“The good-for-nothing! What can he do, with his low, tavern talk?” they asked in scorn. “His stories may do for a bar-room, but for such a fellow to speak in such an important case will be an insult to the court.”
The courtroom was well filled on the day of the trial. The opposing lawyers had promised to make short work of Patrick Henry, and teach him a lesson he would not soon forget. There was a strange stillness when the young man rose to speak. At first he seemed unable to control his voice, and some of those present nudged each other and whispered: “He’s going to break down! I told you so. He ought to have known better than attempt a big case like this.”
Then young Henry’s will seemed to come to his rescue. He straightened up. His face flushed eagerly. His eyes blazed with indignation. His words soon came in a torrent of eloquence. He declared that the people of Virginia had the right to make their own laws and that if the King interfered he was no longer the father of his people, but a tyrant whom they need not obey. The jury, carried away by the young lawyer’s fiery appeal, decided that the parsons should have only one penny more money.
The people who had come to sneer now began to cheer. They carried the young lawyer out of the courthouse on their shoulders.
That success showed that the “ne’er-do-well” was really a great lawyer. After that Patrick Henry spent his time in his law office instead of going fishing or loafing about the hotel. He studied to improve his mind, and practiced in correcting his errors of speech, while learning to make good use of his new-found gift of speaking in public.
Honors were showered, thick and fast, on the fiery lawyer. Other cases were brought to him and he won them right and left. Soon he was sent to the House of Burgesses, or the legislature of Virginia.
When other leaders hesitated to take the steps necessary to obtain their rights, Patrick Henry did not falter. He seemed to see farther than other men into the future. He made the halls of the lawmakers ring for liberty, beginning his great liberty speeches ten years before the colonies were prepared to meet and declare their independence.
When Virginians were sent to the first Congress of the United Colonies in Philadelphia, Patrick Henry was one of those chosen to go with George Washington and Richard Henry Lee. Here, in a fiery speech, Patrick Henry exclaimed: “I am not a Virginian—I am an American!” He had to leave Congress before signing the Declaration of Independence; but soon after he became the first governor of Virginia, which was now no longer a British colony but a new state. He was four times elected governor of the state.
Patrick Henry was “the firebrand of the Revolution”; that is, his burning words spread like a prairie fire from south to north, and inspired the people with a burning zeal for liberty which could not be quenched till all thirteen colonies had gained their independence and had become the United States of America.
It has been said that Patrick Henry “rocked the world with his voice.” The best known of his speeches was made just a few weeks before the battle of Lexington, which was the first skirmish of the Revolution. Here are the closing words of that great speech:
“Gentlemen may cry, ‘Peace! Peace!’—but there is no peace. The war is actually begun. The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field. Why stand we here idle? What is it the gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but, as for me, give me Liberty or give me Death!”
NATHAN HALE was a country boy, the sixth of ten children. When he was twelve his mother died. It had been her wish that Nathan should study to be a minister. So the lad entered Yale College when he was only fourteen. Young as he was, Nathan became president of the debating society. He was a big, strong, handsome fellow, full of fun and fond of sports. He was best at what was known as the broad jump. For many years “the Hale jump” made the record for the college. He was a strong swimmer and excelled in shooting at the mark. In going about the college grounds, Hale was often seen placing one hand on top of a six-foot fence and vaulting over it with ease. One of his chums has told how Nathan would stand in one hogshead, with his hands on his hips, and jump up out of that into the second hogshead; then, in the same manner, leap into the third hogshead and from there out on the ground—“all without touching.” His athletic feats were so wonderful that the boys used to boast of the things “Young Hale” did for “Old Yale.”
When he was seventeen, the young athlete also showed himself such a ready and eloquent speaker that he was chosen for the highest honors of the debating society. One address of his is still kept in the records of Yale University. One of the questions he proposed and took part in debating was: “Is it right to enslave the Africans?”
Right after his graduation, at the age of eighteen, young Hale began to teach school and do tutoring besides, to pay his way while studying to be a minister. But early in 1775, when he had been teaching less than two years, the news of the first battles in the War for Independence fired the fervent soul of the young patriot, and he joined the army.
Nathan Hale was appointed lieutenant in a company sent by Connecticut, his native state, to become part of General Washington’s army which was trying to take the city of Boston, then in the hands of the British. The army then was without uniforms, proper arms, or training. During the summer Lieutenant Hale “turned” twenty-one and was promoted to the rank of captain.
When the time for which the Connecticut men had enlisted was nearly up, the young captain was shocked and hurt to find that some of the men in his own company were not willing to serve a little longer. Here is a short, signed entry he made in his camp-book in November:
“28. Tuesday. Promised the men if they would tarry another month they should have my wages for that time. Nathan Hale.”
The youthful Connecticut officer and some of his men were among the few who stayed till the British were driven out of Boston by sea. After this the commander-in-chief, foreseeing that New York must be the next point of attack for the British, sent all his soldiers on ahead to that city. In the first brigade to go was Captain Nathan Hale, with as many of his little company as he could command.
While officers like Hale were recruiting new soldiers and drilling the raw recruits, Washington went to consult with the Congress then in session at Philadelphia. During this visit he designed the first American flag and ordered it made. It was the summer of the Declaration of Independence.
Washington and his untrained troops, less than fourteen thousand in number, had to defend and hold New York City, Brooklyn, and the surrounding country against an army nearly three times as large. The British troops under General Howe were well fitted out and trained, and were aided by a fleet of warships commanded by the general’s brother, Admiral Lord Howe. The Howes and their regular soldiers thought it would be an easy matter for their army, numbering three to one of their enemies, to capture the American army and carry Washington and the other ring-leaders of the rebellion back to England to be hanged for treason.
When, late in August, Washington learned that Howe was landing his army on Long Island from Staten Island, he sent General Putnam to meet and hold the British back. As the British outnumbered Putnam’s company five to one, this was impossible, and the Americans retreated to their defenses. This engagement was called the battle of Long Island. At nightfall the British encamped around the cornered Americans, and the commander told his staff that they would take that “nest of rebels” in the morning.
A dense fog came in from the sea, and Washington, under cover of it, got as many boats together as his sailor soldiers could manage, and they rowed away from Long Island in the silent watches of the night. Next morning, when Howe came to capture the nest, the birds had flown.
Washington was now forced to fly with his army from place to place, and the danger of being captured was greater than before. So he needed to learn, if possible, what General Howe’s plans were. Captain Nathan Hale was selected for this dangerous service.
There were some people in the colonies who believed that Washington was a traitor and that his men were rebels. These people called themselves Loyalists, but others called them Tories. Because of Nathan Hale’s frank face and sincere manner it was thought that he could make friends with these Tories and find out what was desired through them and their friends, the British officers. Also, he was an educated gentleman. He could take a position as tutor in the family of a rich Tory. British officers visited these Loyalists and often discussed plans with them.
Captain Hull, a college friend of Captain Hale’s, was now an army comrade also. When he heard that Hale was chosen, he called to beg him not to go as a spy. He argued:
“Your nature is too frank and open for deceit and disguise. General Washington—nor any commander—has a right to ask you to assume the garb of friendship for the betrayal of others.”
Hale hesitated a moment at this, but when he spoke his voice was clear and firm:
“I think I owe it to my country to do the thing which seems so important to General Washington, and I know of no other way of getting the desired information than by assuming a disguise and passing into the enemy’s camp.”
“But,” urged his friend almost in despair, “think of the disgrace of it! If you were caught, you would be hanged as a criminal! Dear Nathan, I beg of you, don’t go.”
Nathan Hale could not help being deeply moved. He said gently: “He took upon himself the disguise of the men He came to live among, for the good of many and the cause of the right. He was arrested and hanged—on a cross! Who am I that I should set up my judgment against His example and General Washington’s will?”
Still, Captain Hull could not give up. He has left on record his last attempt to persuade the young man whose love of country had become a religion: “I urged him for the love of country, for the love of kindred, to abandon an enterprise which would only end in the sacrifice of the dearest interests of both. He paused—then, affectionately taking my hand, he said, ‘I will reflect, and do nothing but what duty demands.’ He was absent from the army and I feared he had gone to the British lines to execute his fatal purpose.”
Naturally very little is known of the spy in the few weeks that followed. Sergeant Hempstead has told of going with him to the point chosen for crossing on a waiting sloop to Long Island, many miles from the British camp. Hempstead says Hale was then “dressed in a brown suit of citizen’s clothes, with a round, broad-brimmed hat.” When the captain and the sergeant wrung each other’s hands in farewell, Nathan Hale gave into Hempstead’s care his private papers and letters and his shoe-buckles. The letters were to Hale’s aged father and to the girl whom he expected to marry.
At the end of several weeks Nathan Hale had succeeded in carrying out General Washington’s instructions, even to making a number of sketches. So far as he knew, he had not been suspected. This, he thought, was rather surprising, for there were Tories everywhere.
It was late in September, “in the dark of the moon,” when Hale slipped away from the British on Long Island and strolled down to the water’s edge where he was to meet the sloop and sail back to his own army. He waited some time for the ship, but it did not come. After some delay a sailboat came in sight and made up to the shore. He was greatly relieved, for it did not occur to him that there was anything wrong. As the boat drew near he hailed it with a happy shout. When it was too late, Hale saw that some of the men in the boat were in British uniform. In a moment more, he was their prisoner. He had been betrayed—it was never known by whom. He had a Tory cousin who was blamed at first, but his innocence was proven in time.
He was taken to General Howe’s headquarters. The telltale sketches and data were found in his shoes. He did not attempt to deny that he was a spy. It was not necessary to try him after he confessed. He was turned over to the provost marshal to be hanged next day.
Of course, no one knows what Nathan Hale thought that last night, but it may well be believed that he did not waste his last hours in despairing regrets. If he was permitted to write farewell letters that night, they were never delivered. In the morning Hale asked if he might speak with a minister, but that was curtly denied him. “Will you lend me a Bible a moment, then?” was his dying request. “No!” snapped the marshal.
A kind-hearted British officer, who noticed the pure, honest face of the young American spy, offered him shelter from the sun in his tent during a brief delay. The heart of this enemy captain was touched, and it was he who preserved Nathan Hale’s noble words for future ages. If the young spy could have known that his death would strengthen the hearts of patriots to fight for liberty, and that what he was about to say would go resounding down the ages, it would have added to his joy that hot September day. A poet has described the moment when they came and led him out:
They led him to an apple tree near at hand. While they were fastening his arms behind him and tying a rope around his ankles, he gazed up into the tree. On his handsome face rested the resigned expression which is shown in the bronze and marble statues of Nathan Hale in the Yale yard where he used to play, and in the park before City Hall, in New York.
“Well, have you any confession to make?” asked the marshal. This called Nathan Hale’s mind back. He smiled at the needless question, for he had confessed the night before and had thus made a trial unnecessary. Hesitating only a moment, he answered the officer with simple courtesy, in the bravest words ever uttered by mortal man:
“I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”
IN a great stone building among the tree-covered hills in the south of France there lived a little boy who at birth received fourteen names and titles. He belonged to the noble French family of the Lafayettes, who had been knights for at least seven hundred years. The boy never saw his father, for shortly before the child was born, his brave young soldier father was killed in a battle with the English. The home in which this fatherless boy lived was a castle, but it looked like a great prison or a modern storage warehouse with a huge, round tower at each end. Across its few small windows were iron bars.
Out of all the Lafayette boy’s names, the family called him Gilbert. When he was eleven years old Gilbert was sent to a school in Paris where sons from French gentlemen’s families were taught the things it was thought proper for young nobles to know. First of all, they studied heraldry, which explained the coats-of-arms of their royal and noble relations and was really a sort of family history of France. The boys also learned to ride and to fence and to talk politely—even wittily, if they happened to be bright enough. Besides their own French language they learned Latin so that they could write and even speak it. Then the youths who had a taste for history were instructed in that study, not the history of the whole French people, but the records of the royal and great families, and the battles and schemes of the kings and princes.
In this boys’ college the rooms were very small, dark, and narrow, like prison cells, and the pupils were locked in at night. Gilbert was never allowed a holiday. If his mother came to see him she was permitted to talk with him in the presence of a tutor, almost as if he were a prisoner. The masters feared that a good, motherly chat with her son would distract the boy’s mind from his studies.
Madame de Lafayette wished to do all she could to help her son in his future life. So she moved to Paris and was presented at court; that is, she was introduced to the king and queen and the highest nobles of France. When Gilbert was thirteen his mother died, leaving her son almost alone in the world. He had a rich uncle who might have been his guardian, but he also died, leaving young Lafayette another fortune and making him a very wealthy marquis.
Boys and girls in French noble families were often betrothed in infancy and brought up expecting to marry each other when old enough. Marriage seemed to be rather a question of the family fortunes than of the young people’s real love for each other. When young Marquis de Lafayette was left without parents to plan a proper marriage for him, a rich duke who was a great favorite with King Louis decided to arrange for the orphan boy to marry his own daughter Adrienne. In order to bring this about, Adrienne’s parents invited Gilbert de Lafayette to come and live in their palace, where they all could care for him as a son until it was proper for him to marry their daughter. There was a wonderful wedding when Lafayette was sixteen and Adrienne fourteen years old.
From that time, besides all the wealth of the Lafayettes, the riches of his father-in-law, the duke, gave the young marquis a splendid position at the court of France. If the boy bridegroom only had enjoyed that sort of high life he might have been very happy. But the things which interested the young nobleman were of quite a different sort. While he was at a dinner, in honor of a younger brother of George the Third, king of England, he heard that the American people had started their fight for independence. Lafayette’s sympathies for the unhappy people across the sea were so aroused that he began at once to plan to leave his palace home, his lovely young wife, and his baby daughter, in order to help the American people in their struggle. To find out how best to do this, he went to see Dr. Franklin and Silas Deane, the agents for the United States in France. Knowing how much the American people needed Lafayette’s money and influence, these statesmen encouraged him in every way.
The young marquis fitted out a ship and made ready to start, taking with him several Frenchmen of high rank who also expected to be made officers in the American Army. But Lafayette’s father-in-law did not relish the youth’s idea of fighting for the common people against kings and nobles, so he persuaded the king to order the marquis not to leave the country. In spite of King Louis’s command, Lafayette walked on board his own ship, under the detectives’ noses, disguised as the bodyservant of a stranger from another country who also was going to fight for American liberty.
The Marquis de Lafayette reached the American army, near Philadelphia, after many dangers and hardships. General Washington could not help smiling at the earnestness of “Major-General” Lafayette, aged nineteen, who could command only as much of the English language as he had learned while crossing the Atlantic. Though “the Marquis,” as everyone learned to call him, volunteered to serve anywhere without pay, Washington offered him a place on his staff. Once when the commander-in-chief asked Lafayette how to improve the discipline of the American troops, the noble youth replied, “I am here, General, to learn, not to teach.”
General Lafayette received his first wound in the Battle of Brandywine, where he fought hard to keep the British back from Philadelphia. While riding his horse at the head of his men he was shot in the leg. He recovered from this wound in time to come to Valley Forge and suffer with Washington the hardships of the long, bitter winter there.
While at Valley Forge the young general was sent to keep the British from coming out from Philadelphia and attacking the American camp. Lafayette took his station at Barren Hill near the Schuylkill River. When the British commander had word of this he sent out three companies to surround the boy general from three directions, and make him their prisoner. So sure were they of making this capture that they planned a dinner in honor of their noble French prisoner, and invited their friends in Philadelphia to be present and meet the Marquis de Lafayette.
But the boy general was too shrewd for them all. Quick as a flash he saw a way out of the trap they had set for him. Ordering the heads of his columns to stand in the edge of a grove where they could be seen as if in battle array, he ordered a retreat by a secret path. When the three British lines marched up the hill, even the Americans in the edge of the woods had disappeared, and the companies only met one another and looked sheepish as they marched down again. Their game had gotten away, and they had to eat that dinner without their prisoner-guest.
Howe and his men soon heard that the French were sending ships and men to help their American friends, so they went away from Philadelphia as quickly as possible. On the way to New York, Washington met them and gave battle at Monmouth, New Jersey. He appointed General Lafayette second in command; but General Charles Lee was offended because “that French boy” was placed above him. To relieve his chief, Lafayette gave up the command. This was the battle in which Lee disobeyed Washington’s command and prevented the American army from winning a real victory. It was Lafayette who saw that something was going wrong and helped to save the day for the Americans.
Hearing of his wife’s illness and his little daughter’s death, Lafayette asked leave of absence to go home to France. He returned to America as soon as he could, after persuading the French government to send more money, more men, and more ships to help bring the long war with England to an end. Soon after his return, “the Marquis” was sent with his regiment to meet Cornwallis and defend Virginia.
Cornwallis laughed when he saw that “the Boy” had been sent against him. But “the Boy” was more than a match for the British commander in the south. He kept retreating and advancing up and down the James River. One day Cornwallis would think he was trapping Lafayette, but the next day he found himself only moving farther from his base of supplies. “The Boy” did this just to gain time, for he had learned that the expected fleet was in American waters with a French army on board, and that Washington was on his way down from near New York to meet the French ships and men and surround Cornwallis. It was now the British general’s turn to retreat. He retired to Yorktown, where he was surrounded by the Americans and French and was soon forced to surrender.
As soon as the fighting was ended, General Washington gave a dinner to the French officers and their English prisoner, Lord Cornwallis. The defeated general was so well treated by Washington and his men that the two commanders became good friends.
When the Americans had gained their independence, General Lafayette returned to France, where he was received as a hero, even by the king whose command he had disobeyed by running away to help America. The people were so fond of the brave young marquis, that King Louis appointed him a marshal of France, though he was only twenty-four.
The French Revolution soon broke out, but it was very different from the American Revolution, because the people of France had the wrong idea of liberty. They killed the king, the queen, and many of the nobles in a savage and cruel way. They even imprisoned and put to death some of their early leaders, who loved liberty, but who were not willing to do such savage deeds to obtain it. Lafayette was one of the lovers of liberty who suffered much from the French people during the Revolution, because he did not believe in going to extremes.
Washington and Lafayette did not forget each other. They wrote devoted letters to each other as if they were father and son. The French nobleman named his son for Washington, who, during the troublous years in France, received and cared for the boy as if he were a grandson.
Nearly fifty years after Lafayette’s first coming to America, he made his fourth voyage to our country, bringing with him his son, George Washington de Lafayette. He came, at the invitation of President Monroe and Congress, as the guest of the United States. Because of the enthusiasm with which he was welcomed all over the country, his visit was remembered as one of the brightest times in the history of the United States.
One hundred and forty years after the Marquis de Lafayette’s first coming to help America, four millions of American young men were enrolled to rescue republican France from her brutal enemy. A million soldiers had crossed the ocean, and another million were on their way when a company of Americans visited the last resting-place of Lafayette. As they laid a wreath upon the tomb of the “Friend of America,” General Pershing, the commander of the American forces, exclaimed, “Lafayette, we are here!”
OF the millions of boys who have had “sea fever,” perhaps none suffered with it more than John Paul, a bright, sandy-haired Scotch lad. His father was a gardener on the estate of a noble lord. John went to school but little, yet he studied hard while he was there. He had learned to sail a boat quite well when he had a chance, at twelve years old, to go to America as a cabin boy. When the owner of the ship soon after failed in business, John Paul entered the Royal Navy as a midshipman. He learned all he could in the short time he was a “middy,” but, as his father was poor, he saw no chance to get ahead there.
He left the navy and found work on a merchant ship running between Scotland and the West Indies. Coming back from a voyage to Jamaica, the ship’s captain and mate both died, and John Paul, though still a mere boy, sailed the ship home. So he became a captain before he was twenty. In those days, shipmasters treated their men roughly, and once young Captain Paul had to flog the ship’s carpenter. The man died some time afterward of fever, and, to spite the young shipmaster, he claimed that he had been fatally injured by John Paul’s cruelty. After that, on another voyage, the sailors mutinied or turned against their captain, and tried to kill him. In self-defense the young master knocked the leader down stairs and he died of the fall.
The next time John Paul was heard from, he was living in America with a wealthy man named Jones. It was just at the beginning of the War for Independence, and the young Scotchman was so in love with liberty and the new country that he decided to become an American. In doing this he took the name of his new-found friend Jones. Instead of John Paul, the British subject, he now called himself Paul Jones, American. He went to the Congress in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, in May, 1775, to offer his services. He was promptly given command of several ships to defend the colonies against Great Britain. The next year the Declaration of Independence was signed. On the 14th of June, 1777, the Congress appointed him to the command of the American ship-of-war, Ranger. On the same day the Congress adopted a flag and made this record:
“Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, and that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”
Captain Paul Jones had a silk flag made at once and raised it on the Ranger, on the first birthday of the United States, July 4th, 1777. The first voyage of this ship was to France, and the young United States captain announced to the French admiral, in the harbor he was about to enter, that he would expect the French fleet to salute the new American flag. After some delay, the French officer consented and the Ranger sailed into port between two rows of French ships-of-war, which had French flags flying, and French sailors and soldiers manning the yardarms, and cannon booming all along the line, in honor of the Stars and Stripes. That was a great day for the United States, for this was the first time a foreign kingdom recognized the new republic of America.
France not only treated the United States as an equal, but she went to war with England and helped the Americans win their independence. Captain Jones was a little, peppery man, and had been an American only two years, but he was trying to make up for lost time. He believed so much in the people’s right to be free, that he considered being an American citizen the highest honor in the world. He begged the high French officials and Doctor Franklin, who represented the United States in France, to let him take the Ranger out and fight England all by himself. The British had taken American prisoners and treated them as spies and traitors, instead of as prisoners of war. Captain Jones wished to capture some British prisoners and teach the enemy how prisoners of war should be treated.
When the Americans in Paris and the French tried to convince the brave little captain that it would be dangerous for him to go out with but one ship, he replied that he liked nothing better than “going into harm’s way,” and he finally went. He waited outside an English port till the warship Drake came out. The British commander stared at the new flag, for he had never seen it before. “What ship is that?” he asked. “It is the American ship Ranger.” Some one on the Drake made fun of the new flag, saying it looked like a patchwork quilt. “Very well,” retorted Captain Jones, “we will cover your Union Jack with it, then.”
The battle between the Ranger and the Drake lasted just one hour and four minutes. When it was over, the Drake had lost her captain and first lieutenant and thirty-eight men, killed and wounded, while the loss on the Ranger was only two killed and six wounded.
When Captain Jones returned to the shores of France he brought with him the Drake as a prize, with a goodly crew of British prisoners to exchange for Americans. As he had promised, the Stars and Stripes were at the Drake’s masthead over the British flag. There was no trouble then about saluting the American flag. All France and America went wild over this victory. In fact, nearly every nation under heaven—excepting Great Britain—was greatly pleased with the escapade of brave little Captain Jones.
Of course, Captain Jones had just had enough to make him long to be “going into harm’s way” on a larger scale. But France now had her own troubles with England. She needed all the ships and men she could raise to make a navy able to beat the big fleet Great Britain was getting ready for a great naval battle. Still, Captain Jones would not be put off. With Doctor Franklin’s help the French found him a poor old ship which they told him to arm and man and go ahead with. Jones did his best, but the foundry did not fill his order for cannon, and he was obliged to take some old guns which were too heavy for the positions he had to give them. It was bad enough to be forced to fight the whole British navy with a poor, slow, rotten old hulk with out-of-date guns, but the men he had to take to do the fighting were worse. Among them were Portuguese and Malays who could not understand orders in either French or English; but, worst of all, there were a hundred or more English prisoners, who would watch their chance to stab or shoot the few Americans in command, and surrender the ship to their own countrymen.
Dr. Benjamin Franklin’s “Poor Richard” almanac had been published as a French book, under the title of “Bonhomme Richard,” or “Goodman Richard.” So Jones, in compliment to his genial friend and helper, named his newly-made-over ship, Bonhomme Richard. Before he got this craft ready, several French commanders and crews wished to join him. These men were not capable commanders, but they had better ships and crews than Captain Jones, the one man best able to use them to advantage.
When Jones started out with the Richard, he was followed by a sort of private fleet, among which were the Alliance and the Pallas. The commanders of the other ships refused to obey orders unless they happened to feel so disposed. Most of the other ships got lost or started off, like pirates, after prizes for themselves, so that when Jones met the leading ships of the British, there were only the Richard, the Alliance, and the Pallas left.
When the three ships came round a high point called Flamborough Head and saw there the British men-of-war, Serapis and Countess of Scarborough, Commander Jones ordered the Pallas to engage the Countess while he, with the Richard, tackled the Serapis.
The commander had one lieutenant, Richard Dale, an American who had escaped in the most mysterious way from an English prison. Without the heroic aid of this officer Jones might have lost the day—or the night, for the battle did not begin until dark. There were hundreds of people on the shore watching the fight. At the very beginning they saw—and heard—the old cannon on the Richard bursting and killing nearly all the gunners and powder-boys serving them.
Meanwhile the Serapis, which was a brand-new ship with twice the number and weight of guns that Jones had, was raking the Richard fore and aft, and shooting great, ragged holes in her sides. The sea came pouring into the ship and the British prisoners came running up, yelling frantically, “We are sinking!” By sheer force of will and fear of eye, Paul Jones and Richard Dale drove those excited Englishmen back into the hold to work the pumps, as though they would pump the North Sea dry.
Jones sailed his ship close to the Serapis, intending to catch hold of its side with hooks called grappling-irons. This made it possible for the men on both ships to fight hand to hand. The Richard came alongside with such force that a spar which stuck out at the side (called the jib-boom) was driven into the ropes which held the mast nearest the stern of the Serapis (called the mizzenmast). The grip which Captain Jones now had on the Serapis was like that of a Boston bulldog who has an English mastiff by the throat. If one ship went down, the other would have to go too.
“Well done, my brave lads. We have got her now!” shouted Jones; and he ordered the sailing master to haul the Richard’s cable over and tie the jib-boom of the Serapis to his own mizzenmast. When the cable caught and became tangled the master uttered an oath.
“Don’t swear,” said Jones calmly. “In another moment we may be in eternity; but let us do our duty.”
The ropes and spars of the two ships were now so tangled that the men in the top of the Richard scrambled across into the rigging of the enemy, like monkeys in two treetops. In spite of all the captain’s efforts, the Richard was now on fire in a dozen places. The people on shore cheered, for it looked as if the English were burning the “pirate” ship. The master-at-arms, hearing a report that the captain and Dale had both been killed, started with two others to surrender to the commander of the Serapis, all three shouting, “Quarter!” The commander of the Serapis, hearing the cry, asked Jones if he was ready to give up.
“No,” shouted the American commander, “I have not yet begun to fight!”
By this time even the masts of the Richard were burning; but an American sailor saw a chance to do great harm to the enemy. Seizing a hand grenade, or bomb, he crept across the yardarms of both ships and threw it down upon the deck of the Serapis. The bomb fell and burst on a train of gunpowder scattered by broken cartridges. The flame blazed along past several of the big guns, ending in a terrific explosion.
This turned the tide of the battle. The Americans swarmed on board the Serapis and took possession of it. The English commander surrendered by pulling down the flag of his ship. In giving up his sword to Jones he said, with a sneer,
“It is painful to me that I must resign to a man with a halter around his neck.”
The American captain seemed not to notice the intended insult. Every American boy and girl has a right to be proud of Paul Jones for his noble reply:
“Sir, you have fought like a hero.”
The Pallas had captured the Countess of Scarborough after an hour’s fighting. The Bonhomme Richard, when cut loose from the Serapis, sank to the bottom of the sea. Before the rest of the enemy’s fleet could stop them, Jones and the commander of the Pallas sailed away with the Serapis and the Countess to a safe neutral port in Holland. The British now offered a reward of more than fifty thousand dollars for Captain Paul Jones, dead or alive. The people of Holland begged him not to fly the American flag, as there were two British fleets waiting outside that Dutch harbor to capture him. But Paul Jones insisted on flying the Stars and Stripes, not only in that port, but when he came out and ran the gauntlet of more than forty British men-of-war. He passed them all with colors flying, and reached a French port in safety.
Captain Paul Jones was one of the heroes of the world. The French made him a knight and King Louis presented him with a magnificent gold-handled sword. The United States Congress voted him a gold medal in honor of his greatest victory and passed a resolution commending “his zeal, prudence and intrepidity,” assigned him to the command of a new ship of the line then being built, and proposed to create for him the rank of real admiral, until then unknown in the American navy. General Washington wrote him a letter of congratulation in which he said: “You have won the admiration of the world.”
Thus the son of a poor gardener became our greatest naval hero in the War of the Revolution. But above all the honors he received at home and abroad, this was Paul Jones’s proudest boast: “I have ever looked out for the honor of the American flag.”
A HUNDRED years ago, when boys had but few books of any kind, “The Life of General Marion” was their favorite book of adventure, because of its short stories of rare bravery and hairbreadth escapes. General Francis Marion, of whom the book tells, was a southern man, born the same year as General Washington, and a commander of some of the American troops in the War for Independence.
During that war, when the British found that they could accomplish little in the northern states, they decided to carry the war into the south. Lord Cornwallis was the British commander; under him Colonel Tarleton was a cavalry officer notorious for bullying and cruelty who became a terror to the whole region. Another commander of British troops in the south was a former American general, Benedict Arnold, the traitor, who joined the British after he had failed to deliver West Point into the hands of the enemy.
General Horatio Gates was sent by the Congress to defend the south against the British. But General Gates was not a great or brave commander. He was defeated by Cornwallis at Camden, South Carolina. He lost two thousand men, and the rest of his soldiers were scattered. Because of this terrible defeat—the worst in the whole War for Independence—the southern people were deeply discouraged.
What was to be done? In the south there were many Tories, as the people were called who believed that those who fought against England for liberty were rebels. Besides fighting in the British campaigns, the southern Tories went about in bands, shooting and injuring all the “rebels” they
could. So the southern patriots gathered together in small companies to defend their families from the British and the Tories, and to prevent the British from capturing the whole southern country before Washington could send down a better general and another army.
During the months after the defeat at Camden, the fight was carried on in what was called guerrilla warfare—guerrilla being Spanish for “little war.” Small bands of Americans hid in the woods and swamps, and when they caught the British off guard, suddenly pounced upon them, taking or rescuing prisoners. The greatest leader of this kind of warfare on the American side was General Marion.
These southern soldiers had very poor weapons. Most of their guns were the kind used in shooting birds, and were loaded with shot instead of bullets. For swords they had wooden-handled saws with the teeth ground down to a smooth edge. They had but little to eat—often only potatoes, which they could bake in the ashes of their campfires.
Their horses, however, were the finest and fastest in all that country. Although these men had to deny themselves food and clothing, their horses were well fed and groomed, for often the masters’ lives depended on the fleetness of their steeds. And the horses sometimes acted as if they understood and enjoyed the terrible game of life and death their masters were playing.
Some of the bravest men in the south, seeing no other way to save or to serve their country, came and offered themselves to General Marion, to fight under the greatest hardships and risks in the most dangerous adventures. Among these was the famous Sergeant Jasper, who was one of the first to risk his life for the flag. Nine British ships-of-war attacked a fort in Charleston Harbor. They shot away the staff on which the American flag was flying; but Jasper jumped out, caught the banner before it touched the ground, and climbed up and nailed it in place, while the guns were aimed at him as well as at the starry ensign.
While Sergeant Jasper was under General Marion he was often sent out on scout and spy duty. He had a natural talent for disguising himself. He went once to visit a sergeant in a British regiment. While he was there a number of American prisoners were brought in. Taking it for granted that a guard of ten British soldiers, with these prisoners, would pass a certain spring, Jasper left the British camp to obtain help. He found only one American who could go with him. The two hid themselves near the spring, surprised the ten redcoats, disarmed them, and, with the former prisoners, marched gaily back to Marion’s headquarters with the ten captured British soldiers.
Once when General Marion came to a river ferry, he heard that a company of ninety British regulars were taking more than two hundred captured Americans to the prison-ship at Charleston. The prisoners already in the hold of the ship were starved and neglected. Besides, smallpox had broken out among them, and many of the best men among the patriots were dying of that loathsome disease. So General Marion ordered his men to ride through the darkness to the ford where the British and their prisoners had crossed the river a few hours before. Here they learned that the redcoats and their charges were going to stay that night at a country tavern called the Blue House. The Americans approached this place with great caution. When they came to a wooden bridge, they took horse-blankets and laid them down on the bridge to deaden the sound of the horses’ hoofs.
Before deciding how to make an attack, General Marion sent several scouts to find out the lay of the land. With tread as sure and silent as that of moccasined Indians, the scouts returned and whispered this report:
“The officers are carousing in the house. Some of the men are outside. Many of them must be asleep, as we could not get a glimpse of them. A few sentinels are lounging about, without a thought of being attacked.”
Marion told his men to lie down under the trees for a little rest. Very early in the morning, when all the British, including the sentinels, seemed to be asleep, he roused the men and ordered the attack.
The odds were over three to one against them, but Marion’s men were used to that. They were taking a great risk, but there was much to be gained—guns, equipment and British prisoners who could be exchanged so as to release Americans from the prison-ship. Best of all, each man of the thirty might be the means of setting ten other Americans free.
When the men were well awake, General Marion sent a lieutenant ahead, directing him as follows:
“Take a few men with you, make a wide circle, and come in behind the house. Get as close to them as you can, and wait till I give the signal. Then close in on them and see that no one gets away. We must make quick work of this. See that your guns are all right.”
To the men waiting with him he said: “Are you ready?”
“Ready, sir,” they whispered back.
“Come on, then,” he commanded. “Follow me. Don’t make any noise. Don’t speak. Watch me. Don’t fire till I say the word.”
They crept around the Blue House like Indians, testing every twig lest it snap, and feeling their way in the darkness. Suddenly a shot rang out in the early morning air. A sentinel on the other side of the house must have seen the lieutenant’s men. The British soldiers, roused from a sound sleep, jumped about, peering this way and that in the darkness. No one knew what had happened, or what would happen next.
The officers came tumbling out, swearing and yelling. As the Americans came rushing in from all sides, shouting and shooting, the British thought they were attacked by an army instead of by thirty guerrillas. Marion’s men grabbed the rifles of the British soldiers, shooting some and knocking others down. Some of the British shouted, “Quarter!” and General Marion ordered his men to stop firing.
There was a wholesale surrender, and the hundreds of American prisoners were set free. Many of them joined Marion’s men. When the British saw how they and their prisoners had been taken in, ten to one, they looked sheepish.
But the British leader, the bullying Colonel Tarleton, had made his escape. His motto seemed to be—