"What ship is that?" called out the Englishman. "Come a little nearer, and we"ll tell you," answered plucky Captain Jones.
The British ships did come a little nearer. The forty merchant vessels sailed as fast as they could to the nearest harbor, and then the warships had a terrible battle.
At seven o"clock in the evening the British frigate and the _Bon Homme Richard_ began to fight. They banged and hammered away for hours, and then, when the British captain thought he must have beaten the Americans, and it was so dark and smoky that they could only see each other by the fire flashes, he called out to the American captain: "Are you beaten? Have you hauled down your flag?"
And back came the answer of Captain John Paul Jones: "I haven"t begun to fight yet!"
So they went at it again. The two ships were now lashed together, and they tore each other like savage dogs in a fight.
The rotten old _Richard_ suffered terribly. Two of her great guns had burst at the first fire, and she was shot through and through by the _Serapis_ until most of her timbers above the water-line were shot away.
The British rushed on board with pistols and cutla.s.ses, and the Americans drove them back. But the _Richard_ was on fire; water was pouring in through a dozen shot holes; it looked as if she must surrender, brave as were her captain and crew. There were on board the old ship nearly two hundred prisoners who had been taken from captured vessels, and so pitiful were their cries that one of the officers set them free, thinking that the ship was going to sink and that they ought to have a chance for their lives. These men were running up on deck, adding greatly to the trouble of Captain Jones; for he had now a crowd of enemies on his own ship. But the prisoners were so scared that they did not know what to do. They saw the ship burning around them and heard the water pouring into the hold, and thought they would be carried to the bottom. So to keep them from mischief they were set to work, some at the pumps, others at putting out the fire. And to keep the ship from blowing up, if the fire should reach the magazine, Captain Jones set men at bringing up the kegs of powder and throwing them into the sea. Never was there a ship in so desperate a strait, and there was hardly a man on board, except Captain Jones, who did not want to surrender.
But the British were not having it all their own way. The American tars had climbed the masts and were firing down with muskets and flinging down hand grenades, until all the British had to run from the upper deck. A hand grenade is a small, hollow iron ball filled with powder, which explodes when thrown down and sends the bits of iron flying all around, like so many bullets.
One sailor took a bucketful of these and crept far out on the yard-arm of the ship, and began to fling them down on the gun-deck of the _Serapis_, where they did much damage. At last one of them went through the open hatchway to the main deck, where a crowd of men were busy working the great guns, and cartridges were lying all about and loose powder was scattered on the floor.
The grenade set fire to this powder, and in a second there was a terrible explosion. A great sheet of flame burst up through the hatchway, and frightful cries came from below. In that dreadful moment more than twenty men were killed and many more were wounded. All the guns on that deck had to be abandoned. There were no men left to work them.
Where was Captain Jones all the time, and what was he doing? You may be sure he was busy. He had taken a gun and loaded it with double-headed shot, and kept firing at the mainmast of the _Serapis_. Every shot cut a piece out of the mast, and after a while it came tumbling upon the deck, with all its spars and rigging. The tarred ropes quickly caught fire, and the ship was in flames.
At this moment up came the _Alliance_, one of Captain Jones"s fleet. He now thought that the battle was at an end, but to his horror the _Alliance_, instead of firing at the British ship, began to pour its broadsides into his own. He called to them for G.o.d"s sake to quit firing, but they kept on, killing some of his best men and making several holes under water, through which new floods poured into the ship. The _Alliance_ had a French captain who hated Paul Jones and wanted to sink his ship.
Both ships were now in flames, and water rushed into the _Richard_ faster than the pumps could keep it out. Some of the officers begged Captain Jones to pull down his flag and surrender, but he would not give up. He thought there was always a chance while he had a deck under his feet.
Soon the cowardly French traitor quit firing and sailed off, and Paul Jones began his old work again, firing at the _Serapis_ as if the battle had just begun. This was more than the British captain could bear. His ship was a mere wreck and was blazing around him, so he ran on deck and pulled down his flag with his own hands. The terrible battle was at an end. The British ship had given up the fight.
Lieutenant Dale sprang on board the _Serapis_, went up to Captain Pearson, the British commander, and asked him if he surrendered. The Englishman replied that he had, and then he and his chief officer went aboard the battered _Richard_, which was sinking even in its hour of victory.
But Captain Jones stood on the deck of his sinking vessel, proud and triumphant. He had shown what an American captain and American sailors could do, even when everything was against them. The English captain gave up his sword to the American, which is the way all sailors and soldiers do when they surrender their ships or their armies.
The fight had been a brave one, and the English King knew that his captain had made a bold and desperate resistance, even if he had been whipped. So he rewarded Captain Pearson, when he at last returned to England, by making him a Knight, thus giving him the t.i.tle of "Sir."
When Captain Jones heard of this he laughed, and said: "Well, if I can meet Captain Pearson again in a sea fight, I"ll make him a lord."
The poor _Bon Homme Richard_ was such an utter wreck that she soon sank beneath the waves. But, even as she went down, the stars and stripes floated proudly from the mast-head, in token of victory.
Captain Jones, after the surrender, put all his men aboard the captured _Serapis_, and then off he sailed to the nearest friendly port, with his great prize and all his prisoners. This victory made him the greatest sailor in the whole American war, and the most famous of all American seamen.
Captain Jones took his prize into the Dutch port of Texel, closely followed by a British squadron. The country of Holland was not friendly to the Americans, and though they let him come in, he was told that he could not stay there. So he sailed again, in a howling gale, straight through the British squadron, with the American flag flying at his peak.
Down through the narrow Straits of Dover he pa.s.sed, coming so near the English sh.o.r.e that he could count the warships at anchor in the Downs.
That was his way of showing how little he feared them. The English were so angry at Holland because it would not give up the Americans and their prizes that they declared war against that country.
When Captain Jones reached Paris he was received with the greatest honor, and greeted as one of the ablest and bravest of sea-fighters.
Everybody wished to see such a hero. He went to the King"s court, and the King and Queen and French lords and ladies made much of him and gave him receptions, and said so many fine things about him that, if he had been at all vain, it might have "turned his head," as people say. But John Paul Jones was not vain.
He was a brave sailor, and he was in France to get help and not compliments. He wished a new ship to take the place of the old _Richard_, which had gone to the bottom after its great victory.
So, though the King of France honored him and received him splendidly and made him presents, he kept on working to get another ship. At last he was made captain of a new ship, called the _Ariel_, and sailed from France. He had a fierce battle with an English ship called the _Triumph_, and defeated her. But she escaped before surrendering, and Captain Jones sailed across the sea to America.
He was received at home with great honor and applause. Congress gave him a vote of thanks, "for the zeal, prudence and intrepidity with which he had supported the honor of the American flag"--that is what the vote said.
People everywhere crowded to see him, and called him hero and conqueror.
Lafayette, the brave young Frenchman who came over to fight for America, called him "my dear Paul Jones," and Washington and the other leaders in America said, "Well done, Captain Jones!"
The King of France sent him a splendid reward of merit called the "Cross of Honor," and Congress set about building a fine ship for him to command. But before it was finished, the war was over; and he was sent back to France on some important business for the United States.
Here he was received with new honor, for the French knew how to meet and treat a brave man; and above all they loved a man who had humbled the English, their ancient foes. Captain Jones had sailed from a French port and in a French ship, and they looked on him almost as one of their own.
But all this did not make him proud or boastful, for he was not that kind of man.
In later years Paul Jones served in Russia in the wars with the Turks.
But the British officers who were in the Russian service refused to fight under him, saying that he was a rebel, a pirate, and a traitor.
This was because he had fought for America after being born in Scotland.
So, after some hard fighting, he left Russia and went back to France, where he died in 1792.
In all the history of sea fighting we hear of no braver man, and the United States, so long as it is a nation, will be proud of and honor the memory of the gallant sailor, John Paul Jones.
CHAPTER VI
CAPTAIN BUSHNELL SCARES THE BRITISH
THE PIONEER TORPEDO BOAT AND THE BATTLE OF THE KEGS
MANY of us, all our lives, have seen vessels of every size and shape darting to and fro over the water; some with sails spread to the wind, others with puffing pipes and whirling wheels.
And that is not all. Men have tried to go under water as well as on top.
Some of you may have read Jules Verne"s famous story, "Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea." That, of course, is all fiction; but now-a-days there are vessels which can go miles under the water without once coming to the top.
We call these submarine boats, and look upon them as something very new.
You may be surprised to learn that there was a submarine boat as long ago as the War of the Revolution. It was not a very good one, and did not do the work it was built for, but it was the first of its kind, and that is something worth knowing.
Those of you who have studied history will know that after the British were driven out of Boston they came to New York with a large army, and took possession of that city. Washington and his men could not keep them out, and had to leave. There the British lay, with their army in the city and their fleet in the bay and river, and there they stayed for years.
There was an American who did not like to see British vessels floating in American waters. He knew he could not drive them away, but he thought he might give them some trouble. This was a Connecticut man named David Bushnell, a chap as sharp as a steeltrap, and one of the first American inventors.
What Bushnell did was to invent a boat that would move under water and might be made to blow up an enemy"s ship. As it was the first of this kind ever made, I am sure you will wish to know what it was like and how it was worked.
He called it _The American Turtle_, for it looked much like a great swimming turtle, big enough to hold a man and also to carry a torpedo loaded with 150 pounds of gunpowder. This was to be fastened to the wooden bottom of a ship and then fired off. It was expected to blow a great hole in the bottom and sink the vessel.
Of course, the boat was air-tight and water-tight, but it had a supply of fresh air that would last half an hour for one man. There was an oar for rowing and a rudder for steering. A valve in the bottom let in the water when the one-man crew wanted to sink his turtle-like boat, and there were two pumps to force the water out again when he wanted to rise.
There were windows in the top sh.e.l.l of the turtle, air pipes to let out the foul air and take in fresh air, small doors that could be opened when at the surface, and heavy lead ballast to keep the turtle level. In fact, the affair was, for the time, very ingenious and complete.
A very important part of it was the torpedo, with its 150 pounds of powder. This was carried outside, above the rudder. It was so made that when the boat came under a vessel the man inside could fasten it with a screw to the vessel"s bottom, and row away and leave it there. Inside it was a clock, which could be set to run a certain time and then loosen a sort of gunlock. This struck a spark and set fire to the powder, and up--or down--went the vessel.
You can see that Dave Bushnell"s invention was a very neat one; but, for all that, luck went against it. He first tried his machine with only two pounds of powder on a hogshead loaded with stones. The powder was set on fire, and up went the stones and the boards of the hogshead and a body of water, many feet into the air. If two pounds of powder would do all this, what would one hundred and fifty pounds do?