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BATTLES OF THE REVOLUTION
Flamborough Head
Eighth in a series of paintings for AMERICAN HERITAGE
by DON TROIANI
On September 23, 1779, Captain John Paul Jones, wallowing along the English coast in the unwieldy Bonhomme Richard, met the British frigate Serapis. The battle that followed remains one of the most extraordinary single ship actions in history. The Richard had been a weary old French Indiaman, condemned for rot, when Jones took her over. He armed her with such guns as he could get, many of them antiquated and in poor condition, and took her to sea as a balky, decrepit frigate mounting six eighteen-pounders, twenty-eight twelvepounders, and six nine-pounders. His crew was made up of men from a dozen different nations. But Jones was a fighter and longed to bring this dubious ship into action.
He got his chance on the afternoon of the twenty-third, off a chalk-cliff headland called Flamborough Head. The Richard was sailing in company with the American frigate Alliance, thirty-six guns (commanded by the half-mad French captain Pierre Landais), and the French ships Pallas, thirty-two, and Vengeance, twelve, when Jones sighted upward of forty ships. To his delight they turned out to be the convoy that was carrying timber and other vital naval supplies down to England from the Baltic. Riding herd on the merchantmen were the Countess of Scarborough, twenty-two, and the Serapis, rated at forty-four guns but actually mounting fifty. She was a fine new copper-bottomed frigate and the delight of her commander, Captain Richard Pearson. Pearson put the Serapis between the convoy and the enemy, and Jones crawled across a calm sea to engage her. The American captain signalled his little squadron to form a line of battle, but the three ships in his command paid no attention, leaving him to sail into action alone.
A bright moon had risen over the two ships by the time the fighting started. At the first broadside some of the eighteen-pounders on the Richard’s lower gundeck exploded, in effect putting the rest of the battery out of action. The Serapis had no such trouble, and soon the Richard was a nightmare of splintered timber, dismounted guns, and blood. Jones realized the only hope for his outgunned ship was to grapple with the faster, more maneuverable Serapis. Through superb seamanship he managed to do it just as a broadside destroyed what was left of his gundeck. Pearson, seeing nothing but smoke and chaos on the enemy ship, demanded if she had surrendered, and Jones made his immortal rejoinder. With the two ships locked together the marines in the Richard’s, mastheads began to clear the enemy’s upper decks with their muskets. Below, however, the eighteen-pounders continued to maul the American ship, which now had only three nine-pounders left in action. Jones worked one of these hims.elf as the fight wore on. The Americans were briefly cheered by the appearance of the Alliance, but Landais, hoping to sink the Richard and claim the Serapis for himself, poured three broadsides into his ally and went on his way. With his ship afire and sinking, half his crew dead or wounded, his guns out of action, and his men calling for quarter, Jones would not surrender. Then a lucky grenade from the Richard caused a severe explosion on the Serapis, and a little later her mainmast began to go. Finally, after three and a half hours of fighting, Pearson pulled down his flag with his own hands.
The Bonhomme Richard sank soon after the victory, and Jones and his surviving crew made port in the Serapis. Pearson had bought enough time for the Baltic convoy to save itself, and for this he was eventually knighted. When Jones heard about that, he remarked, “Let me fight him again … and I’ll make him a lord!” —R.F.S.
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THEY WERE THERE:
“I have not yet begun to fight”
Midshipman Nathaniel Fanning, Continental Navy:
I shall now proceed to give a circumstantial account of this famous BATTLE … between the GOOD MAN RICHARD … and the SERAPIS. …
… The two ships were nearly ‘within hail of each other, when Captain Jones ordered the yards slung with chains, and our courses hauled up. By this time the Serapis had tacked ship, and bore down to engage us; and at quarter past 8, just as the moon was rising with majestic appearance, the weather being clear, the surface of the great deep perfectly smooth, even as in a mill pond, the enemy hailed this: ‘What ship is that?’ (in true bombastic English stile, it being hoarse and hardly intelligible). The answer from our ship was, ‘Come a little nearer, and I will tell you.’ The next question was, by the enemy, in a contemptuous manner, ‘What are you laden with?’ The answer returned was … ‘Round, grape, and double-headed shot.’ And instantly, the Serapis poured her range of upper and quarter-deck guns into us. … We returned the enemies fire, and thus the battle began. At this first fire, three of our starboard lower-deck guns burst, and killed most of the men stationed at them. As soon as captain Jones heard of this circumstance, he gave orders not to fire the other three eighteen pounders mounted upon that deck. … Soon after this we perceived the enemy, by their lanthorns, busy in running out their guns between decks, which convinced us the Serapis was a two decker, and more than our match. She had by this time got under our stern, which we could not prevent. And now she raked us with whole broadsides, and showers of musketry. Several of her eighteen pound shot having gone through and through our ship, on board of which, she made a dreadful havock among our crew. … All this time our tops kept up an incessant and well-directed fire into the enemies’ tops which did great execution. The Serapis continued to take a position, either under our stern, or athwart our bow; gauled us in such a manner that our men fell in all parts of the ship by scores.
Captain Richard Pearson, Royal Navy:
Has your ship struck?
Captain John Paul Jones, ,Continental Navy:
I have not yet begun to fight.
Midshipman Nathaniel Fanning:
… Captain Jones ordered the sailing master … to lay the enemies’ ship on board; and as the Serapis soon after passed across our fore foot, our helm was put hard aweather … and she ran her jib boom between the enemies star-board mizzen shrouds and mizzen vang. Jones at the same time cried out, ‘Well done, my brave lads, we have got her now; throw on board the grappling-irons and stand by for boarding.” … The action had now lasted about forty minutes, and the fire from our tops having been kept up without intermission, with musketry, blunderbusses, cowhorns, swivels, and pistols, directed into their tops, that these last at this time, became silent. … The enemy’s tops being entirely silenced, the men in ours had nothing to do but to direct their whole fire down upon the enemy’s decks and forecastle; this we did, and with so much success that in about twenty-five minutes more we had cleared her decks. … However, they still kept up a constant fire, with four of their foremost bow guns … and did our ship considerable damage. … By this time, the topmen in our tops had taken possession of the enemy’s tops, which was done by reason of the Serapis’s yards being locked together with ours, that we could with ease go from our main top into the enemy’s fore top. … Having knowledge of this, we transported from our own into the enemy’s tops, stink pots, flasks, hand grenadoes, & which we threw in among the enemy whenever they made their appearance. … At three quarters past 11 P.M. the Alliance frigate hove in sight, approached within pistol shot of our stern, and began a heavy and well-directed fire into us. … And at thirty-five minutes past 12 at night, a single hand grenado having been thrown by one of our men out of the main top of the enemy … struck on one side of the combings of her upper hatchway … and between their decks, where it communicated to a quantity of loose powder scattered about the enemy’s cannon; and the hand grenado bursting at the same time, made a dreadful explosion, and blew up about twenty of the enemy. This closed the scene, and the enemy now … bawled ‘Quarters, quarters, quarters, for God’s sake!’ It was, however, some time before the enemy’s colours were struck. The captain of the Serapis gave repeated orders for one of his crew to ascend the quarter-deck and haul down the English flag, but no one would stir to do it. They told the Captain they were afraid of our rifle-men. … The captain of the Serapis therefore ascended the quarter-deck, and hauled down the very flag which he had nailed to the flag-staff a little before the commencement of the battle; and which flag he had at that time, in the presence of his principal officers, swore he never would strike to that infamous pirate J. P. Jones. |
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