Commodore Paul Jones 29

Commodore Paul Jones 29

"With respect to the situation of the Bon Homme Richard, the rudder

was cut entirely off, the stern frame and the transoms were almost

entirely cut away; the timbers, by the lower deck especially, from the

mainmast to the stern, being greatly decayed with age, were mangled

beyond my power of description, and a person must have been an

eyewitness to form a just idea of the tremendous scene of carnage,

wreck, and ruin that everywhere appeared. Humanity can not but recoil

from the prospect of such finished horror, and lament that war should

produce such fatal consequences."

 

 

It was evident that nothing less than a miracle could keep her afloat

even in the calmest weather. With a perfectly natural feeling Jones

determined to try it.

 

A large detail from the Pallas was set to work pumping her out. Every

effort, meanwhile, was made to patch her up so that she could be

brought into the harbor. The efforts were in vain. Owing to the

decayed condition of her timbers, even the poor remnants of her frames

that were left standing aft could not bear the slightest repairing.

She settled lower and lower in the water, until, having been surveyed

by the carpenters and various men of experience, including Captain de

Cottineau, about five o'clock in the evening it was determined to

abandon her. It was time. She threatened to sink at any moment--would

surely have sunk, indeed, if the pumps had stopped. She was filled

with helpless wounded and prisoners. They had to be taken off before

she went down.

 

During the night everybody worked desperately transferring the wounded

to the other ships, further details of men from the Pallas being told

off to man the frigate and keep her afloat. Such was the haste with

which they worked that they barely succeeded in trans-shipping the

last of the wounded just before daybreak on the 25th. Although the sea

fortunately continued smooth, the poor wounded suffered frightfully

from the rough handling necessitated by the rapid transfer.

 

The removal of the prisoners from the Richard was now begun;

naturally, these men, expecting the ship to sink at any moment, were

frantic with terror. They had only been kept down by the most rigorous

measures. As day broke, the light revealed to them the nearness of the

approaching end of the ship. They also realized that they greatly

outnumbered the Americans remaining on the Richard. There was a

hurried consultation among them: a quick rush, and they made a

desperate attempt to take the ship. Some endeavored to overpower the

Americans, others ran to the braces and wheel and got the head of the

ship toward the land. A brief struggle ensued. The Americans were all

heavily armed, the English had few weapons, and after two of them had

been shot dead, many wounded, and others thrown overboard, they were

subdued once more and the ship regained. In the confusion some

thirteen of them got possession of a boat and escaped in the gray of

the morning to the shore. By close, quick work during the early

morning all the men alive, prisoners and crew, were embarked in the

boats of the squadron before the Richard finally disappeared.[18] At

ten o'clock in the morning of the 25th she plunged forward and went

down bow foremost. The great battle flag under which she had been

fought, which had been shot away during the action, had been picked up

and reset. It fluttered above her as she slowly sank beneath the

sea.[19]

 

So filled had been the busy hours, and so many had been the demands

made upon him in every direction, that Jones, ever careless of himself

in others' needs, lost all of his personal wardrobe, papers, and other

property. They went down with the ship. From the deck of the Serapis,

Jones, with longing eyes and mingled feelings, watched the great old

Indiaman, which had earned everlasting immortality because for three

brief hours he and his men had battled upon her worn-out decks, sink

beneath the sea. Most of those who had given their lives in defense of

her in the battle lay still and silent upon her decks. There had been

no time to spare to the dead. Like the Vikings of old, they found

their coffin in her riven sides, and sleep to-day in the quiet of the

great deep on the scene of their glory. During the interval after the

action, a jury rig had been improvised on the Serapis, which had not

been severely cut up below by the light guns of the Richard, and was

therefore entirely seaworthy, and the squadron bore away by Jones'

orders for Dunkirk, France.

 

Before we pass to a consideration of the subsequent movements of the

squadron, a further comparison between the Richard and the Serapis,

with some statement of the losses sustained and the various factors

which were calculated to bring about the end, will be in order, and

will reveal much that is interesting. The accounts of the losses upon

the two ships widely differ. Jones reported for the Richard forty-nine

killed and sixty-seven wounded; total, one hundred and sixteen out of

three hundred; but the number is confessedly incomplete. Pearson, for

the Serapis, reported the same number of killed and sixty-eight

wounded, out of a crew of three hundred and twenty; but it is highly

probable that the loss in both cases was much greater. The records, as

we have seen, were badly kept on the Richard, and most of them were

lost when the ship went down. The books of the Serapis seemed to have

fared equally ill in the confusion. The crews of both ships were

scattered throughout the several ships of the American squadron, and

accurate information was practically unobtainable. Jones, who was in a

better position than Pearson for ascertaining the facts, reports the

loss of the Serapis as over two hundred men, which is probably nearly

correct, and the loss of the Richard was probably not far from one

hundred and fifty men. The Countess of Scarborough lost four killed

and twenty wounded. The loss of the Pallas was slight, and that of the

Alliance and Vengeance nothing.

 

However this may be, the battle was one of the most sanguinary and

desperate ever fought upon the sea. It was unique in that the beaten

ship, which was finally sunk by the guns of her antagonist, actually

compelled that antagonist to surrender. It was remarkable for the

heroism manifested by both crews. It is invidious, perhaps, to make a

comparison on that score, yet, if the contrast can be legitimately

drawn, the result is decidedly in favor of the Richard's men, for they

had not only the enemy to occupy their attention, but they sustained

and did not succumb to the treacherous attack of the Alliance in the

rear. The men of the Serapis were, of course, disheartened and their

nerves shattered by the explosion which occurred at the close of the

action, but a similar and equally dreadful misfortune had occurred at

the commencement of the engagement on the Richard, in the blowing up

of the two 18-pounders. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred either

of these two terrible incidents would have caused a prompt surrender

of the ship on which they occurred; but the Richard's men rallied from

the former, and it must not be forgotten that the Serapis' men did the

like from the latter, for they had recommenced the fire of their guns

just as Pearson hauled down his flag.

 

The officers on the two ships appear to have done their whole duty,

and the difference, as I have said, lay in the relative qualities of

the two captains. Jones could not be beaten, Pearson could. When

humanity enters into a conflict with a man like Jones, it must make up

its mind to eventually discontinue the fight or else remove the man.

Fortunately, Jones, though slightly wounded, was not removed;

therefore Pearson had to surrender. Next to Jones, the most unique

personality which was produced by the action was Richard Dale. I do

not refer to his personal courage--he was no braver than Pearson;

neither was Jones, for that matter; in fact, the bravery of all three

was of the highest order--but to his astonishing presence of mind and

resource at that crucial moment which was the third principal incident

of the battle, when the English prisoners were released. The more one

thinks of the prompt, ready way in which he cajoled, commanded, and

coerced these prisoners into manning the pumps so that his own men

could continue the battle, the result of which, if they succeeded

would be to retain the English still as prisoners, the more one

marvels at it. The fame of Dale has been somewhat obscured in the

greater fame of Jones, but he deserves the very highest praise for his

astonishing action. And in every possible public way Jones freely

accorded the greatest credit to him.

 

There is one other fact in connection with the battle which must be

mentioned. The English have always claimed that the presence of the

Alliance decided Pearson to surrender. In justice, I have no doubt

that it did exercise a moral influence upon the English captain. In

the confusion of the fight, what damage, whether little or great, had

been done to the Serapis by the fire of the Alliance could not be

definitely ascertained. Again, it would never enter the head of an

ordinary commander that the Alliance was deliberately firing into her

consort. So far as can be determined now, no damage worthy of account

had been done to the English ship by the Alliance; but Pearson knew

she was there, and he had a right to believe that she would return at

any time. When she returned, if she should take position on the

starboard side of the Serapis, the unengaged side, he would have to

strike at once.

 

Something of this sort may have been in his mind, and it would

undoubtedly contribute to decide him to surrender; but, admitting all

this, he should have delayed the formal surrender until the possible

contingency had developed into a reality, until he actually saw the

Alliance alongside of him again. As a matter of fact, he did not

strike until about thirty minutes after the Alliance had fired the

last broadside and sailed away. The American frigate was out of

gunshot when he surrendered, and going farther from him with every

minute.

 

Imagine what Jones would have done under similar circumstances!

Indeed, we do not have to imagine what he would have done, for as it

happened the Alliance had on two occasions fired full upon him, and he

was actually in the dilemma which Pearson imagined he might fall into,

and yet it only re-enforced his already resolute determination to

continue the fight more fiercely than ever. A nice point this: with

Pearson the Alliance was an imaginary danger, with Jones a real one!

While the presence of the Alliance, therefore, explains in a measure

Pearson's surrender, it does not enhance his reputation for dogged

determination. The unheard-of resistance which he had met from the

Richard, the persistence with which the attack was carried on, the

apparently utterly unconquerable nature of his antagonist--of whose

difficulties on the Richard he was not aware, for there was no

evidence of faltering in the battle--the frightful attack he had

received, and his isolation upon the deck filled with dead and dying

men, broke his own power of resistance. There were two things beaten

on that day--the Richard and Pearson; one might almost say three

things: both ships and the captain of one. It is generally admitted,

even by the English, that the result would have been the same if the