The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864

Then, for the next twenty-four hours,—

"Foggy at first,—clear afterwards.

"At 1 P.M. beat to quarters. All my men at quarters but West, who was on shore when we sailed, the men say on leave,—and Collins in the sick bay. (MEM. shirked.) The others in good spirits. Mr. Wallis made us a speech, and the men cheered well. Engaged the enemy at about 7.20 P.M. Mr. Wallis had bade me open my larboard ports, and I did so; but I did not loosen the stern-guns, which are fought by my crew, when necessary. The captain hailed the stranger twice, and then the order came to fire. Our gun No. 2 (after-gun but one) was my first piece. No. 1 flashed, and the gunner had to put on new priming. Fired twice with those guns, but before we had loaded the second time, for the third fire, the enemy ran into us. One of my men (Craik) was badly jammed in the shock,—squeezed between the gun and the deck. But he did not leave the gun. Tried to fire into the enemy, but just as we got the gun to bear, and got a new light, he fell off. It was very bad working in the dark. The lanthorns are as bad as they can be. Loaded both guns, got new portfires, and we ran into the enemy. We were wearing, and I believe our jib-boom got into his mizzen rigging. The ships were made fast by the men on the upper deck. At first I could not bring a gun to bear, the enemy was so far ahead of me. But as soon as we anchored, our ship forged ahead a little,—and by bringing the hind axle-trucks well aft, I made both my starboard guns bear on his bows. Fired right into his forward ports. I do not think there was a man or a gun there. In the second battery, forward of me, they had to blow our own ports open, because the enemy lay so close. Stopped firing three times for my guns to cool. No. 2 cools quicker than No. 1, or I think so. Forward we could hear musket-shot, and grenadoes,—but none of these things fell where we were at work. A man came into port No. 5, where little Wallis was, and said that the enemy was sinking, and had released him and the other prisoners. But we had no orders to stop firing. Afterwards there was a great explosion. It began at the main hatch, but came back to me and scalded some of my No. 2 men horribly. Afterwards Mr. Wallis came and took some of No. 2's men to board. I tried to bring both guns to bear with No. 1's crew. No. 2's crew did not come back. At half-past ten all firing stopped on the upper deck. Mr. Wallis went up to see if the enemy had struck. He did not come down,—but the master came down and said we had struck, and the orders were to cease firing.

"We had struck to the Richard, 44, Commodore Jones, and the Alliance, 40, which was the vessel they saw from the quarter-deck. Our consort, the Countess Scarborough, had struck to the enemy's ship Pallas. The officers and crew of the Richard are on board our ship. The mids talk English well, and are good fellows. They are very sorry for Mr. Mayrant, who was stabbed with a pike in boarding us, and Mr. Potter, another midshipman, who was hurt.

"The enemy's sick and wounded and prisoners were brought on board. At ten on the 25th, his ship, the Richard, sank. Played chess with Mr. Merry, one of the enemy's midshipmen. Beat him twice out of three.

"There is a little French fellow named Travaillier among their volunteers. When I first saw him he was naked to his waist. He had used his coat for a wad, and his shirt wet to put out fire. Plenty of our men had their coats burnt off, but they did not live to tell it."

Then the diary relapses into the dreariness of most ship-diaries, till they come into the Texel, when it is to a certain extent relieved by discussions about exchanges.

Such a peep at the most remarkable frigate-action in history, as that action was seen by a boy in the dark, through such key-hole as the after-ports of one of the vessels would give him, stimulated us all to "ask for more," and then to abuse Master Robert Heddart, "volunteer," a little, that he had not gone into more detail. Ingham defended his grandfather by saying that it was the way diaries always served you, which is true enough, and that the boy had literally told what he saw, which was also true enough, only he seemed to have seen "mighty little," which, I suppose, should be spelled "mity little." When we said this, Ingham said it was all in the dark, and Haliburton added, that "the battle-lanterns were as bad as they could be," Ingham said, however, that he thought there was more somewhere,—he had often heard the old gentleman tell the story in vastly more detail.

Accordingly, a few days after, he sent me a yellow old letter on long foolscap sheets, in which the old gentleman had written out his recollections for Ingham's own benefit, after some talk of old times on Thanksgiving evening. It is all he has ever found in his grandfather's rather tedious papers about the battle, and one passing allusion in it drops the curtain on Denis Duval.

Here it is.

"Jamaica Plain, Nov. 29, 1824.

"My Dear Boy,—I am very glad to comply with your request about an account of the great battle between the Serapis and the Bon Homme Richard and her consort. I had rather you should write out what I told you all on Thanksgiving evening at your mother's, for you hold a better pen than I do. But I know my memory of the event is strong, for it was the first fight I ever saw; and although it does not compare with Rodney's great fight with De Grasse, which I saw also, yet there are circumstances connected with it which will always make it a remarkable fight in history.

"You said, at your mother's, that you had never understood why the men on each side kept inquiring if the others had struck. The truth is, we had it all our own way below. And, as it proved, when our captain, Pearson, struck, most of his men were below. I know, that, in all the confusion and darkness and noise, I had no idea, aft on the main deck, that we were like to come off second best. On the other hand, at that time, the Richard probably had not a man left between-decks, unless some whom they were trying to keep at her pumps. But on her upper deck and quarter-deck and in her tops she had it all her own way. Jones himself was there; by that time Dale was there; and they had wholly cleared our upper deck, as we had cleared their main deck and gun-room. This was the strangeness of that battle. We were pounding through and through her, while she did not fight a gun of her main battery. But Jones was working his quarter-deck guns so as almost to rake our deck from stem to stern. You know, the ships were foul and lashed together. Jones says in his own account he aimed at our main-mast and kept firing at it. You can see that no crew could have lived under such a fire as that. There you have the last two hours of the battle: Jones's men all above, our men all below; we pounding at his main deck, he pelting at our upper deck. If there had not been some such division, of course the thing could not have lasted so long, even with the horrid havoc there was. I never saw anything like it, and I hope, dear boy, you may never have to."

[Mem. by Ingham. I had just made my first cruise as a midshipman in the U.S. navy on board the Intrepid, when the old gentleman wrote this to me. He made his first cruise in the British navy in the Serapis. After he was exchanged, he remained in that service till 1789, when he married in Canso, N.S., resigned his commission, and settled there.]

The letter continues:—

"I have been looking back on my own boyish journal of that time. My mother made me keep a log, as I hope yours does. But it is strange to see how little of the action it tells. The truth is, I was nothing but a butterfly of a youngster. To save my conceit, the first lieutenant, Wallis, told me I was assigned to keep an eye on the after-battery, where were two fine old fellows as ever took the King's pay really commanding the crews and managing the guns. Much did I know about sighting or firing them! However, I knew enough to keep my place. I remember tying up a man's arm with my own shirt-sleeves, by way of showing I was not frightened, as in truth I was. And I remember going down to the cockpit with a poor wretch who was awfully burned with powder,—and the sight there was so much worse than it was at my gun that I was glad to get back again. Well, you may judge, that, from two after-portholes below, first larboard, then starboard, I saw little enough of the battle. But I have talked about it since, with Dale, who was Jones's first lieutenant, and whom I met at Charlestown when he commanded the yard there. I have talked of it with Wallis many times. I talked of it with Sir Richard Pearson, who was afterwards Lt.-Gov. of Greenwich, and whom I saw there. Paul Jones I have touched my hat to, but never spoke to, except when we all took wine with him one day at dinner. But I have met his niece, Miss Janet Taylor, who lives in London now, and calculates nautical tables. I hope you will see her some day. Then there is a gentleman named Napier in Edinburgh, who has the Richard's log-book. Go and see it, if you are ever there,—Mr. George Napier. And I have read every word I could find about the battle. It was a remarkable fight indeed. 'All of which I was, though so little I saw.'"

[Mem. by F.C. And dear Ingham's nice old grandfather is a little slow in getting into action, me judice. It was a way they had in the navy before steam.]

The letter continues:—

"I do not know that Captain Pearson was a remarkable man; but I do know he was a brave man. He was made Sir Richard Pearson by the King for his bravery in this fight. When Paul Jones heard of that, he said Pearson deserved the knighthood, and that he would make him an earl the next time he met him. Of course, I only knew the captain as a midshipman (we were 'volunteers' then) knows a post-captain, and that for a few months only. We joined in summer (the Serapis was just commissioned for the first time). We were taken prisoners in September, but it was mid-winter before we were exchanged. He was very cross all the time we were in Holland. I do not suppose he wrote as good a letter as Jones did. I have heard that he could not spell well. But what I know is that he was a brave man.

"Paul Jones is one of the curiosities of history. He certainly was of immense value to your struggling cause. He kept England in terror; he showed the first qualities as a naval commander; he achieved great successes with very little force. Yet he has a damaged reputation. I do not think he deserves this reputation; but I know he has it. Now I can see but one difference between him and any of your land-heroes or your water-heroes whom all the world respects. This is, that he was born on our side, and they were born on the American side. This ought not to make any difference. But in actual fact I think it did. Jones was born in the British Islands. The popular feeling of England made a distinction between the allegiance which he owed to King George and that of born Americans. It ought not to have done so, because he had in good faith emigrated to America before the Rebellion, and took part in it with just the same motives which led any other American officer.[8 - Gates was an Englishman, and has a damaged reputation. Lee was another, who has no reputation at all. Conway was an Irishman, and the same is true of him. But these men all did something to forfeit esteem. Jones never did. Montgomery died in the full flush of his deserved honors. He was Irish by birth.]

"He had a fondness for books and for society, and thought himself gifted in writing. I should think he wrote too much. I have seen verses of his which were very poor."

[Mem. by F.C. I should think Ingham's grandfather wrote too much. I have seen letters of his which were very long, before they came to their subject.]

The letter continues:—

"To return. The Serapis, as I have said, was but just built. She had been launched that spring. She was one of the first 44-gun frigates that were ever built in the world. We (the English) were the first naval power to build frigates, as now understood, at all. I believe the name is Italian, but in the Mediterranean it means a very different thing. We had little ships-of-the-line, which were called fourth-rates, and which fought sixty, and even as low as fifty guns; they had two decks, and a quarter-deck above. But just as I came into the service, the old Phœnix and Rainbow and Roebuck were the only 44s we had: they were successful ships, and they set the Admiralty on building 44-gun frigates, which, even when they carried 50 guns, as we did, were quite different from the old fourth-rates. Very useful vessels they proved. I remember the Romulus, the Ulysses, the Actæon, and the Endymion: the Endymion fought the President forty years after. As I say, the Serapis was one of a batch of these vessels launched in the spring of 1779.

"We had been up the Cattegat that summer, waiting for what was known as the Baltic fleet.[9 - Not bound to the Baltic, as Mr. Thackeray supposes. Cf. Beatson's Naval Memoirs, Vol. IV. pp. 550-553.] If there were room and time, I could tell you good stories of the fun we had at Copenhagen. At last we got the convoy together, and got to sea,—no little job in that land-locked sailing. We got well across the North Sea, and, for some reason, made Sunderland first, and afterwards Scarborough.

"We were lying close in with Scarborough, when news came off that Paul Jones, with a fleet, was on the coast. Captain Pearson at once tried to signal the convoy back,—for they were working down the coast towards the Humber,—but the signals did no good till they saw the enemy themselves, and then they scud fast enough, passing us, and running into Scarborough harbor. We had not a great deal of wind, and the other armed vessel we had, the Countess of Scarborough, was slow, so that I remember we lay to for her. Jones was as anxious as we were to fight. We neared each other steadily till seven in the evening or later. The sun was down, but it was full moon,—and as we came near enough to speak, we could see everything on his ship. At that time the Poor Richard was the only ship we had to do with. His other ships were after our consort. The Richard was a queer old French Indiaman, you know. She was the first French ship-of-war I had ever seen. She had six guns on her lower deck, and six ports on each side there,—meaning to fight all these guns on the same side. On her proper gun-deck, above these, she had fourteen guns on each side,—twelves and nines. Then she had a high quarter, and a high forecastle, with eight more guns on these,—having, you know, one of those queer old poops you see in old pictures. She was, therefore, a good deal higher than we; for our quarter-deck had followed the fashion and come down. We fought twenty guns on our lower deck, twenty on our upper deck, and on the forecastle and quarter-deck we had ten little things,—fifty guns,—not unusual, you know, in a vessel rated as a forty-four. We had twenty-two in broadside. I remember I supposed for some time that all French ships were black, because the Richard was.

"As I said, I was on the main deck, aft. We were all lying stretched out in the larboard ports to see and hear what we could, when Captain Pearson himself hailed, "What ship is that?" I could not hear their answer, and he hailed again, and then said, if they did not answer, he would fire. We all took this as good as an order, and, hearing nothing, tumbled in and blazed away. The Poor Richard fired at the same time. It was at that first broadside of hers, as you remember, that two of Jones's heavy guns, below his main deck, burst. We could see that as we sighted for our next broadside, because we could see how they hove up the gun-deck above them. As for our shot, I suppose they all told. We had ten eighteen-pounders in that larboard battery below. I do not see why any shot should have failed.

"However, he had no thought of being pounded to pieces by his own firing and ours, and so he bore right down on us. He struck our quarter, just forward of my forward gun,—struck us hard, too. We had just fired our second shot, and then he closed, so I could not bring our two guns to bear. This was when he first tried to fasten the ships together. But they would not stay fastened. He could not bring a gun to bear,—having no forward ports that served him,—till we fell off again, and it was then that Captain Pearson asked, in that strange stillness, if he had struck. Jones answered, 'I have not begun to fight.' And so it proved. Our sails were filled, he backed his top-sails, and we wore short round. As he laid us athwart-hawse, or as we swung by him, our jib-boom ran into his mizzen-rigging. They say Jones himself then fastened our boom to his mainmast. Somebody did, but it did not hold, but one of our anchors hooked his quarter, and so we fought, fastened together, to the end,—both now fighting our starboard batteries, and being fixed stern to stem.

"On board the Serapis our ports were not open on the starboard side, because we had been firing on the other. And as we ran across and loosened those guns, the men amidships actually found they could not open their ports, the Richard was so close. They therefore fired their first shots right through our own port-lids, and blew them off. I was so far aft that my port-lids swung free.

"What I said, in beginning this letter, will explain to you the long continuance of the action after this moment, when, you would say, it must be ended by boarding, or in some other way, very soon. As soon as we on our main deck got any idea of the Richard's main deck, we saw that almost nobody replied to us there. In truth, two of the six guns which made her lower starboard battery had burst, and Jones's men would not fight what were left, nor do I blame them. Above, their gun-deck had been hoisted up, and, as it proved the next day, we were cutting them right through. We pounded away at what we could see,—and much more at what we could not see,—for it was now night, and there was a little smoke, as you may fancy. But above, the Richard's upper deck was a good deal higher than ours, and there Jones had dragged across upon his quarter a piece from the larboard battery, so that he had three nine-pounders, with which he was doing his best, almost raking us, as you may imagine. No one ever said so to me, that I know, but I doubt whether we could get elevation enough from any of our light guns on our upper deck (nines) to damage his battery much, he was so much higher than we. As for musketry, there is not much sharp-shooting when you are firing at night in the smoke, with the decks swaying under you.

"Many a man has asked me why neither side boarded,—and, in fact, there is a popular impression that Jones took our ship by boarding, as he did not. As to that, such questions are easier asked than answered. This is to be said, however: about ten o'clock, an English officer, who had commanded the Union letter-of-marque, which Jones had taken a few days before, came scrambling through one of our ports from the Richard. He went up aft to Captain Pearson at once, and told him that the Richard was sinking, that they had had to release all her prisoners (and she had hundreds) from the hold and spar-deck, himself among them, because the water came in so fast, and that, if we would hold on a few minutes more, the ship was ours. Every word of this was true, except the last. Hearing this, Captain Pearson—who, if you understand, was over my head, for he kept the quarter-deck almost throughout—hailed to ask if they had struck. He got no answer, Jones in fact being at the other end of his ship, on his quarter, pounding away at our main-mast. Pearson then called for boarders; they were formed hastily, and dashed on board to take the prize. But the Richard had not struck, though I know some of her men had called for quarters. Her men were ready for us,—under cover, Captain Pearson says in his despatch,—Jones himself seized a pike and headed his crew, and our men fell back again. One of the accounts says we tried to board earlier, as soon as the vessels were made fast to each other. But of this I knew nothing.

"Meanwhile Jones's people could not stay on his lower deck,—and could not do anything, if they had stayed there. They worked their way above. His main deck (of twelves) was fought more successfully, but his great strength was on his upper deck and in his tops. To read his own account, you would almost think he fought the battle himself with his three quarter-deck cannon, and I suppose it would be hard to overstate what he did do. Both he and Captain Pearson ascribe the final capture of the Serapis to this strange incident.

"The men in the Richard's tops were throwing hand-grenades upon our decks, and at last one fellow worked himself out to the end of the main-yard with a bucket filled with these missiles, lighted them one by one, and threw them fairly down our main hatchway. Here, as our ill luck ordered, was a row of our eighteen-gun cartridges, which the powder-boys had left there as they went for more,—our fire, I suppose, having slackened there:—cartridges were then just coming into use in the navy. One of these grenades lighted the row, and the flash passed—bang—bang—bang—back to me. Oh, it was awful! Some twenty of our men were fairly blown to pieces. There were other men who were stripped naked, with nothing on but the collars of their shirts and their wristbands. Farther aft there was not so much powder, perhaps, and the men were scorched or burned more than they were wounded. I do not know how I escaped, but I do know that there was hardly a man forward of my guns who did escape,—some hurt,—and the groaning and shrieking were terrible. I will not ask you to imagine all this,—in the utter darkness of smoke and night below-decks, almost every lantern blown out or smashed. But I assure you I can remember it. There were agonies there which I have never trusted my tongue to tell. Yet I see, in my journal, in a boy's mock-man way, this is passed by, as almost nothing. I did not think so or feel so, I can tell you.

"It was after this that the effort was made to board. I know I had filled some buckets of water from our lee ports, and had got some of the worst hurt of my men below, and was trying to understand what Brooks, who was jammed, but not burned, thought we could do, to see if we could not at least clear things enough to fight one gun, when boarders were called, and he left me. Cornish, who had really been captain of the other gun, was badly hurt, and had gone below. Then came the effort to board, which, as I say, failed; and that was really our last effort. About half-past ten, Captain Pearson struck. He was not able to bring a gun to bear on the Alliance, had she closed with us; his ship had been on fire a dozen times, and the explosion had wholly disabled our main battery, which had been, until this came, our chief strength. But so uncertain and confused was it all, that I know, when I heard the cry, 'They've struck,' I took it for granted it was the Richard. In fact, Captain Pearson had struck our flag with his own hands. The men would not expose themselves to the fire from the Richard's tops. Mr. Mayrant, a fine young fellow, one of Jones's midshipmen, was wounded in boarding us after we struck, because some of our people did not know we had struck. I know, when Wallis, our first lieutenant, heard the cry, he ran up-stairs,—supposing that Jones had struck to us, and not we to him.

"It was Lieutenant Dale who boarded us. He is still living, a fine old man, at Philadelphia. He found Captain Pearson on the lee of our quarter-deck again, and said,—

"'Sir, I have orders to send you on board the ship along-side.'

"Up the companion comes Wallis, and says to Captain Pearson,—

"'Have they struck?'

"'No, Sir,' said Dale,—'the contrary: he has struck to us.'

"Wallis would not take it, and said to Pearson,—

"'Have you struck, Sir?'

"And he had to say he had. Wallis said, 'I have nothing more to say,' and turned to come down to us, but Dale would not let him. Wallis said he would silence the lower-deck guns, but Dale sent some one else, and took them both aboard the Richard. Little Duval—a volunteer on board, not yet rated as midshipman—went with them. Jones gave back our captain's sword, with the usual speech about bravery,—but they quarrelled awfully afterwards.

"I suppose Paul Jones was himself astonished when daylight showed the condition of his ship. I am sure we were. His ship was still on fire: ours had been a dozen times, but was out. Wherever our main battery could hit him, we had torn his ship to pieces,—knocked in and knocked out the sides. There was a complete breach from the main-mast to the stern. You could see the sky and sea through the old hulk anywhere. Indeed, the wonder was that the quarter-deck did not fall in. The ship was sinking fast, and the pumps would not free her. For us, our jib-boom had been wrenched off at the beginning; our main-mast and mizzentop fell as we struck, and at day-break the wreck was not cleared away. Jones put Lieutenant Lunt on our vessel that night, but the next day he removed all his wounded, and finally all his people, to the Serapis, and at ten the Poor Richard went to the bottom. I have always wondered that your Naval Commissioners never named another frigate for her.

"And so, my dear boy, I will stop. I hope in God, it will never be your fate to see such a fight, or any fight, between an English and an American frigate.

"We drifted into Holland. Our wounded men were sent into hospital in the fort of the Texel. At last we were all transferred to the French Government as prisoners, and that winter we were exchanged. The Serapis went into the French navy, and the only important result of the affair in history was that King George had to make war with Holland. For, as soon as we were taken into the Texel, the English minister claimed us of the Dutch. But the Dutch gentlemen said they were neutrals, and could not interfere in the Rebel quarrel. "Interfere or fight," said England,—and the first clause of the manifesto which makes war with Holland states this grievance, that the Dutch would not surrender us when asked for. That is the way England treats neutrals who offer hospitality to rebels."

So ends the letter. I suppose the old gentleman got tired of writing. I have observed that the end of all letters is more condensed than the beginning. Mr. Weller, indeed, pronounces the "sudden pull-up" to be the especial charm of letter-writing. I had a mind to tell what the old gentleman saw of Kempenfelt and the Royal George, but this is enough. As Denis Duval scrambles across to Paul Jones's quarter-deck, at eleven o'clock of that strange moonlight night, he vanishes from history.

THE FUTURE SUMMER

Summer in all! deep summer in the pines,
And summer in the music on the sands,
And summer where the sea-flowers rise and fall
About the gloomy foreheads of stern rocks
And the green wonders of our circling sphere.