then starboard, I saw little enough of the battle.  But I have talked about it since, with Dale, who was Jones’s first lieutenant, and whom I met at Charlestown when he commanded the yard there.  I have talked of it with Wallis many times.  I talked of it with Sir Richard Pearson, who was afterwards Lt.-Gov. of Greenwich, and whom I saw there.  Paul Jones I have touched my hat to, but never spoke to, except when we all took wine with him one day at dinner.  But I have met his niece, Miss Janet Taylor, who lives in London now, and calculates nautical tables.  I hope you will see her some day.  Then there is a gentleman named Napier in Edinburgh, who has the Richard’s log-book.  Go and see it, if you are ever there,—­Mr. George Napier.  And I have read every word I could find about the battle.  It was a remarkable fight indeed.  ’All of which I was, though so little I saw.’”

    [Mem. by F.C.  And dear Ingham’s nice old grandfather is a little
    slow in getting into action, me judice.  It was a way they had in
    the navy before steam.]

The letter continues:—­

“I do not know that Captain Pearson was a remarkable man; but I do know he was a brave man.  He was made Sir Richard Pearson by the King for his bravery in this fight.  When Paul Jones heard of that, he said Pearson deserved the knighthood, and that he would make him an earl the next time he met him.  Of course, I only knew the captain as a midshipman (we were ‘volunteers’ then) knows a post-captain, and that for a few months only.  We joined in summer (the Serapis was just commissioned for the first time).  We were taken prisoners in September, but it was mid-winter before we were exchanged.  He was very cross all the time we were in Holland.  I do not suppose he wrote as good a letter as Jones did.  I have heard that he could not spell well.  But what I know is that he was a brave man.

“Paul Jones is one of the curiosities of history.  He certainly was of immense value to your struggling cause.  He kept England in terror; he showed the first qualities as a naval commander; he achieved great successes with very little force.  Yet he has a damaged reputation.  I do not think he deserves this reputation; but I know he has it.  Now I can see but one difference between him and any of your land-heroes or your water-heroes whom all the world respects.  This is, that he was born on our side, and they were born on the American side.  This ought not to make any difference.  But in actual fact I think it did.  Jones was born in the British Islands.  The popular feeling of England made a distinction between the allegiance which he owed to King George and that of born Americans.  It ought not to have done so, because he had in good faith emigrated to America before the Rebellion, and took part in it with just the same motives which led any other American officer.[H]

    “He had a fondness for books and for society, and thought himself
    gifted in writing.  I should think he wrote too much.  I have seen
    verses of his which were very poor.”