Commodore Paul Jones 30

Commodore Paul Jones 30

irresponsible, in short, insane. This is a conclusion to which his own

officers afterward arrived, and which his subsequent career seems to

bear out. At any rate, this is the most charitable explanation of his

conduct which can be adopted. If he had been simply cowardly, he could

have done some service by attacking the unprotected convoy, which was

entirely at his mercy, and among which he could have easily taken some

valuable prizes. It is stated to their credit that some of the

officers of the Alliance remonstrated with Landais, and pointed out to

him that he was attacking the wrong ship, and that some of his men

refused to obey his orders to fire.

 

There is but one other circumstance to which it is necessary to refer.

All the plans of the battle which are extant, and all the descriptions

which have been made, from Cooper to Maclay and Spears, show that the

Richard passed ahead of the Serapis and was raked; and that the

Serapis then ranged alongside to windward of the American and

presently succeeded in crossing the Richard's bow and raking her a

second time. Richard Dale's account, in Sherburne's Life of Paul

Jones, written some forty-six years after the action, seems to bear

out this idea. Jones himself, whose report is condensed and

unfortunately wanting in detail, says: "Every method was practiced on

both sides to gain an advantage and rake each other, and I must

confess that the enemy's ship, being much more manageable than the Bon

Homme Richard, gained thereby several times an advantageous situation,

in spite of my best endeavors to prevent it." Nathaniel Fanning,

midshipman of the maintop in the action, stated in his narrative,

published in 1806, twenty-seven years later, that the Serapis raked

the Richard several times.

 

Notwithstanding this weight of apparent testimony, I must agree with

Captain Mahan in his conclusion that the Serapis, until the ships were

lashed together, engaged the Richard with her port battery only, and

that the plan as given above is correct. In the first place, Jones'

statement is too indefinite to base a conclusion upon unless clearly

corroborated by other evidence. Dale, being in the batteries, where he

could hardly see the maneuvers, and writing from memory after a lapse

of many years, may well have been mistaken. Fanning's narrative is

contradicted by the articles which he signed concerning the conduct of

Landais, in October, 1779, in the Texel, so that his earliest

statement is at variance with his final recollection, and Fanning is

not very reliable at best.

 

However, we might accept the statements of these men as decisive were

it not for the fact that Pearson, whose report is very explicit

indeed, makes no claim whatever to having succeeded in raking the

Richard, though it would be so greatly to his credit if he had done so

that it is hardly probable he would fail to state it. His account of

the battle accords with the plan of the present work. Again, when the

Serapis engaged the Richard in the final grapple, she had to blow off

her starboard port shutters, which were therefore tightly closed. If

she had been engaged to starboard (which would necessarily follow if

she had been on the port side of the Richard at any time), the ports

would have been opened.[22] This is not absolutely conclusive,

because, of course, it would be possible that the ports might have

been closed when the men were shifted to the other battery, but in the

heat of the action such a measure would be so improbable as to be

worthy of little consideration. But the most conclusive testimony to

the fact that the Serapis was not on the port side of the Richard at

any time is found in the charges which were signed by the officers

concerning the conduct of Landais. Article 19 reads: "As the most

dangerous shot which the Bon Homme Richard received under the water

were under the larboard bow and quarter, they must have come from the

Alliance, _for the Serapis was on the other side_."[23]

 

Captain Mahan well sums it up: "As Landais' honor, if not his life,

was at stake in these charges, it is not to be supposed that six

officers (besides two French marine officers), four of whom were

specially well situated for seeing, would have made this statement if

the Serapis had at any time been in position to fire those shots."

 

This consideration, therefore, seems to settle the question. Again,

the maneuvers as they have been described in this volume are the

simple and natural evolutions which, under the existing conditions of

wind and weather and the relative positions of the two ships, would

have been in all human probability carried out. The attempt to put the

ships in the different positions of the commonly accepted plans

involves a series of highly complicated and unnecessary evolutions

(scarcely possible, in fact, in the very light breeze), which no

commander would be apt to attempt in the heat of action unless most

serious contingencies rendered them inevitable.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XII.

UPHOLDING AMERICAN HONOR IN THE TEXEL.

 

 

After the sinking of the Richard, Jones turned his attention to the

squadron. Those ships which had been in action were now ready for sea,

so far, at least, as it was possible to make them, and it was

necessary to make a safe port as soon as possible. He had now some

five hundred English prisoners, including Captains Pearson and Piercy

and their officers, in his possession. These equaled all the American

seamen held captive by the English, and, with one of the main objects

of his expedition in view, Jones earnestly desired to make a French

port, in which case his prizes would be secure and he would be able to

effect a proper exchange of prisoners. But the original destination of

the squadron had been the Texel. It is evident that in sending the

squadron into the Zuyder Zee Franklin shrewdly contemplated the

possibility of so compromising Holland by the presence of the ships as

to force a recognition from that important maritime and commercial

power of the belligerency of the United States. This was the real

purport of the orders. There was an ostensible reason, however, in the

presence of a large fleet of merchant vessels in the Texel, which

would be ready for sailing for France in October, and Jones' squadron

could give them a safe convoy.

 

The events of the cruise had brought about a somewhat different

situation from that contemplated in the original orders, and Jones was

undoubtedly within his rights in determining to enter Dunkirk, the

most available French port; in which event the difficulties which

afterward arose concerning the exchange of prisoners and the

disposition of the prizes would never have presented themselves. In

the latter case, however, the hand of Holland might not have been so

promptly forced, and the recognition accorded this country would

probably have been much longer delayed, although in the end it would

have come. But the balance of advantage lay with Jones' choice of

Dunkirk.

 

For a week the ships beat up against contrary winds, endeavoring to

make that port. Their position was most precarious. Sixteen sail,

including several ships of the line, were seeking the audacious

invaders, and they were likely to overhaul them at any time. The

Frenchmen naturally grew nervous over the prospect. Finally, the

captains, who had been remonstrating daily with Jones, refused to obey

his orders any longer; and, the wind continuing unfavorable for

France, they actually deserted the Serapis, running off to leeward in

a mass and heading for the Texel.

 

The officers of the American squadron were fully aware of the assigned

destination, although the deep reasons for Franklin's subtle policy

had probably not been communicated to them. In view of this

unprecedented situation, which may be traced distinctly to the

concordat, there was nothing left to Jones but to swallow the affront

as best he might, and follow his unruly squadron.

 

Landais had not yet been deposed from the command of the Alliance,

because it would have probably required force to arrest him on the

deck of his own ship, and an internecine conflict might have been

precipitated in his command. On the 3d of October, having made a quick

run of it, the squadron entered the Texel.

 

From the mainland of the Dutch Republic, now the Kingdom of the

Netherlands, the state of North Holland thrusts a bold wedge of land

far to the northward, between the foaming surges of the German Ocean

on the one hand, and the tempest-tossed waters of the Zuyder Zee on

the other. Opposite the present mighty fortifications of Helder,

justly considered the Gibraltar of the North, which terminate the

peninsula, lies a deep and splendid channel, bounded on the north side

by the island of Texel, from which the famous passage gets its name.

Through this ocean gateway, from time immemorial, a splendid

procession of gallant ships and hardy men have gone forth to discover

new worlds, to found new countries, to open up new avenues of trade

with distant empires, and to uphold the honor of the Orange flag in

desperate battles on the sea. Through the pass sailed the first great

Christian foreign missionary expedition of modern times, when in 1624

the Dutchmen carried the Gospel to the distant island of Formosa, the

beautiful.

 

Brederode and the wild beggars of the sea; Tromp, De Ruyter, van

Heemskerk, De Winter, leading their fleets to battles which made their

names famous, had plowed through the deep channel with their lumbering

keels. Of smaller ships from these familiar shores, the little Half

Moon, of Henry Hudson, and the pilgrim-laden Mayflower had taken their

departure. But no bolder officer nor better seaman had ever made the

passage than the little man on the deck of the battered Serapis on

that raw October morning. It is a rather interesting coincidence that

among the prizes of this cruise was one which bore the name of the

Mayflower.

 

As the cables of the ships tore through the hawse pipes when they

dropped anchor, Jones may have imagined that his troubles were over.

As a matter of fact, they had just begun, and his stay in the Texel

was not the least arduous nor the least brilliant period in his life.

His conduct in the trying circumstances in which he found himself was

beyond reproach. The instant that he appeared, Sir Joseph Yorke, the

able and influential Minister of England at The Hague, demanded that

the States-General deliver the Serapis and the Scarborough to him and

compel the return of the English prisoners held by Jones, and that the

American "Pirate" should be ordered to leave the Texel immediately,

which would, of course, result in the certain capture of his ships,

for the English pursuing squadron appeared off the mouth of the

channel almost immediately after Jones' entrance.

 

Sir Joseph made the point--and it was a pretty one--that by the terms

of past treaties prizes taken by ships whose commanders bore the

commission of no recognized power or sovereign were to be returned to