Some of the shots from the Serapis pierced the Bonhomme Richard under the water line, causing her to leak badly.  Deprived of his 18-pound guns by reason of the accident mentioned, Jones was forced to rely upon his 12-pounders.  They were worked for all that was in them, but the whole fourteen were silenced in little more than half an hour and seven of the quarter deck and forecastle guns were dismounted.  She was left with three 9-pounders, which, being loaded and aimed under the eye of Jones himself, did frightful execution on the deck of the enemy.

An hour had passed and the men were fighting furiously, when the full moon appeared above the horizon and lit up the fearful scene.  The Serapis attempted to cross the bow of the Bonhomme Richard, but miscalculated and the Bonhomme Richard shoved her bowsprit over the other’s stern.  In the lull that followed, when each expected his antagonist to board, Captain Pearson called out: 

“Have you struck?”

“Struck!” shouted back Jones; “I am just beginning to fight!”

The Serapis made another effort to get into position to rake the American, but in the blinding smoke she ran her jibboom afoul of the starboard mizzen shrouds of the Bonhomme Richard.  Captain Jones himself lashed the spar to the rigging, knowing that his only chance was in fighting at close quarters, but the swaying of the ships broke them apart.  At that instant, however, the spare anchor of the Serapis caught on the American’s quarter and held the two vessels, as may be said, locked in each other’s arms.

They were so close, indeed, that the English gunners could not raise the lower port lids, and they blew them off by firing their cannon through them.  The men on each ship in loading were forced to push their rammers into the ports of the other vessel.  The Bonhomme Richard was set on fire by burning wads, but the flames were speedily extinguished.

The explosion of the American’s lower guns at the opening of the battle had made her helpless against the corresponding battery of the enemy, which pounded away until a huge, yawning gap was opened.  Some of the shots went clean through the battered hull and splashed into the water, hundreds of feet distant.  The disadvantage was more than offset by the concentration of the Americans on the upper deck and in the rigging.  The fire of the Bonhomme Richard became so terrible that every officer and man of the enemy kept out of sight, observing which an American seaman crawled out on the main yard, carrying a bucket of hand grenades which he threw wherever he saw a man.  He did this with such excellent aim that he dropped one through the main hatchway and into the gunroom.  It fell into a heap of powder and produced an explosion that was awful beyond description, for it killed and wounded thirty-eight men and really decided the battle.