CHAPTER VI.

One of the Most Memorable Sea Fights Ever Known—­The Wonderful Exploit of Captain Paul Jones.

I have taken Paul Jones as the highest type of the infant American navy.  There were others who fought with great bravery and did much to aid in the struggle for American independence, but none combined in such perfection the qualities of perfect seamanship, cool but dauntless courage and skill in fighting.

Of course, no matter how daring our cruisers, they did not always escape disaster.  At the close of the Revolution there had been twenty-four vessels lost, carrying 470 guns.  Several of these met their fate through shipwreck.  Contrast with this the loss of Great Britain, which was 102 war vessels, carrying in all 2,624 guns.  The total vessels of all kinds captured from the English by our cruisers and privateers was about 800.

Captain Jones had made so successful a cruise with the Ranger that he felt, upon returning to Brest, in France, he was entitled to a better ship.  He wrote to Benjamin Franklin, expressing himself plainly on that point, and the American commissioner, after several months’ delay, had a ship of 40 guns placed under the command of Jones.  Her original name was the Duras, but at Jones’s request it was changed to the Bonhomme Richard.  This was in compliment to Franklin, who was often called “Poor Richard” by his admiring countrymen, because for many years he had published “Poor Richard’s Almanac,” filled with wise and witty sayings.

This ship was an old Indiaman, in which 42 guns were placed, and the final number of her crew was 304.  The 32-gun frigate Alliance, Captain Landais, was put under the orders of Captain Jones and a third, the Pallas, was bought and armed with thirty guns.  A merchant brig and a cutter were also added to the squadron.  It was found very hard to man these vessels and any other captain than Jones would have given up the task as an impossible one.  It seemed as if about every known nation in the world was represented and some of the men of the most desperate character.  Maclay says in his “History of the American Navy” that the muster roll of the Bonhomme Richard showed that the men hailed from America, France, Italy, Ireland, Germany, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, England, Spain, India, Norway, Portugal, Fayal and Malasia, while there were seven Maltese and the knight of the ship’s galley was from Africa.  The majority of the officers, however, were American.

[Illustration:  BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.]

This squadron sailed from L’Orient on June 19, 1779.  Almost immediately trouble occurred.  Captain Landais, without any show of reason, claimed that the command, by right of seniority of commission, belonged to him.  On the first night out the Alliance and Bonhomme Richard collided and were obliged to return to port for repairs.  Vexatious delays prevented the sailing of the squadron until August 14.