[Mem. by F.C.  I should think Ingham’s grandfather wrote too
    much.  I have seen letters of his which were very long, before they
    came to their subject.]

The letter continues:—­

“To return.  The Serapis, as I have said, was but just built.  She had been launched that spring.  She was one of the first 44-gun frigates that were ever built in the world.  We (the English) were the first naval power to build frigates, as now understood, at all.  I believe the name is Italian, but in the Mediterranean it means a very different thing.  We had little ships-of-the-line, which were called fourth-rates, and which fought sixty, and even as low as fifty guns; they had two decks, and a quarter-deck above.  But just as I came into the service, the old Phoenix and Rainbow and Roebuck were the only 44s we had:  they were successful ships, and they set the Admiralty on building 44-gun frigates, which, even when they carried 50 guns, as we did, were quite different from the old fourth-rates.  Very useful vessels they proved.  I remember the Romulus, the Ulysses, the Actaeon, and the Endymion:  the Endymion fought the President forty years after.  As I say, the Serapis was one of a batch of these vessels launched in the spring of 1779.

“We had been up the Cattegat that summer, waiting for what was known as the Baltic fleet.[I] If there were room and time, I could tell you good stories of the fun we had at Copenhagen.  At last we got the convoy together, and got to sea,—­no little job in that land-locked sailing.  We got well across the North Sea, and, for some reason, made Sunderland first, and afterwards Scarborough.

“We were lying close in with Scarborough, when news came off that Paul Jones, with a fleet, was on the coast.  Captain Pearson at once tried to signal the convoy back,—­for they were working down the coast towards the Humber,—­but the signals did no good till they saw the enemy themselves, and then they scud fast enough, passing us, and running into Scarborough harbor.  We had not a great deal of wind, and the other armed vessel we had, the Countess of Scarborough, was slow, so that I remember we lay to for her.  Jones was as anxious as we were to fight.  We neared each other steadily till seven in the evening or later.  The sun was down, but it was full moon,—­and as we came near enough to speak, we could see everything on his ship.  At that time the Poor Richard was the only ship we had to do with.  His other ships were after our consort.  The Richard was a queer old French Indiaman, you know.  She was the first French ship-of-war I had ever seen.  She had six guns on her lower deck, and six ports on each side there,—­meaning to fight all these guns on the same side.  On her proper gun-deck, above these, she had fourteen guns on each side,—­twelves and nines.  Then she had a high quarter, and a high forecastle, with eight more guns on these,—­having, you