Dreadful Spectacle.—Sinking of the Bon Homme Richard.—Escape of the Baltic Fleet.—Sails for the Texel.—Interesting Correspondence.—Sufferings of the American Prisoners.—Barbarity of the English Government.—Humanity of Captain Jones.—The Transference from the Serapis to the Alliance.—Extracts from the British Press.—Release of Prisoners.

After the excitement of the conflict was over, Captain Jones was shocked at the spectacle of devastation and misery which was presented to him. All sense of triumph was lost in emotions of compassion and sadness. In his official journal he wrote:

“A person must have been an eye-witness to form a just idea of the tremendous scene of carnage, wreck, and ruin that everywhere appeared. Humanity cannot but recoil from the prospect of such finished horror, and lament that war should produce such fatal consequences.”

The carpenters were immediately employed in examining the Bon Homme Richard, to see if her wounds were capable of being healed. The lashings were cut which bound her to the Serapis, and all the available hands were employed, at the pumps, to keep her afloat. Captain Jones took possession of his shattered prize, the Serapis, to which he transferred all the crew, excepting those which attended the pumps. Boats were in waiting, ready to take them on board the Serapis should the water gain upon them too fast. The surveying officers soon reported unanimously, that the ship could not be kept afloat long enough to reach port. It took all the night, and some hour’s the next morning hastily but carefully to remove the wounded.

Captain Jones was very anxious to save the ship, and made every possible effort until nine o’clock the next evening. The water was then up to her lower deck. She rolled in the waves in utter helplessness, threatening every moment to go down. The water was gushing from her port-holes and swashing through her hatchways. It was necessary at once to abandon her. From the deck of the Serapis Captain Jones sadly watched the dying convulsions of his “good old ship.” He wrote:

“We did not abandon her till after nine o’clock. A little after ten, I saw, with inexpressible grief, the last glimpse of the Bon Homme Richard. No lives were lost with the ship; but it was impossible to save the stores of any sort whatever. I lost the best part of my clothes, books, and papers. Several of my officers lost all their clothes and effects.”

Making one or two dying surges, the Richard plunged headlong into the fathomless abyss, carrying her dead with her to their sublime ocean burial. There the mangled bodies will repose till, at the summons of the archangel’s trump, the sea shall give up the dead that are in it. According to the most accurate estimate which can be made, forty-two were killed, and forty severely wounded. Light wounds were not counted. There was no accurate account taken of the killed and wounded on board the Serapis. The surgeon’s report to the British Admiralty, gives the number of wounded at seventy-five, but does not give the number killed. Captain Pearson states that there were many more wounded than appears on the surgeon’s list. Captain Jones, who had the best opportunity for knowing, and who was not given to exaggeration, estimates the killed at one hundred, and the wounded at about the same number.

Captain Landais, of the Alliance, was court-martialed for his atrocious conduct. There can be no reasonable doubt, from the evidence given on his trial, that he hoped the Serapis would conquer and capture the Bon Homme Richard. During the conflict he kept entirely out of harm’s way, so that not a shot struck him. After the Richard had surrendered Captain Landais intended to come forward, attack the Serapis exhausted and shattered by its previous conflict, and with her guns dismounted and encumbered by the wounded and the dead, and thus make an easy conquest of the British ship and rescue her prize. He could thus retire with glory, dragging the Serapis and the Bon Homme Richard in his train. Finding it a little doubtful whether the Richard would yield, he concluded to help the Serapis. Three of his officers declared that LandaisLandais said to them:

“I should have thought it no harm if the Bon Homme Richard had struck her flag. That would have given me an opportunity to take the Serapis and to retake her.”

I must now leave Landais, for the present, though I shall have occasion to refer to him again. The Baltic fleet escaped. The fact is easily explained from the loss of the Richard, the crippled state of the Serapis, with both main-mast and mizzen-mast dragging at her sides, and the treacherous conduct of Landais. Jury-masts were erected upon the Serapis, and for ten days the shattered ship was tossed on the stormy waves of the North Sea. Captain Jones was striving to reach Dunkirk, the most northerly and consequently the nearest seaport in France.

In the extreme northwest of Holland there is a somewhat renowned island called the Texel. It is about thirteen miles long and six broad, and is situated near the mouth of the Zuyder Zee, or South Sea, as that portion of the German Ocean is called. It is nearly two hundred miles north of the most northerly frontier of France. Contrary winds, and the extremely suffering state of the prisoners and his wounded, rendered it necessary for him to run into that neutral port.

Captain Jones never made any complaint respecting his own hardships. But while upon this eventful campaign his toils, responsibilities, and anxieties had been such that during the whole time he had never indulged in more than three hours’ sleep in the twenty-four. The news of the capture of the Serapis spread rapidly through Europe and America. The haughty attitude England had ever assumed had rendered her unpopular with all other nations. Consequently there was a general rejoicing over the great victory of Captain Jones. It was something new for England to lose one of her finest frigates in a fairly fought battle with an inferior force.

It is said that this terrible battle between the Bon Homme Richard and the Serapis was more noised abroad over the world than any naval conflict ever engaged in, in ancient or modern times. It was a marvel to all Europe to see an English ship of war, hitherto generally supposed to be invincible, strike to a frigate of the feeble colonies of America, which had, as yet, scarcely a national name and whose flag was unknown. The superiority of the British ship, both in build and in armament, the treacherous conduct of Landais, and the desperate resistance of both parties, apparently to the last possible degree, excited astonishment and admiration both in the Old World and the New. Captain Jones was the hero of the day. His name was upon all lips. The enthusiasm in Paris was almost boundless. Dr. Franklin wrote to him under date of October 15th, 1779:

“For some days after the arrival of your express, scarce anything was talked of at Paris or Versailles but your cool conduct and persevering bravery during that terrible conflict. You may believe that the impression on my mind was not less strong than on that of others, but I do not choose to say, in a letter to yourself, all I think on such an occasion.”

He informed Captain Jones that he had written to Landais, informing him that he would have an opportunity, before a court-martial, to answer the charges of disobedience of orders and neglect of duty which had been brought against him. As it was impracticable immediately to organize a court-martial, he was for the time relieved from the command of the Alliance. He added:

“I know not whether Captain Landais will obey my orders, nor what the ministry will do with him if he comes. But I suspect that they may, by some of their concise operations, save the trouble of a court-martial.”

It subsequently appeared that Landais had previously been dismissed from the French service for insubordination. This fact was not known to Congress when he was assigned to the command of the Alliance. They simply knew that he was a Frenchman of illustrious family, of great pretensions, and who had been an officer in the French navy. Congress inconsiderately, in its anxiety to compliment France, placed him in a position which his eccentric passions totally disqualified him from filling.

Landais wrote to Dr. Franklin soliciting another command. In a very characteristic reply, dated March 12th, 1780, Dr. Franklin wrote:

“No one has ever learned the opinion I formed of you, from the inquiry made into your conduct. I kept it entirely to myself, I have not even hinted it in my letters to America, because I would not hazard giving any one a bias to your prejudice.

“By communicating a part of that opinion privately to you I can do no harm, for you may burn it. I should not give you the pain of reading it, if your demand did not make it necessary.

“I think you then, so imprudent, so litigious and quarrelsome a man, even with your best friends, that peace and good order, and consequently the quiet and regular subordination so necessary to success, are, where you preside, impossible. These are within my observation and apprehension. Your military operations I leave to more capable judges. If, therefore, I had twenty ships of war, I should not give one of them to Captain Landais. The same temper which excluded him from the French marine would weigh equally with me.”

It was one important object of Captain Jones to get prisoners, that by an exchange he might release the American prisoners who were suffering the most barbarous treatment in the prisons of England. He carried with him into the Texel, five hundred British captives. Franklin proposed to the British government to exchange them for an equal number of Americans. But the ministry refused. They sent a large number of men-of-war to watch the channel, and cruise off the Texel, quite confident that they should be able to capture the prisoners as soon as any attempt was made to transport them to France. For some time they refused to exchange American prisoners on any terms. They would surrender the French captives alone, in return for the English.

The sympathies of kind-hearted Captain Jones were deeply moved in behalf of the captive Americans. And yet his feelings would not allow him to retaliate in treating with inhumanity the British prisoners in his hands. They were generally poor and ignorant men. Not a few had been impressed into the service. They were not responsible for the cruelty of the government, over which they had no control. There was a large party in England totally opposed to this unrighteous war, and still more opposed to the barbarity with which the government was conducting it.

When it was proposed and carried in Parliament to employ the savages as the allies of Great Britain,—to hire the savages, with torch and tomahawk and scalping knife, in midnight assault, to burn the log-cabins and butcher the helpless women and children in their lonely homes, far away in the wilderness, hundreds of voices were raised in indignant remonstrance. The Earl of Chatham exclaimed, in the House of Lords, in one of the most eloquent and impassioned of addresses:

“I am astonished, I am shocked, to hear such principles confessed; to hear them avowed in this house or in this country. Were I an American, as I am an Englishman, I would never lay down my arms—never, never never.”

One of the London Journals of September 21st, 1779, contains the following notice: “The master of a sloop from Harwich, who arrived yesterday, saw on Saturday last, no less than eleven sail-of-war going in search of Paul Jones, and among them was the Edgar of seventy-four guns. By the examination of four men, belonging to one of Paul Jones’s squadron, it appears that Jones’s orders were not to burn any houses or towns. What an example of honor and greatness does America thus show to us. While our troops are running about from town to town on their coast, burning everything with a wanton wicked barbarity, Dr. Franklin gives no orders to retaliate. He is above it. And there was a time when an English minister would have disdained to make war in so villanous a mode. It is a disgrace to the nation.”

The London Chronicle of October 17th, 1779, contained the following notice: “Last Tuesday Paul Jones, with his prizes, the Serapis and Scarborough, entered the Texel, and appeared on the exchange, where business gave way to curiosity. The crowd pressing upon him, by whom he was styled the terror of the English, he withdrew to a room fronting a public square, where Monsieur Donneville, the French agent, and the Americans, paid him such a volley of compliments, and such homage as he could only answer with a bow. He was dressed in the American uniform, with a Scotch bonnet edged with gold; is of a middling stature, stern countenance, and swarthy complexion.complexion.

Captain Cunningham had received a commission for a privateer, from Commissioners Franklin and Deane. He had cruised in the Channel with great success, and had become quite a terror to the English. Being captured he was treated with such barbarity that Congress twice passed resolutions threatening retaliation. But the humanity of the nation recoiled from plunging innocent men into loathsome dungeons, and freezing and starving them, to retaliate for crimes committed by those who were clothed in purple and fine linen and who fared sumptuously every day. Captain Jones wrote to Dr. Franklin, from Amsterdam, under the date of October 11th, 1779:

“As I am informed that Captain Cunningham is threatened with unfair play by the British government, I am determined to keep in my hands the captain of the Serapis, as a hostage for Cunningham’s release as a prisoner of war. I wish heartily that poor Cunningham, whom I am taught to regard as a Continental officer, was exchanged, as with his assistance I could form a court-martial, which I believe you will see unavoidable.”

Captain Pearson and the other British prisoners were provided for, in all respects, as comfortably as circumstances would allow. And yet the English captain wrote the following curious complaint to his illustrious captor. We do not feel at liberty to correct his bad grammar. The letter was dated October 19th, 1799.

“Captain Pearson presents his compliments to Captain Jones, and is sorry to find himself so little attended to in his present situation, as not to have been favored with either a Call or a line from Captain Jones since his return from Amsterdam. Captain Pearson is sorry to say that he cannot look upon such behavior in any other light than as a breach of that Civility which his rank, as well as behavior on all occasions entitles to; he, at the same time, wishes to be informed, by Captain Jones, whether any steps has been taken towards the enlargement or exchange of him, his officers and people, or what is intended to be done with them. As he cannot help thinking it a very unprecedented circumstance their being keeped here as prisoners, on board of ship, being so long in a neutral port.”

The dignified reply of Captain Jones deserves insertion in full. The English Government, through its ambassador at the Hague, had positively refused to ransom the English prisoners, at the Texel, by exchanging for them American prisoners. Captain Pearson could not have been ignorant of this fact. The reply was dated on board the Serapis, October 20th, 1779.

“As you have not been prevented from corresponding with your friends, and particularly with the English ambassador at the Hague, I could not suppose you to be unacquainted with his memorial of the 8th, to the States General, and therefore I thought it fruitless to pursue the negociation for the exchange of the prisoners of war now in our hands.

“I wished to avoid any painful altercation with you on that subject. I was persuaded that you had been in the highest degree sensible that my behavior toward you had been far from a breach of civility. This charge, sir, is not a civil return for the polite hospitality and disinterested attentions you have hitherto experienced.

“I know not what difference of respect is due to Rank between your service and ours. I suppose however the difference must be thought very great in England, since I am informed that Captain Cunningham, of equal denomination, and who bears a senior rank, in the service of America, than yours in the service of England, is now confined in England, in a dungeon and in fetters!

“Humanity, which has hitherto superseded the plea of retaliation in American breasts, has induced me, notwithstanding the procedure of Sir Joseph Yorke,^[B] to seek after permission to land the dangerously wounded, as well prisoners as Americans, to be supported and cured at the expense of our continent. The permission of the government has been obtained; but the magistrates continue to make objections. I shall not discontinue my application. I am ready to adopt any means you may propose for their preservation and recovery; and, in the meantime, we shall continue to treat them with the utmost care and attention, equally, as you know, to the treatment of our people of the same rank.

“As it is possible that you have not yet seen the memorial of your ambassador to the States General, I enclose a paper which contains a copy. And I think he has since written what, in the opinion of good men, will do still less honor to his pen. I cannot conclude without informing you that unless Captain Cunningham is immediately better treated in England, I expect orders, in consequence, from his Excellency, Dr. Franklin. Therefore, I beseech you, sir, to interfere.”

The British Government, by threats, so intimidated the States General, that they disavowed any intention of recognizing the Independence of the United States. They refused to furnish Captain Jones with any munitions of war, and ordered him immediately to leave the Texel. This seemed to insure his utter destruction; for powerful British men-of-war were cruising just off the island, on the watch to grasp him the moment he should put to sea.

In a memorial which the British minister, Sir Joseph Yorke, presented on the 29th of September, he wrote:

“I cannot but comply with the strict orders of his majesty (the king of England) by renewing, in the strongest and most pressing manner his request, that these ships and their crews may be stopped and delivered up, which the pirate Paul Jones, of Scotland, who is a rebel subject, and a criminal of the state, has taken.” He also demanded that all the officers of the United States navy should be treated as pirates; for their commissions were illegal, not having been granted by a government which England had recognized as a sovereign power.

But the French Government promptly and efficiently interfered. It assured the States General that though Captain Jones received his commission from the Congress of the United States, still that he also sailed under the sanction of the flag of France, in a French ship, and that the French flag covered the prizes he had captured. The sympathies of the Dutch Government were with America. Under this complicated state of affairs it was decided that prizes which Captain Jones had taken with French ships, should be regarded as prizes belonging to the king of France; and that Captain Jones should take command of the American frigate the Alliance.

In obedience with this order, at midnight, Captain Jones, having delivered to the French ambassador the ships and prizes which were deemed to belong to the French king, took command of the Alliance, and surrendered the Serapis to Captain Cottineau of the Pallas. The eccentric if not insane Landais quarrelled with almost every one who approached him. He challenged Captain Cottineau to a duel. He was a very accomplished swordsman. Very unwisely, Captain Cottineau, who was not particularly skilful with that weapon, allowed his insulting opponent, in addition to many other wrongs and outrages, the privilege of thrusting his sword through his opponent’s body, inflicting a very painful, disabling, and dangerous wound. Landais then sent a similar challenge to Captain Jones, who very properly replied by sending officers to arrest him. Upon this he fled and made his way to Paris, where we shall again hear of him.

Extracts from Captain Jones’s letters will show, better than any description, the noble character of this truly noble man; a man who has been strangely misrepresented. He wrote to the Marquis de Lafayette, from the Serapis, at the Texel, on the 28th of October, 1779:

“The late brutalities of the Britons in America fill me with horror and indignation. They forget that they are men. And I believe that nothing will bring them to their senses but the most exemplary retaliation.

“I wish to answer, very particularly, the points which you have propounded. 1st, I never meant to ask a reward for my services, either from France or America. Consequently the approbation of the Court and of the Congress is all the gratification I can wish for. 2d, I yet intend to undertake whatever the utmost exertion of my abilities will reach in support of the common cause, as far as any force that may in future be intrusted to my direction may enable to succeed.”

One of the London journals, of September 29th, 1779, gives the following amusing exaggeration of the force under Captain Jones’s command, and of the terror his achievements had inspired:

“An express has arrived from Aymouth with information that Paul Jones was off there with five ships of war and two thousand troops; that on the 19th they appeared off Sunderland and put the inhabitants into great confusion, as they expected them to land every hour, or destroy the ships in the harbor.”

Another London journal gives the following account of this celebrated cruise:

“On Saturday noon two gentlemen of the corporation of Hull arrived express at the Admiralty, with the alarming account that the celebrated American Corsair, Paul Jones, had entered the river Humber, on Thursday last, and chased a vessel within a mile of the pier, where he sunk, burned, and destroyed sixteen valuable vessels, which threw the whole town and neighborhood into the utmost consternation.

“On Saturday night another express arrived, at the Admiralty, with the further disagreeable intelligence that Paul Jones’s squadron, after having done more mischief to the shipping on Friday, had fallen in with the Baltic fleet, had taken their convoy, the Serapis man-of-war, of forty-four guns, and the armed ship, the Countess of Scarborough, of twenty-four guns. This action was seen by thousands of spectators. The other ships of Jones’s squadron were making havoc among the fleet, most of which, however, had taken shelter near Flamborough Head.

“From four captured Americans it was discovered that it was Jones’s plan to alarm the coasts of Wales, Ireland, the western parts of Scotland, and the North Channel. He took several prizes on the coast of Ireland, particularly two armed transports with stores for New York. He had it in his power to burn Leith; but his orders are only to burn shipping. His squadron is now but weakly manned, owing to the great number of prizes he has taken; and it, therefore, may fall an easy conquest to the sixteen sail of men-of-war who have orders to go after him.

“Expresses also arrived on Saturday, from Sunderland, stating that Paul Jones had taken sixteen more sail of colliers. In consequence of the capture of so many colliers and the interruption of the trade, the price of coal will be enormous. Instead of having the dominion of the sea, it is now evident that we are not able to defend our own coast from depredations. Yesterday Lord Sandwich informed some Russian merchants that twenty of his Majesty’s ships were sent in quest of Paul Jones.”

Franklin, who was ever in very cordial sympathy with Paul Jones, wrote him many and very affectionate letters when the heroic conqueror, entirely destitute of funds, was surrounded with embarrassments, at the Texel, sufficient to break down the spirits and to crush the energies of any ordinary man. It was indeed a question how the prisoners were to be conveyed to France. Those northern seas were swarming with English ships, whose commanders were intensely anxious to capture the commissioned naval officer of the United States, whose commission was ratified by alliance with France, and whom they still had the insolence to stigmatize as a pirate. Franklin wrote to him, under date of October 15, 1779:

“I am uneasy about your prisoners. I wish they were safe in France. You will then have completed the glorious work of giving liberty to all the Americans, who have so long languished for it in the British prisons; for there are not so many there as you have now taken.”

Paul Jones, in command of his squadron, was rightly entitled to the designation of commodore. He was so regarded by the French court, who had intrusted to him the fleet. He is thus addressed by the Duke of Vauguyon. In a letter, under date of December 21, 1779, addressed to Commodore Jones, the duke writes:

“I have received, my dear commodore, the letter you have addressed to me. I perceive, with pain, that you do not view your situation in the right light. I can assure you that the ministers of the king have no intention to cause you the least disagreeable feelings, as the honorable testimonials of the esteem of his majesty, which I send you, ought to convince you.”

Every eminent man must have rivals and enemies. There were scores of French officers hungering for high command. They envied the renown of Jones. They complained that they were neglected, while a foreigner was intrusted with the command of French ships. Many of these complainants were nobles of great wealth as well as illustrious rank. The French ministry thus had great embarrassments to encounter. They appreciated highly the services of Commodore Jones. They were very desirous of immediately giving him new employment. And yet they felt under the necessity of leaving him, for a time, in idleness, greatly to his chagrin. The impatience he manifested under these circumstances reflect honor upon his patriotic enthusiasm. He wrote to the Duke of Vauguyon, on the 25th of December, 1779, as follows:

“You do me great honor as well as justice, my lord, by observing that no satisfaction can be more precious to me than that of giving new proofs of my zeal for the common cause of France and America. And the interest you take to facilitate the means of my giving such proofs, by essential services, claims my best thanks. I hope I shall not, through any imprudence of mine, render ineffectual any noble design that may be in contemplation for the general good. Whenever that object is mentioned, my private concerns are out of the question.

“With a deep sense of your generous sentiments of personal regard toward me, and with the most sincere wishes to meet that regard by my conduct through life, I am,” etc.

The Dutch Government, goaded by the menaces of England, though it dared not command the French ships to leave its ports, insisted that the American commodore, whose government Holland had not yet recognized, should immediately, with the American frigate the Alliance, leave the Texel. But there, were twelve British men-of-war, at the mouth of the harbor, watching for him. Eight were at the northern entrance of the port, and four at the southern.

Commodore Jones, for I shall henceforth give him the designation to which I consider him justly entitled, kept the banner of the Stars and Stripes proudly floating from the mast-head of the Alliance. He also unflinchingly declared that he never bore any commission but that which he received from the Congress of the United States of America. It was said that there were, in all, forty British men-of-war cruising in the German Ocean, so as to render the escape of Paul Jones impossible. The Dutch admiral, on the 12th, informed him they must insist upon his sailing with the first fair wind.

To add to his embarrassments he found that Landais had left the Alliance in the most deplorable condition, totally unfit for service without extensive repairs. She was an admirable ship in model and construction, and was remarkable for her sailing qualities. But, through sheer negligence and general demoralization, nearly everything was in a ruinous condition. The sails were worn out. The cables had gone to decay. Her battery was in a condition unfit for action, and her small arms quite out of order. Most of the powder had either become damaged by leakage, or rendered unfit for use by neglecting to turn the kegs. The officers were all quarrelling with each other, and the men insubordinate. Intemperance and the want of cleanliness, with the total absence of discipline, had struck down many of the crew with epidemical diseases.

Commodore Jones made the most vigorous efforts to prepare the Alliance for sea; and he promised the government that he would leave, at all hazards, as soon as the wind would serve. But before he sailed he enjoyed the great gratification of learning that Dr. Franklin had succeeded in obtaining the liberation of all the American prisoners in England, by exchanging for them the prisoners Commodore Jones had captured. He also had the happiness of grasping the hand, at the Texel, of Captain Cunningham, who, by the energies of Commodore Jones, had been rescued from the most dreadful bondage.