Commodore Paul Jones 24

Commodore Paul Jones 24

Closer scrutiny had satisfied the American that the vessels in sight

were the longed-for Baltic merchant fleet which was convoyed by two

vessels of war, one of which appeared to be a small ship of the line

or a heavy frigate. In spite, therefore, of the suspicious maneuvers

of his consorts, Jones flung out a signal for a general chase, crossed

his light yards and swept toward the enemy. Meanwhile all was

consternation in the English fleet off the headland. A shore boat

which had been noticed pulling hard toward the English convoying

frigate now dashed alongside, and a man ascended to her deck.

Immediately thereafter signals were broken out at the masthead of the

frigate, attention being called to them by a gun fired to windward.

All the ships but one responded by tacking or wearing in different

directions in great apparent confusion, but all finally headed for the

harbor of Scarborough, where, under the guns of the castle, they hoped

to find a secure refuge. As they put about they let fly their

topgallant sheets and fired guns to spread the alarm.

 

Meanwhile the English ship, which proved to be the frigate Serapis,

also tacked and headed westward, taking a position between her convoy

and the approaching ships. Some distance to leeward of the frigate,

and farther out to sea, to the eastward, a smaller war vessel, in

obedience to orders, also assumed a similar position, and both waited

for the advancing foe. Early that morning Richard Pearson, the captain

of the Serapis, had been informed that Paul Jones was off the coast,

and he had been instructed to look out for him. The information had

been at once communicated to the convoy, to which cautionary orders

had been given, which had been in the main disregarded, as was the

invariable custom with convoys. The shore boat which the men on the

Richard had just observed speaking the Serapis contained the bailiff

of Scarborough Castle, who confirmed the previous rumors and

undoubtedly pointed out the approaching ships as Jones' squadron.

 

Pearson, as we have seen, had signaled his convoy, and the latter, now

apprised of their danger beyond all reasonable doubt by the sight of

the approaching ships, had at last obeyed his orders. Then he had

cleverly placed his two ships between the oncoming American squadron

to cover the retreat of his charges and to prevent the enemy from

swooping down upon them. His position was not only proper and

seamanlike, but it was in effect a bold challenge to his approaching

antagonist--a challenge he had no wish to disregard, which he eagerly

welcomed, in fact. In obedience to Jones' signal for a general chase,

the Richard and the Pallas were headed for their two enemies. As they

drew nearer the Pallas changed her course in accordance with Jones'

directions, and headed for the smaller English ship, the Countess of

Scarborough, a twenty-four gun, 6-pounder sloop of war, by no means an

equal match for the Pallas. The Vengeance followed at a safe distance

in the rear of the commodore, while Landais disregarded all signals

and pursued an erratic course of his own devising. Sometimes it

appeared that he was about to follow the Richard, sometimes the

Pallas, sometimes the flying merchantmen attracted his attention. It

was evident that the one thing he would not do would be to fight.

 

In utter disgust, Jones withdrew his attention from him and

concentrated his mind upon the task before him. He was about to engage

with his worn-out old hulk, filled with condemned guns, a splendid

English frigate of the first class. A comparison of force is

interesting. Counting the main battery of the Richard as composed of

twelves and the spar-deck guns as nines, and including the six

18-pounders in the gun room as being all fought on one side, we get a

total of forty guns throwing three hundred and three pounds of shot to

the broadside; this is the extreme estimate. Counting one half of the

main battery as 9-pounders, we get two hundred and eighty-two pounds

to the broadside, and, considering the 18-pounders as being fought

only three on a side, we reduce the weight of the broadside to two

hundred and twenty-eight pounds. As it happened, as we shall see, the

18-pounders were abandoned after the first fire, so that the effective

weight of broadside during the action amounted to either one hundred

and ninety-five or one hundred and seventy-four pounds, depending on

the composition of the main battery. Even the maximum amount is small

enough by comparison.

 

The crew of the Richard had been reduced to about three hundred

officers and men, as near as can be ascertained. The desertion of the

barge, the loss of the boat under Cutting Lunt off the Irish coast,

the various details by which the several prizes had been manned, and

the absence of the boat sent that morning under the charge of Henry

Lunt, which had not, and did not come back until after the action, had

reduced the original number to these figures. A most serious feature

of the situation was the lack of capable sea officers. There were so

few of the latter on board the Richard originally that the absence of

the two mentioned seriously hampered her work. Dale himself was a

host. Those that remained, who, with the exception of the purser,

sailing master, and the officers of the French contingent, were young

and inexperienced, mostly midshipmen--boys, in fact--made up for their

deficiencies by their zeal and courage. The officers of the French

contingent proved themselves to be men of a high class, who could be

depended upon in desperate emergencies.

 

The Serapis was a brand-new, double-banked frigate, of about eight

hundred tons burden--that is, she carried guns on two covered and one

uncovered decks. This was an unusual arrangement, not subsequently

considered advantageous or desirable, but it certainly enabled her to

present a formidable battery within a rather short length; her

shortness, it was believed, would greatly enhance her handiness and

mobility, qualities highly desirable in a war vessel, especially in

the narrow seas. On the lower or main deck twenty 18-pounders were

mounted; on the gun deck proper, twenty 9-pounders; and on the spar

deck, ten 6-pounders, making a total of fifty guns, twenty-five in

broadside, throwing three hundred pounds' weight of shot at each

discharge as against the Richard's one hundred and seventy-four. She

was manned by about three hundred trained and disciplined English

seamen, forming a homogeneous, efficient crew, and well they proved

their quality. Richard Pearson, her captain, was a brave, competent,

and successful officer, who had enjoyed a distinguished career,

winning his rank by gallant and daring enterprises; no ordinary man,

indeed, but one from whom much was to be expected.

 

In making this comparison between the two ships it must not be

forgotten that while the difference in the number of guns--ten--was

not great, yet in their caliber and the consequent weight of broadside

the Richard was completely outclassed. Then, too, the penetrative

power of an 18-pound gun is vastly greater than that of a 12-pound

gun, a thing well understood by naval men, though scarcely appearing

of much moment on paper. Indeed, it was a maxim that a 12-pound

frigate could not successfully engage an 18-pounder, or an 18-pound

frigate cope with a 24-pound ship.[12]

 

In addition to this vast preponderance in actual fighting force, there

was another great advantage to the Serapis in the original composition

of her crew as compared with the heterogeneous crowd which Jones had

been compelled to hammer into shape. Worthily, indeed, did both bodies

of men demonstrate their courage and show the effect of their

training. There was a further superiority in the English ship in that

she was built for warlike purposes, and was not a converted and

hastily adapted merchant vessel. She was of much heavier construction,

with more massive frames, stouter sides, and heavier scantling. The

last advantage Pearson's ship possessed was in her superior mobility

and speed. She should have been able to choose and maintain her

distance, so that with her longer and heavier guns she could batter

the Richard to pieces at pleasure, herself being immune from the

latter's feebler attack.

 

In but one consideration was the Richard superior to the Serapis, and

that was in the personality of the man behind the men behind the guns!

Pearson was a very gallant officer. There was no blemish upon his

record, no question as to his capacity. In personal bravery he was not

inferior to any one. As a seaman he worthily upheld the high

reputation of the great navy to which he belonged; but as a man, as a

personality, he was not to be mentioned in the same breath with Jones.

 

This is no discredit to that particular Englishman, for the same

disadvantageous comparison to Jones would have to be made in the case

of almost any other man that sailed the sea. There was about the

little American such Homeric audacity, such cool-headed heroism, such

unbreakable determination, such unshakable resolution, that so long as

he lived it was impossible to conquer him. They might knock mast after

mast out of the Richard; they might silence gun after gun in her

batteries; man after man might be killed upon her decks; they might

smash the ship to pieces and sink her beneath his feet, but there was

no power on earth which could compel him to strike her flag.

 

Jones was the very incarnation of the indomitable _Ego_: a soul that

laughed at odds, that despised opposition, that knew but one thing

after the battle was joined--to strike and strike hard, until

opposition was battered down or the soul of the striker had fled. In

action he would be master--or dead. But his fighting was no baresark

fury; no blind, wild rage of struggle; no ungovernable lust for

battle; it was the apotheosis of cool-blooded calculation. He fought

with his head as well as with his heart, and he knew perfectly well

what he was about all the time. Pearson was highly trained matter of

first-rate composition; Jones was mind, and his superiority over

matter was inevitable. The hot-tempered spirit of the man which

involved him in so many difficulties, which made him quarrelsome,

contrary, and captious, gave place to a coolness and calmness as great

as his courage in the presence of danger, in the moment of action. By

his skill, his ability, his address, his persistence, his staying

power, his hardihood, Jones deserved that victory which his

determination absolutely wrested from overwhelming odds, disaster, and

defeat. The chief players in the grim game, therefore, were but ill

matched, and not all the superiority in the pawns upon the chessboard

could overcome the fearful odds under which the unconscious Pearson

labored. We pity Pearson; in Jones' hands he was as helpless as

Pontius Pilate.

 

The crew of the Richard, having had supper and grog, had long since

gone to their stations to the music of the same grim call of the beat

to quarters which had rolled upon the decks of every warship of every

nation which had joined battle for perhaps two hundred years. Jones

was a great believer in drill and gun practice. His experience on his

first cruise in the Alfred, if nothing else, had taught him that, and

upon this ill-found ship with its motley crew probably a more thorough

regimen of control and discipline existed than could be found in any

other ship afloat. Frequent target practice was had, too, and the

result proved the value of the exercise. Had this not been the case