some of our people did not know we had struck.  I know, when Wallis, our first lieutenant, heard the cry, he ran up-stairs,—­supposing that Jones had struck to us, and not we to him.

    “It was Lieutenant Dale who boarded us.  He is still living, a fine
    old man, at Philadelphia.  He found Captain Pearson on the lee of
    our quarter-deck again, and said,—­

    “‘Sir, I have orders to send you on board the ship along-side.’

    “Up the companion comes Wallis, and says to Captain Pearson,—­

    “‘Have they struck?’

    “‘No, Sir,’ said Dale,—­’the contrary:  he has struck to us.’

    “Wallis would not take it, and said to Pearson,—­

    “‘Have you struck, Sir?’

“And he had to say he had.  Wallis said, ’I have nothing more to say,’ and turned to come down to us, but Dale would not let him.  Wallis said he would silence the lower-deck guns, but Dale sent some one else, and took them both aboard the Richard.  Little Duval—­a volunteer on board, not yet rated as midshipman—­went with them.  Jones gave back our captain’s sword, with the usual speech about bravery,—­but they quarrelled awfully afterwards.

“I suppose Paul Jones was himself astonished when daylight showed the condition of his ship.  I am sure we were.  His ship was still on fire:  ours had been a dozen times, but was out.  Wherever our main battery could hit him, we had torn his ship to pieces,—­knocked in and knocked out the sides.  There was a complete breach from the main-mast to the stern.  You could see the sky and sea through the old hulk anywhere.  Indeed, the wonder was that the quarter-deck did not fall in.  The ship was sinking fast, and the pumps would not free her.  For us, our jib-boom had been wrenched off at the beginning; our main-mast and mizzentop fell as we struck, and at day-break the wreck was not cleared away.  Jones put Lieutenant Lunt on our vessel that night, but the next day he removed all his wounded, and finally all his people, to the Serapis, and at ten the Poor Richard went to the bottom.  I have always wondered that your Naval Commissioners never named another frigate for her.

    “And so, my dear boy, I will stop.  I hope in God, it will never be
    your fate to see such a fight, or any fight, between an English
    and an American frigate.

“We drifted into Holland.  Our wounded men were sent into hospital in the fort of the Texel.  At last we were all transferred to the French Government as prisoners, and that winter we were exchanged.  The Serapis went into the French navy, and the only important result of the affair in history was that King George had to make war with Holland.  For, as soon as we were taken into the Texel, the English minister claimed us of the Dutch.  But the Dutch gentlemen said they were neutrals, and could not interfere in the Rebel quarrel.  “Interfere or fight,”