishers has sent out forty-two ships o’ the
line and frigates for to ketch him, and they’d ruther have him nor the
whole durned French navy, with all your wuthless admirals throwed in.”

“You are von saucy boy,” responded the Frenchman angrily; “and as for
your Paul Jones, vy, I nevair heard of ze gentilhomme before!”

“Well,” replied Danny, very coolly, “I’ll give you something for to
remember the fust time you ever heerd of him!” and, without a moment’s
warning, he suddenly caught the little Frenchman by the ankle and by the
collar, and, jerking him off the seat, held him suspended over the back
of the rumble, about five feet from the ground, while the horses
galloped along, the postilions cracked their whips, and the white road
sped beneath them.

As soon as the Frenchman could get his breath he bellowed loudly, but he
was afraid to struggle lest Danny should drop him, and he little knew
the strength in those young sinews and strong boyish arms.

“You ain’t never heerd o’ Commodore Paul Jones,” bawled Danny, “and you
never heerd on the Bunnum Richard nor the S’rapis nuther, but I reckon
you’ll remember all about ’em next time you hear on’ em!” Danny
emphasized these remarks by giving the little Frenchman several
tremendous shakes, which terrified him more than ever.

The commotion was not heard for a moment or two, on account of the
rattling of the _diligence_ and the rate at which they were traveling,
but as soon as the affair was noticed cries resounded from the
passengers, both to Danny and to the postilions to check the horses.
Just as Paul Jones turned around and caught sight of Danny the
_diligence_ came to a halt, and, with a final shake, Danny dropped the
Frenchman in the road.

Quite forgetting himself in the surprise and shock of the occasion, Paul
Jones cried out angrily: “What are you doing, sir? Have you lost your
mind?”

“No, sir,” replied Danny, touching his cap again, “but that ’ere
frog-eating landlubber, he had the imperence for to tell me that he
ain’t never heerd o’ you, sir, nor of the way you took the Drake and the
S’rapis, nor the forty-two British cap’ns as was on the lookout for you,
sir; so I jest handed him over the side, sir, meanin’ to hold him there
by the slack o’ his trousers till he axed for quarter, sir.”

Meanwhile, the Frenchman, sputtering and swearing, had got up from the
ground and was brushing the dust off his elegant attire. The French
officer, his master, at first disposed to be angry, could not help
laughing at Danny’s explanation and the tone in which it was given. He
explained it in French, and everybody shouted with laughter, except the
unfortunate lackey and Paul Jones, but even Paul Jones could not wholly
refrain from smiling.

“Behave yourself better in future, sir, and remember it is I who tell
you so.”

Danny bobbed his head and touched his cap again, saying, “Ay, ay, sir.”

But the boy’s words had turned every eye on Paul Jones. Was this slight,
dark, quiet man the redoubtable Paul Jones, the terror of the seas, the
man that England put forth all her might to capture, but who was still
free, still great? Paul Jones’s dark skin flushed under this close
scrutiny. The French officer, raising his hat, made a profound bow, and
said:

“May I ask if we have the honor of addressing the celebrated, the
invincible Paul Jones?”

“Your compliments do me too much honor,” replied Paul Jones, “but I am
the person you have so flatteringly described.”

All hope of privacy was now at an end. Every eye was fixed on him, and
every ear was open to catch his lightest remark. This was not what Paul
Jones desired, and he inwardly chafed at Danny Dixon’s indiscreet
devotion that had betrayed him. But Danny was not the boy to let the
fact remain in obscurity that he served Paul Jones, and he beamed with
delight at the French officer’s words.

The poor valet, having brushed the dust off his clothes, now climbed
back into the rumble, and the _diligence_ proceeded upon its way. The
only word that Danny condescended to address to him was when they
alighted two days afterward in the streets of Paris.

“Do you know now, Mounseer Landlubber, who Commodore Paul Jones is?”

“_Parbleu_, yes,” sighed the lackey. “I vill not forget ze
gentilhomme—nevair, nevair!”



                              CHAPTER XVI.


Paul Jones’s first visit in Paris was to his best and firmest friend,
Benjamin Franklin. In all of his anxieties, as well as his triumphs,
Franklin had stood unflinchingly by him; and now, no man rejoiced more
at his splendid fame than Franklin. As soon as it was known that the
immortal Paul Jones was in Paris crowds flocked to see him, and his
modest lodgings were overrun with people of the greatest distinction.
The American cause was very popular, and the presence of two such men as
Benjamin Franklin and Paul Jones was calculated to add luster to the
cause they served.

Whether Paul Jones walked in the gardens of Paris or upon the
boulevards, he was followed by a respectful and admiring crowd. The
first night he went to the theater, as soon as he entered the word went
round, “There is Paul Jones!” As he advanced and took his seat the
whisper increased to a buzz, and then into an uproar, the audience
rising and applauding excitedly. Paul Jones, with a blush upon his manly
features, rose and returned the salutations of the crowd.

In a few days came an invitation, which was in reality a command, to
visit Versailles and to meet the king, Louis XVI, and his queen, Marie
Antoinette. Both of them were afterward to lay down their lives on the
scaffold, but then they were in the heyday of power and magnificence.
Louis earnestly desired the independence of America, and entertained the
highest respect for the characters of her great men.

On a beautiful Sunday in May, Paul Jones, with Franklin, set off for
Versailles in a plain coach. Danny Dixon, in a brand new sailor suit,
sat on the box with the coachman and did duty for a footman. Inside sat
Dr. Franklin, in the simple dress of an American citizen. His coat was
plain but handsome, and he remarked to Paul Jones, smiling: “This is the
coat, my friend, in which I was insulted by Lord Loughborough. I wear it
whenever I appear as the representative of my country; and it is my
ambition to wear it upon the day that an honorable peace is signed
between America and Great Britain”—which actually came to pass.

Paul Jones wore a splendid new uniform of an American commodore, and
looked every inch a great man.

All along the road to Versailles, which was crowded with magnificent
equipages, with horsemen superbly mounted, and with a great and merry
populace, the carriage containing the two Americans was pointed out with
the utmost interest. They drove slowly down the grand avenue, and at
last the palace of Versailles burst upon their sight in glittering
beauty. The terraces were of velvety greenness, the fountains sparkled
brilliantly in the noonday sun, and the trees were in their first fresh
glory of the May.

A crowd of great people—courtiers and court ladies superbly costumed,
ministers and statesmen, naval and military officers in dazzling
uniforms—crowded the grand staircase; but all made way for the venerable
Dr. Franklin and Paul Jones, for the word had sped from mouth to mouth
who they were. Respectful greetings met them on every side, and when
they entered the anteroom they were the cynosure of all eyes.

  [Illustration: _Paul Jones and Franklin at the Court of Louis XVI._]

Presently the great folding doors of the audience chamber were thrown
wide, and an instant hush fell upon the vast crowd of nobles and
gentlemen. The king and queen, seated in armchairs on a dais, over which
there was a canopy, and surrounded by members of the royal family and
their suite, were seen at the end of the vast and splendid hall. By a
silent motion the gentleman usher, one of the greatest nobles in France,
singled out Dr. Franklin and Paul Jones. Both of them rose at once and
entered the audience chamber, after which the doors slid noiselessly
into their grooves until the two reappeared at the end of half an hour.

Within the hall Franklin and Paul Jones approached the king and queen
with dignified composure. They were respectful but not awed, and were
much more at their ease than half the great people who surrounded
royalty.

On reaching the dais upon which sat Louis XVI, whose mild and frank
countenance expressed the honest man and the gentleman much more than
the king, Dr. Franklin bowed profoundly, and said:

“Sire, I desire to present to your Majesty Commodore Paul Jones, of the
American navy.”

“And I am heartily glad to see so great a hero,” responded Louis. Then
the same ceremony was gone through with the queen, whose grace and
beauty were then at their zenith.

Both of them entered into conversation with the two Americans. Never
were two men more congenial in general tastes and opinions than the
excellent Louis and the great Franklin. Louis admired Franklin’s genius,
and Franklin respected the king, who, although his youth was spent in
the most corrupt court in the world, yet grew up honest, temperate, and
moral. The beauty and enthusiasm of the young queen deeply impressed
Paul Jones. Little did he then think that lovely head would one day fall
under the axe of the guillotine!

The king’s chief attention, though, was bestowed upon Paul Jones, whom
he had long desired to meet.

“I wish to thank you,” he said, “for the very noble and interesting
account of your glorious cruise, that you wrote out at my request. But,
after all has been said, I am yet constrained to ask you, how could you
have accomplished the capture of the Serapis in the face of such
enormous odds?”

“By hard fighting, sire,” responded Paul Jones, with a smile; and the
king and the lovely queen both smiled at the manly simplicity of the
answer. The king then said:

“I understand that the British have tried Captain Pearson by
court-martial, and, considering the fact that he defended himself for
five hours against Commodore Paul Jones, they have not only acquitted
him, but have made him a baronet besides. He is now Sir Richard
Pearson.”

“Sire,” answered Paul Jones, “if I have the good fortune to meet him
again, I will make him a lord!”

At this the king laughed heartily, and repeated it to the queen; and
from that Paul Jones’s _bon mot_ went the rounds of Europe.

As they were about to leave, the king said to Paul Jones: “It is my
intention to show in some marked manner my approval of your brilliant
conduct and my appreciation of so brave an ally, and I design that you
shall receive it in your own country and among the plaudits of your
fellow-citizens. But all Europe will know it as well.”

Paul Jones bowed his thanks, while Dr. Franklin, in a few words,
expressed the gratitude the American Government and people would feel at
honors bestowed to their foremost naval hero. Then, with profound and
respectful bows, they left the presence of royalty.

Paul Jones’s popularity was still further increased by these marks of
kingly favor, and he became the fashion with the nobility and the court
people. No assembly was complete without him, and “_le brave
capitaine_,” as he was called, was surrounded by brilliant men and
beautiful women whenever he appeared in society. But what chiefly
pleased Paul Jones was the popular regard the masses had for him, and
the attentions paid him by the French naval and military men. These,
indeed, penetrated his soul. In a very little while the honors alluded
to by the king were announced to Paul Jones through the Minister of
Marine, M. de Sartine. A magnificent gold-hilted sword, inscribed
“_Vindicati Maris Ludovicus XVI Remunerator strenuo vindici_,” was
presented him, and the extraordinary honor of the cross of the Order of
Military Merit, which had never before been given to any but a
Frenchman. This last, however, he could not accept, as an American
officer, without the permission of Congress, and therefore the cross was
sent, with a most flattering letter to the French minister at
Philadelphia, with directions that Congress be asked to allow Paul Jones
to accept it—which permission was afterward enthusiastically granted.

The conferring of this last honor made Paul Jones a chevalier of the
Order of Military Merit, and he was already the Commodore of the
American Navy. But none of these titles were used by him. His cards bore
the simple but proud name of “_Paul Jones_.” He needed not titles or
distinctions; and, although he appreciated them, he knew that they could
not confer any title upon him that would add one iota to his reputation.



                             CHAPTER XVII.


The American commissioners were so poorly provided with money that they
could never secure Paul Jones a ship worthy of him, and the best they
could do was to get the Ariel, a French sloop of war. But Richard Dale
and Henry Lunt, together with nearly all the officers and men of the Bon
Homme Richard, were available for the Ariel, so that Paul Jones had the
same splendid company that had served under him in his last glorious
cruise.

A singular fatality seemed to attend all of Paul Jones’s departures from
port. He could never get the ship he wanted, or one worthy of him; nor
could he ever leave when he wished. Contrary winds detained him in the
roads of Groix for several weeks. When the wind finally changed, on the
morning of the 8th of October, there was every indication of squally
weather.

“Do you know,” said Paul Jones to Dale, whom he always treated with the
utmost confidence, “I have private information that Sir James Wallace,
in the Nonesuch line of battle ship, is waiting for me outside; and she,
you know, is copper sheathed, and one of the finest ships in the world.”

“But it is not written, Paul,” answered Dale, with an affectionate
smile, “that Paul Jones is ever to be taken by the British.”

The most affectionate intimacy had now grown up between the commodore
and his young lieutenant; and although Paul Jones was some years older
than Dale, the young lieutenant in private called his commander
“Paul.”[5] They were like an older and a younger brother. In public, the
strictest official etiquette was observed by both; yet when they were
alone they were like two boy friends in their tender friendship.

The wind increased in violence as they got out into the bay, and by
nightfall it was a roaring tempest. Then came up a storm of which, Paul
Jones himself wrote afterward, “until that night I did not fully
conceive the awful majesty of tempest and of shipwreck. I can give no
idea of the tremendous scene.... I believe no ship was ever before saved
from an equal danger off the point of the Penmarque rocks.”

These Penmarque rocks are among the most dangerous in the world, and lie
between L’Orient and Brest. The gale continued to increase, and on the
night of the 9th of October, when the Ariel had the Penmarques under her
lee, the storm became utterly terrific. The sky was of a dreadful
darkness, and the waves rushed up into great green mountain slopes, with
a crest of white phosphorus that made a weird and awful glare upon the
storm-swept ocean. Black as the sky was, it seemed to grow suddenly
blacker, as a great mass of clouds went flying over to the northwest,
where it formed a terrible bank that reached from the surface of the sea
to the arch of the heavens. The edges were of a luminous green, and
lightnings began to play upon the face of this awful cloud bank. It
spread quickly over the sky like a great black pall, and then a blast
burst forth. It was as if the cloud were a volcano, spouting wind, rain,
hail, thunders, and lightnings. A vast grayish-white veil of rain was
tossed by the screaming wind between heaven and earth, and rent by the
forked lightning.

The little Ariel, unable to show a single sail, staggered along,
trembling and shuddering like a human thing in mortal terror and agony.
The frightful buffeting of the waves had opened her seams, and water
poured into her both from below and above. The shrieking of the wind
through her cordage was like the howling of a thousand fiends. The guns
broke loose from their fastenings, and rolled over the decks with a
reverberation like the thunder which roared overhead. All night long
this lasted, and no officer or man left his post that night or closed
his eyes to sleep. The pumps were kept going, and every effort was made
to bring the ship’s head to the wind, but in vain.

It seemed as if Paul Jones was everywhere during those appalling hours
of the night, always calm, cool, and unruffled. “We are in the hands of
the good God,” he said to his men, “and if we have to meet Death, we
might as well meet him with a bold face as a sheepish one.”

As the guns rolled about the deck, adding a new horror and a new danger
to that of rocks and waves and storm, Dale, who had the deck, turned to
Paul Jones and said coolly:

“Commodore, what shall we do about these guns?”

“We can not afford to throw them overboard,” answered Paul Jones; “we
may have to fight the British by the time this storm is over. The
Nonesuch may not weather it, nor may we; this may be our last night of
life, but if we should survive, and should meet the Nonesuch, both of us
would make a shift to fight.”

Dale said no more. As the ship would lurch forward into a black abyss,
while above her hissed a mountain of water, the phosphorescent glare
would cast a pale and unearthly light upon the horrors that encompassed
her. The officers regarded her as a doomed ship, but the men had an
unshaken confidence in the seamanship of their commander. In after years
Dale declared: “Never saw I such coolness and readiness in such
frightful circumstances as Paul Jones showed in the nights and days when
he lay off the Penmarques, expecting every moment to be our last, and
the danger was greater even than that we were in on the Bon Homme
Richard when we fought the Serapis.”

In the last extremity Paul Jones let go sea anchors in the open ocean.
There the tortured ship rolled and pitched, her lower yardarms often
buried in the water, and unable, even with the help of all the anchors,
to get her head round to the wind. Toward three o’clock in the morning
Paul Jones shouted out the order he was never known to give before—for
he was averse to cutting away spars and throwing guns or stores
overboard—“Make ready, Mr. Dale, to cut away the foremast!”

The boatswain’s whistle could not be heard amid the confusion and the
uproar, but Dale called to Bill Green, and in a few minutes the sailors
were hacking the stout foremast away. It fell over the side with a
frightful crash, and was swallowed up instantly. The helm was then put
hard-a-lee, and the ship came up to the wind. But the mainmast was
pitched out of the step and reeled about like a drunken man. As the
great spar pounded the lower deck every soul on board expected it to
crash through the ship’s bottom. At last Paul Jones ordered that, too,
to be cut away, but before this could be done the chain plates gave way
and the mast broke short off at the gun deck, taking the mizzenmast with
it. The mizzenmast carried away the quarter gallery, and the scene of
wreck was dreadful. The Ariel, now a dismasted hulk, rolled helplessly
in the trough of the sea. Nothing more could be done but to keep the
pumps going and to await their fate.

Something of the indomitable spirit of Paul Jones seems to have inspired
every man under him, for he afterward spoke of the steady, composed
courage of his officers and men.

Two days and three nights did he spend in the midst of these horrors,
and when, on the 12th of October, the gale abated so that jury masts
could be rigged, the ship was almost a wreck. But it was not destined
that Paul Jones should perish on the ocean, and so he, without the loss
of a single man, made his way back to L’Orient. It was considered the
worst storm of the century, and the shores of Europe were strewed with
wrecks and dead bodies for days and weeks afterward.



                             CHAPTER XVIII.


So severe was the damage done the Ariel, that she was not able to leave
port again for America until the 18th of December. As she carried a very
valuable cargo of arms, besides important dispatches, and was weakly
armed, Paul Jones was directed by Dr. Franklin, who was still the
representative of America in France, to avoid rather than seek a
conflict with the enemy. To a man of Paul Jones’s temperament these
directions were almost impossible to follow. But fortunately for Dr.
Franklin, and perhaps fortunately for Paul Jones’s enemies, he had no
serious encounter until he was near the Island of Barbadoes. He had
chosen the southern passage, because his enemies expected him to take
the usual northern passage.

On a warm afternoon in the latter part of January, as the Ariel was
proceeding under a fair wind, a remarkably fast sailing frigate was
observed approaching on the opposite tack. The Ariel was deep in the
water with her heavy stores, and as Paul Jones appreciated the necessity
for prudence, he rather wished to avoid speaking the stranger, as she
was tolerably certain to be a British ship.

The officers were all on deck examining the frigate, when Paul Jones,
who had his glass to his eye, turned to them and said, smiling:

“I am sorry to disappoint you, gentlemen, but I don’t think we can ‘see’
her. She is too heavy for us, and sails too well. It is not our own
lives and fortunes that we would stake, but the arms for the soldiers of
Washington, and that would be an irreparable loss if we were captured.
So we must cut and run for it.”

The officers at once saw the wisdom of this, although they would have
dearly liked a brush with the beautiful frigate. Dale, however, in
turning around, caught sight of Bill Green, with Danny Dixon by his
side, and both of them on the broad grin. Bill’s mouth was literally
stretched from ear to ear.

“What is it, Green?” asked Dale, who was a great favorite with the
veteran quartermaster, “what are you smiling at?”

“I ain’t a-smilin’, sir,” replied Bill, showing every tooth in his mouth
in a perfectly phenomenal grin, while Danny openly “snickered” behind
his hand.

“What are you doing then?” inquired Dale, smiling in spite of himself.

“Well, then, sir, since you axes me,” replied Bill, trying to look very
solemn, and putting up his hand to conceal his laughter, “the cap’n says
as he ain’t got no notion o’ fightin’ that ’ere craft. I reckon he
_thinks_ he ain’t, but if Cap’n Paul Jones kin come within range o’ a
British ship without takin’ a shot at her, why, sir, my name ain’t Bill
Green, and I ain’t never see Cap’n Paul Jones. That’s all, sir.” At
which Bill ended with a suppressed guffaw, and Dale himself winked
knowingly.

“Be careful what you say of the captain,” said Dale, with another wink;
“he’s got no notion of fighting. She’s too heavy for us, and you know
the captain never tackles a ship that’s too heavy for him,” and Dale
winked prodigiously at every word he uttered.

“That’s true, sir,” grinned Bill, “but if you’ll excuse a old fellow,
Mr. Dale, I see you has on a new uniform, sir, and I’d be advisin’ of
you to git out your old clo’es, because it jest might happen, sir, that
the Britisher might fire at us; and then, axerdentally, sir, somebody
might pull a lockstring, and the port might be open, sir, and the shot
might hit the Britisher, and then, without the cap’n a-wantin’ it, as
knowin’ as how the enemy was too heavy for him, he might have to fight
agin his will. ’Tain’t ornlikely, sir, that somethin’ might come of it,
and the cap’n may _have_ to fight, sir, though he mortially hates to.”

Dale passed on laughing, went below, and took Bill Green’s advice; he
took off his new undress uniform, and put on another one rather the
worse for wear. Just as he was finishing his toilet, Danny Dixon tapped
at the door of his cabin.

“If you please, sir, the cap’n sends his compliments, and wants to see
you on deck.”

In a few moments Dale was on deck. As he walked up to Paul Jones, the
captain said:

“I looked about for you, and my boy told me you had gone below to
shift.”

“Yes,” answered Dale, with a gleam in his eyes. “We know that you don’t
care to tackle that ship; she’s too heavy for us, and you never like to
fight except when you are on an equality; but all the same, as Bill
Green says, ‘something may come of it,’ so I went below to take off my
uniform, which is a little too good to wear upon such an occasion as
_may_ arise.”

Paul Jones looked sternly at Dale for a moment, and then, in spite of
himself, burst out laughing.

Nevertheless, the Ariel carried all sail to escape the ship, which was
now evidently pursuing. As darkness came on the Ariel seemed to be
gaining, and during the night watches the officers reported that she was
completely out of sight. Just as the darkness melted into dawn, however,
Paul Jones, who had been on deck several times during the night,
appeared, and as the faint gray of the early light illumined the sky he
pointed astern. There was the frigate, flying a British ensign, and not
more than a mile away.

Without drumbeat, or any noise whatever, the Ariel was cleared for
action. She was not sailing her best, owing to her deeply laden
condition, and Paul Jones ordered everything thrown overboard that could
impede her sailing and fighting qualities. This so much improved the
sailing of the ship that she now stretched her legs in earnest.
Everybody on board felt perfectly certain that the captain meant to
fight, but as the frigate was now plainly pursuing the American sloop of
war, Paul Jones wished to test the sailing and manœuvring of his ship
under her lighter conditions before engaging. This conduct evidently
puzzled the frigate, and the state of uncertainty was further increased
by the Ariel hoisting British colors, but occasionally firing a stern
chaser as she ran away. At last, toward night, Paul Jones, having made
all his preparations, the Ariel hauled up her mainsail, took in her
royal yards, and waited for her enemy. She had not yet hoisted her
American colors, but her batteries were lighted up and her ports open.

“Why, Green,” said Dale, passing him, as Danny Dixon appeared with a
string of battle lanterns ready to be lighted, “it looks as if we were
going to have a brush, after all.”

“It do, sir,” answered Bill solemnly. “The cap’n mortially hated it, and
it do seem funny he couldn’t help it when the ship was gittin’ over the
water so much faster than she was in the beginnin’. It puzzles me, it
do,” he added, shaking his head waggishly.

The two ships were now within hail. It was Paul Jones’s intention to
send up the American ensign as soon as the enemy had got near enough to
recognize it in the fast gathering gloom, but the sailor who had hoisted
the British ensign had not taken care to make fast the other end of the
halyards, so as to draw it down rapidly, and there was some difficulty
in getting the British colors down and the American colors up. This
enabled the British ship to range up close under the lee quarter of the
Ariel.

The short tropical twilight was fast deepening into night, but a
brilliant moon trembled in the heavens, and the dark-blue dome was
flecked with stars. The two ships lay close to each other, like phantom
ships upon the water, but the light from their lanterns and batteries
glowed redly.

In the midst of a deathlike silence Lieutenant Lunt’s voice rang out the
questions given him in a whisper by Paul Jones, who stood near him.

“Ship ahoy! What ship is that?” asked Lunt.

“His Majesty’s ship Triumph,” replied the British captain.

“Of how many guns?” asked Lunt.

Everybody awaited the answer to this in breathless silence. There was a
long pause, and Lunt repeated his question.

The answer came back purposely unintelligible. Officers and men cast
significant glances around. That meant the British ship was ready to
fight if the stranger should prove an enemy.

“What is the name of your captain?” was next asked.

“Captain John Pindar.”

“Any news from the rebels?” asked Lunt.

This threw the British captain off his guard, particularly as the sailor
had not yet been able to get the British colors down, and they were
still flying. Captain Pindar came to the rail of the Triumph and gave a
long account of affairs in America, which were progressing badly for the
British. After all the information possible had been obtained, most of
which was highly satisfactory to the Americans, Paul Jones himself
called out:

“Put out your boat and come on board, bringing your commission, so that
I can see whether you are really in the British navy or not.”

At this Captain Pindar’s suspicions were excited, and it was some
moments before he replied:

“You have not told me who you are, and, besides, my boat is leaky.”

Just then the British colors came down and the American ensign was
hoisted.

“Look at my ensign,” cried Paul Jones, “and consider the danger of
refusing.”

To this the British captain pluckily replied:

“I will answer for twenty guns on my ship, and I and every one of my
people are Englishmen.”

“I will give you five minutes to make up your mind to come on board,”
said Paul Jones, “and if you do not, at the end of that time I shall
fire into you.”

Then, all at once, the people on the Triumph waked up to their danger.
The five minutes were spent in hurried preparation by them, but on the
Ariel every man was at his station, and not one moved or spoke.

The five minutes being up, the Ariel backed her topsails, ran close
under the stern of the Triumph, and let fly her broadside. The men in
the tops also gave a volley. The British, unprepared, fired
ineffectively and without order. The Triumph was so obviously at the
mercy of the Ariel that within ten minutes her colors were hauled down
and a cry for quarter resounded. Instantly the order to cease firing was
given, and the Americans gave three cheers. But while they were yet
cheering they observed that the British ship had shaken out her sails
and was drawing ahead. The smoke of the two or three broadsides fired
hid her for a moment, and when it drifted off the Triumph was observed
to be some distance off on the weather quarter of the Ariel, and
tacking.

Paul Jones instantly suspected the treachery of the Triumph’s captain,
because it is a part of the code of morals in war that a surrender
should be in good faith, particularly when quarter has been asked for
and given. The Ariel immediately set her mainsail and made after the
fleeing ship. But it was in vain. The Triumph had too long a lead, and,
the night suddenly becoming dark, she was lost to sight. Although Paul
Jones had conquered, his prey had escaped.

The Americans were indignant, but indignation could do no good. They
then resumed their course toward America, and on the 18th of February,
1781, the Ariel cast anchor in the harbor of Philadelphia. Paul Jones
had been absent from America three years, three months, and eighteen
days. In that time he had struck terror upon the coasts of England,
Scotland, and Ireland; he had defied the might of England, had
vanquished every enemy with which he had fought, and had made himself
one of the heroes of the sea, whose name will live as long as ships
traverse the ocean.



                              CHAPTER XIX.


The reception of Paul Jones by the Congress at Philadelphia was one
suitable to his great services. On the 27th of February, Congress passed
a resolution reciting that “The Congress entertains a high sense of the
distinguished bravery and military conduct of Paul Jones, Esq., captain
in the navy of the United States, and particularly in his victory over
the British frigate Serapis, on the coast of England, which was attended
with circumstances so brilliant as to excite general applause and
admiration.

“That the Minister Plenipotentiary of these United States at the Court
of Versailles communicate to His Most Christian Majesty the high
satisfaction Congress has received from the conduct and gallant behavior
of Captain Paul Jones, which have merited the attention and approbation
of His Most Christian Majesty, and that His Majesty’s offer of adorning
Captain Jones with the cross of the Order of Military Merit is highly
acceptable to Congress.”

                      [Illustration: _Paul Jones._
                       (Drawn from a Portrait.)]

On the 28th of March, Congress passed another resolution severely
censuring Captain Landais, who had then been court-martialed and
dismissed the navy, and saying of Paul Jones, after enumerating his
actions: “Ever since Captain Paul Jones first became an officer in the
service of these States he hath shown an unremitted attention in
planning and executing enterprises calculated to promote the essential
interests of our glorious cause. That in Europe, although his expedition
through the Irish Channel in the Ranger did not fully accomplish his
purpose, yet he made the enemy feel that it is in the power of a small
squadron, under a brave and enterprising commander, to retaliate the
conflagrations of our defenseless towns. That, returning from Europe, he
brought with him the esteem of the greatest and best friends of America,
and hath received from the illustrious monarch of France that reward of
warlike virtue which his subjects receive by a long series of faithful
services or uncommon merit. That the conduct of Paul Jones merits
particular attention and some distinguished mark of approbation from the
United States, in Congress assembled.”

On the 14th of April the distinguished mark of approbation was granted,
in the form of the thanks of Congress, as follows:

“That the thanks of the United States, in Congress assembled, be given
to Captain Paul Jones, for the zeal, prudence, and intrepidity with
which he has supported the honor of the American flag; for his bold and
successful enterprises to redeem from captivity the citizens of the
States who had fallen under the power of the enemy; and, in general, for
the good conduct and eminent services by which he has added luster to
his character and to the American arms.

“That the thanks of the United States, in Congress assembled, be also
given to the officers and men who have faithfully served under him from
time to time, for their steady affection to the cause of their country
and the bravery and perseverance they have manifested therein.”

Following this, there were numerous letters from eminent patriots, and a
truly affectionate one from Lafayette, ending with: “As to the pleasure
of taking you by the hand, my dear Paul Jones, you know my affectionate
sentiments and my very great regard for you, so that I need not add
anything on that subject.”

Greatest of all, came a letter from Washington himself, which said:

“Delicacy forbids me to mention _that particular one_, which has
attracted the admiration of all the world.... That you may long enjoy
the reputation you have so justly acquired, is the sincere wish of,
                   “Sir, your most obedient servant,
                                                      “Geo. Washington.”

Upon the official examination of his report, Paul Jones proudly
answered, in response to an interrogatory, “I have never borne or acted
under any other commission than that of the Congress of America.” His
accounts also showed that he had not up to that time received a penny
either as pay or subsistence.

Upon a beautiful spring day, the French minister, M. de Luzerne, gave a
grand _fête_ at Philadelphia, for the purpose of investing Paul Jones
with the cross of the Order of Military Merit, sent him by the King of
France. All the Congress was invited, and all of the army and navy
officers then in Philadelphia were present in full uniform, besides the
leading citizens of Philadelphia, and entertainment was especially
provided for the sailors who had served under Paul Jones, as well as the
officers. The guests assembled in the afternoon, and at four o’clock
precisely M. de Luzerne and Paul Jones walked together to the center of
the lawn, under a grove of noble trees. The scene was brilliant and
beautiful, the white dresses of the women and the bright Continental
uniforms of the men showing bravely against the green turf. On a tall
flagstaff floated together the Stars and Stripes and the _Fleur-de-lis_
of France. Conspicuously massed together were the brave blue jackets who
had served under Paul Jones and his officers, in full uniform, with the
ever-loved Dale at their head. A military band played inspiring airs as
M. de Luzerne and Paul Jones advanced to the center of the great circle.
Paul Jones, wearing the full uniform of an American captain and his
gold-hilted sword, and carrying in his hand his blue-and-gold cap, was a
picture of manliness and modesty. His face was pale, but his eyes were
gleaming. He had fought for glory, and glory had been lavished upon him.
The French ambassador, in a loud voice, spoke:

“Patriots: His Most Christian Majesty, whom I have the honor to serve,
desiring to show his affection for the cause of America, and for the
gallant and shining conduct of Captain Paul Jones, has directed me, as a
knight of the Order of Military Merit, to confer upon Captain Paul Jones
the cross of this noble order. This has never before been given to any
man not a citizen of France. But were it not for Paul Jones’s devotion
to America, well might France claim him as her son, so well has he
served her cause and that of her allies.” Then, turning to Paul Jones,
he held up a splendid jeweled cross, and said:

“Therefore, I, in the name of my master, the king, do now invest you
with this cross; and may you live long to wear this glorious emblem!” A
roar of cheers broke forth and resounded through the still and lovely
air. The “hoorays” of the blue jackets, led by handsome Bill Green, were
heard over all the rest, and Danny Dixon, the picture of a sailor, in
his smart and handsome uniform, suddenly began to dance a hornpipe in
the excess of his delight.

A mist came before Paul Jones’s eyes. The affection, the respect, and
the admiration of the people he had tried to serve was inexpressibly
sweet to him, and as he caught sight of “Old Glory,” that floated
proudly in the golden sunset light, he could say to his own heart, “I
promised to attend that flag with veneration, and I have done it to the
best of my power, and without fear or reproach.” Next him stood Dale,
his best beloved friend and lieutenant. Paul Jones laid his hand on
Dale’s shoulder, and together they watched the inspiring scene.

“My captain,” said Dale, after a moment, “I have a feeling here”—he
touched his breast—“which tells me that when the day of conflict is
over, and our country takes her stand as the greatest republic upon the
earth, you will be ranked first among those who maintained her honor on
the seas; and the name of Paul Jones will be linked with so much glory
that every American sea officer will envy those who can say with pride,
as I do, ‘_I served under Paul Jones!_’”


                                THE END.



                               FOOTNOTES


[1]This was the first flag of the Revolution—a pine tree with a
   rattlesnake under it, bearing the bold motto, “Don’t tread on me.”

[2]The songs in this story are not original.

[3]Meaning his appointment to command the American ships in foreign
   waters.

[4]This incident is historically true.

[5]Cooper mentions the peculiar tenderness of Dale’s tone, when, in his
   latter days, he spoke of his old captain as “Paul.”



                          Transcriber’s Notes


--Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public
  domain in the country of publication.

--Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and
  dialect unchanged.

--In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the
  HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)





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