Chapter VIII: Part 8

With the warmest inclinations towards that way of life, and a serious conviction of its superior advantages over a single one, it has been the strange infelicity of my lot never to have entered into the respectable estate of matrimony. Yet I was once very near it. I courted a young woman in my twenty-seventh year,--for so early I began to feel symptoms of the tender passion! She was well to do in the world, as they call it, but yet not such a fortune as, all things considered, perhaps I might have pretended to. It was not my own choice altogether; but my mother very strongly pressed me to it. She was always putting it to me, that I "had comings-in sufficient,--that I need not stand upon a portion"; though the young woman, to do her justice, had considerable expectations, which yet did not quite come up to my mark, as I told you before. She had this saying always in her mouth: that I "had money enough; that it was time I enlarged my housekeeping, and to show a spirit befitting my circumstances." In short, what with her importunities, and my own desires _in part_ coöperating,--for, as I said, I was not yet quite twenty-seven, a time when the youthful feelings may be pardoned, if they show a little impetuosity,--I resolved, I say, upon all these considerations, to set about the business of courting in right earnest. I was a young man then, and having a spice of romance in my character, (as the reader doubtless has observed long ago,) such as that sex is apt to be taken with, I had reason in no long time to think my addresses were anything but disagreeable.

Certainly the happiest part of a young man's life is the time when he is going a-courting. All the generous impulses are then awake, and he feels a double existence in participating his hopes and wishes with another being. Return yet again for a brief moment, ye visionary views, transient enchantments! ye moonlight rambles with Cleora in the Silent Walk at Vauxhall,--(N.B.--About a mile from Birmingham, and resembling the gardens of that name near London, only that the price of admission is lower,)--when the nightingale has suspended her notes in June to listen to our loving discourses, while the moon was overhead! (for we generally used to take our tea at Cleora's mother's before we set out, not so much to save expenses as to avoid the publicity of a repast in the gardens,--coming in much about the time of half-price, as they call it)--ye soft intercommunions of soul, when, exchanging mutual vows, we prattled of coming felicities! The loving disputes we have had under those trees, when this house (planning our future settlement) was rejected, because, though cheap, it was dull, and the other house was given up, because, though agreeably situated, it was too high-rented,--one was too much in the heart of the town, another was too far from business. These minutiæ will seem impertinent to the aged and the prudent. I write them only to the young. Young lovers, and passionate as being young, (such were Cleora and I then,) alone can understand me. After some weeks wasted, as I may now call it, in this sort of amorous colloquy, we at length fixed upon the house in the High Street, No. 203, just vacated by the death of Mr. Hutton of this town, for our future residence. I had till that time lived in lodgings (only renting a shop for business) to be near to my mother,--near, I say: not in the same house with her, for that would have been to introduce confusion into our housekeeping, which it was desirable to keep separate. Oh, the loving wrangles, the endearing differences I had with Cleora, before we could quite make up our minds to the house that was to receive us!--I pretending, for argument's sake, that the rent was too high, and she insisting that the taxes were moderate in proportion, and love at last reconciling us in the same choice. I think at that time, moderately speaking, she might have had anything out of me for asking. I do not, nor shall ever, regret that my character at that time was marked with a tinge of prodigality. Age comes fast enough upon us, and, in its good time, will prune away all that is inconvenient in these excesses. Perhaps it is right that it should do so. Matters, as I said, were ripening to a conclusion between us, only the house was yet not absolutely taken. Some necessary arrangements, which the ardor of my youthful impetuosity could hardly brook at that time (love and youth will be precipitate)--some preliminary arrangements, I say, with the landlord, respecting fixtures,--very necessary things to be considered in a young man about to settle in the world, though not very accordant with the impatient state of my then passions,--some obstacles about the valuation of the fixtures,--had hitherto precluded (and I shall always think providentially) my final closes with his offer, when one of those accidents, which, unimportant in themselves, often arise to give a turn to the most serious intentions of our life, intervened, and put an end at once to my projects of wiving and of housekeeping.

I was never much given to theatrical entertainments,--that is, at no time of my life was I ever what they call a regular play-goer; but on some occasion of a benefit-night, which was expected to be very productive, and indeed turned out so, Cleora expressing a desire to be present, I could do no less than offer, as I did very willingly, to squire her and her mother to the pit. At that time it was not customary in our town for tradesfolk, except some of the very topping ones, to sit, as they now do, in the boxes. At the time appointed I waited upon the ladies, who had brought with them a young man, a distant relation, whom it seems they had invited to be of the party. This a little disconcerted me, as I had about me barely silver enough to pay for our three selves at the door, and did not at first know that their relation had proposed paying for himself. However, to do the young man justice, he not only paid for himself, but for the old lady besides,--leaving me only to pay for two, as it were. In our passage to the theatre, the notice of Cleora was attracted to some orange-wenches that stood about the doors vending their commodities. She was leaning on my arm; and I could feel her every now and then giving me a nudge, as it is called, which I afterwards discovered were hints that I should buy some oranges. It seems, it is a custom at Birmingham, and perhaps in other places, when a gentleman treats ladies to the play, especially when a full night is expected, and that the house will be inconveniently warm, to provide them with this kind of fruit, oranges being esteemed for their cooling property. But how could I guess at that, never having treated ladies to a play before, and being, as I said, quite a novice at these kind of entertainments? At last she spoke plain out, and begged that I would buy some of "those oranges," pointing to a particular barrow. But when I came to examine the fruit, I did not think that the quality of it was answerable to the price. In this way I handled several baskets of them; but something in them all displeased me. Some had thin rinds, and some were plainly over-ripe, which is as great a fault as not being ripe enough; and I could not (what they call) make a bargain. While I stood haggling with the women, secretly determining to put off my purchase till I should get within the theatre, where I expected we should have better choice, the young man, the cousin, (who, it seems, had left us without my missing him,) came running to us with his pockets stuffed out with oranges, inside and out, as they say. It seems, not liking the look of the barrow-fruit any more than myself, he had slipped away to an eminent fruiterer's, about three doors distant, which I never had the sense to think of, and had laid out a matter of two shillings in some of the best St. Michael's, I think, I ever tasted. What a little hinge, as I said before, the most important affairs in life may turn upon! The mere inadvertence to the fact that there was an eminent fruiterer's within three doors of us, though we had just passed it without the thought once occurring to me, which he had taken advantage of, lost me the affections of my Cleora. From that time she visibly cooled towards me, and her partiality was as visibly transferred to this cousin. I was long unable to account for this change in her behavior; when one day, accidentally discoursing of oranges to my mother, alone, she let drop a sort of reproach to me, as if I had offended Cleora by my _nearness_, as she called it, that evening. Even now, when Cleora has been wedded some years to that same officious relation, as I may call him, I can hardly be persuaded that such a trifle could have been the motive to her inconstancy; for could she suppose that I would sacrifice my dearest hopes in her to the paltry sum of two shillings, when I was going to treat her to the play, and her mother too, (an expense of more than four times that amount,) if the young man had not interfered to pay for the latter, as I mentioned? But the caprices of the sex are past finding out: and I begin to think my mother was in the right; for doubtless women know women better than we can pretend to know them.

* * * * *

WORKS AND DAYS.

--"Ritorna a tua scienza!
Che vuol, quanto la cosa è più perfetta,
Più senta il bene, e così la doglienza."--DANTE.

Record, O Muse! and let the record stand,
That, when Bellona ravaged half the land,
When even these groves, from bloody fields afar,
Oft shook and shuddered at the sounds of war,
When the drum drowned the music of the flail,
And midnight marches broke the peace of Yale,
Then gathered here amid these vacant bowers
A band of scholars, men of various powers,
Various in motion, but with one desire,
Through wreck and war to watch the sacred fire,
The authentic fire that great forethoughted Mind
Stole from the gods for good of humankind.

Say, Terebinthia, from thy tree of pine,
Nymph of New England! Muse beyond the Nine!
Great Berkeley's goddess! giver oftentimes
Of strength to him, and now and then of rhymes,--
Whose tears were balsam to the Bishop's brain,
To cheer, but not infuriate his vein,--
Tell me, sad virgin, who came after terms
In these dry fields to stir the slumbering germs?

Their names were few,--but Agassiz was one,
And Peirce, the lord of numbers, and alone:
Arithmeticians many more will be,
But when another to outrival thee?
Then those Professors,--Philadelphian pair,
Winlock, the wise, and watchful as a hare,
Bright Benjamin that bears the golden name,
(Apthorp the quick,) Augustus of the same,
And that strict student, evermore exact,
One of the Wymans,--both such men of fact,--
If observation with extensive view
More such observers can observe, they're few.

Ye sacred shades where Silliman made gray
Those hairs that greet him eighty-five to-day!
Good names be these! good names to stand with his,--
Fit to record with Yale's old histories,
When sage Timotheus woke the Western lyre
That Hillhouse touched, and Percival with fire!

Declare now, Clio! 'mid this gifted band,
Who held the reins?--what scientific hand?
Did He preside? did Franklin's honored heir
With wonted influence possess the chair?
No: bowed with cares, a servant of the State,
In loftier fields he held his watch sedate:
Bache could not come,--for us a mighty void!
Yet well for him,--for he was best employed
High on his tented mountain's breezy slope,
Might but those maidens meet him--Health and Hope!

Yet wouldst thou know who stood superior there,
Where all seemed equal, this I may declare:--
Of all the wise that wandered from the East
Or West or South to sit in solemn feast,
Two men did mostly fascinate the Muse,
Differing in genius, but with equal views:
One measuring heaven, in starry lore supreme;
The other lighting, like the morning beam,
Old Ocean's bed, or his fresh Alpine snows,
Reading the laws whereby the glacier grows,
Or life, through some half-intimated plan,
Rose from a star-fish to the race of man:
Choose thine own monarch! either well might reign!
I knew but one before,--and now but twain.

Now shut the gates,--the fields have drunk enough
The time demands a Muse of sterner stuff;
No more one bard, exempt from vulgar throng,
May sing through Roman towns the Ascræan song,
Or court in Learning's elmy bowers relief
From individual shame or general grief:
Silence is music to a soul outworn
With the wild clangor of the warlike horn,
The paltry fife, the brain-benumbing drum.
When, white Astræa! will thy kingdom come,--
The chaster period that our boyhood saw,--
Arts above arms, and without conquest, Law,--
Rights well maintained without the strength of steel
And milder manners for the gentle weal,--
That Freedom's promise may not come to blight,
And Wisdom fail, and Knowledge end in night?

NEW HAVEN, _August 8_.

* * * * *

PAUL JONES AND DENIS DUVAL.

Ingham and his wife have a habit of coming in to spend the evening with us, unless we go there, or unless we both go to Haliburton's, or unless there is something better to do elsewhere.

We talk, or we play besique, or Mrs. Haliburton sings, or we sit on the stoup and hear the crickets sing; but when there is a new Trollope or Thackeray,--alas, there will never be another new Thackeray!--all else has always been set aside till we have read that aloud.

When I began the last sentence of the last Thackeray that ever was written, Ingham jumped out of his seat, and cried,--

"There, I said I remembered this _Duval_, and you made fun of me. Go on,--and I will tell you all about him, when you have done."

So I read on to the sudden end:--

"We had been sent for in order to protect a fleet of merchantmen that were bound to the Baltic, and were to sail under the convoy of our ship and the Countess of Scarborough, commanded by Captain Piercy. And thus it came about, that, after being twenty-five days in His Majesty's service, I had the fortune to be present at one of the most severe and desperate combats that have been fought in our or in any time.

"I shall not attempt to tell that story of the battle of the 23d of September, which ended in our glorious captain striking his own colors to our superior and irresistible enemy." (This enemy, as Mr. Thackeray has just said, is "Monsieur John Paul Jones, afterwards Knight of His Most Christian Majesty's Order of Merit.") "Sir Richard [Pearson, of the English frigate Serapis] has told the story of his disaster in words nobler than any I could supply, who, though indeed engaged in that fatal action, in which our flag went down before a renegade Briton and his motley crew, saw but a very small portion of the battle which ended so fatally for us. It did not commence till nightfall. How well I remember the sound of the enemy's gun, of which the shot crashed into our side in reply to the challenge of our captain who hailed her! Then came a broadside from us,--the first I had ever heard in battle."[G]

Ingham did not speak for a little while. None of us did. And when we did, it was not to speak of Denis Duval, so much as of the friend we lost, when we lost the monthly letter, or at least, Roundabout Paper, from Mr. Thackeray. How much we had prized him,--how strange it was that there was ever a day when we did not know about him,--how strange it was that anybody should call him cynical, or think men must apologize for him:--of such things and of a thousand more we spoke, before we came back to Denis Duval.

But at last Fausta said,--"What do you mean, Fred, by saying you remember Denis Duval?"

And I,--"Did you meet him at the Battle of Pavia, or in Valerius Flaccus's Games in Numidia?" For we have a habit of calling Ingham "The Wandering Jew."

But he would not be jeered at; he only called us to witness, that, from the first chapter of Denis Duval, he had said the name was familiar,--even to the point of looking it out in the Biographical Dictionary; and now that it appeared Duval fought on board the Serapis, he said it all came back to him. His grandfather, his mother's father, was a "volunteer"-boy, preparing to be midshipman, on the Serapis,--and he knew he had heard him speak of Duval!

Oh, how we all screamed! It was so like Ingham! Haliburton asked him if his grandfather was not _best-man_ when Denis married Agnes. Fausta asked him if he would not continue the novel in the "Cornhill." I said it was well known that the old gentleman advised Montcalm to surrender Quebec, interpreted between Cook and the first Kamehameha, piloted La Pérouse between the Centurion and the Graves in Boston harbor, and called him up with a toast at a school-dinner;--that I did not doubt, therefore, that it was all right,--and that he and Duval had sworn eternal friendship in their boyhood, and now formed one constellation in the southern hemisphere. But after we had all done, Ingham offered to bet Newport for the Six that he would substantiate what he said. This is by far the most tremendous wager in our little company; it is never offered, unless there be certainty to back it; it is, therefore, never accepted; and the nearest approach we have ever made to Newport, as a company, was one afternoon when we went to South-Boston Point in the horse-car, and found the tide down. Silence reigned, therefore, and the subject changed.

The next night we were at Ingham's. He unlocked a ravishing old black mahogany secretary he has, and produced a pile of parchment-covered books of different sizes, which were diaries of old Captain Heddart's. They were often called log-books,--but, though in later years kept on paper ruled for log-books, and often following to a certain extent the indications of the columns, they were almost wholly personal, and sometimes ran a hundred pages without alluding at all to the ship on which he wrote. Well! the earliest of these was by far the most elegant in appearance. My eyes watered a little, as Ingham showed me on the first page, in the stiff Italian hand which our grandmothers wrote in, when they aspired to elegance, the dedication,--

"TO MY DEAR FRANCIS,
_who will write something here every day, because he loves his_
MOTHER."

That old English gentleman, whom I just remember, when Ingham first went to sea, as the model of mild, kind old men, at Ingham's mother's house,--then he went to sea once himself for the first time,--and he had a mother himself,--and as he went off, she gave him the best album-book that Thetford Regis could make,--and wrote this inscription in ink that was not rusty then!

Well, again! in this book, Ingham, who had been reading it all day, had put five or six newspaper-marks.

The first was at this entry,--

"A new boy came into the mess. They said he was a French boy, but
the first luff says he is the Capptain's own nef-few."

Two pages on,--

"The French boy fought Wimple and beat him. They fought seeventeen
rounds."

Farther yet,--

"Toney is offe on leave. So the French boy was in oure watch. He
is not a French boy. His name is Doovarl."

In the midst of a great deal about the mess, and the fellows, and the boys, and the others, and an inexplicable fuss there is about a speculation the mess entered into with some illicit dealer for an additional supply, not of liquor, but of sugar,--which I believe was detected, and which covers pages of badly written and worse spelled manuscript, not another distinct allusion to the French boy,--not near so much as to Toney or Wimple or Scroop, or big Wallis or little Wallis. Ingham had painfully toiled through it all, and I did after him. But in another volume, written years after, at a time when the young officer wrote a much more rapid, though scarcely more legible hand, he found a long account of an examination appointed to pass midshipmen, and, to our great delight, as it began, this exclamation:--

"When the Amphion's boat came up, who should step up but old Den, whom I had not seen since we were in the Rainbow. We were together all day,--and it was very good to see him."

And afterwards, in the detail of the examination, he is spoken of as "Duval." The passage is a little significant.

Young Heddart details all the questions put to him, as thus:--

"'Old Saumarez asked me which was the narrowest part of the Channel, and I told him. Then he asked how Silly [_sic_] bore, if I had 75 fathom, red sand and gravel. I said, 'About N.W.,' and the old man said, 'Well, yes,--rather West of N.W., is not it so, Sir Richard?' And Sir Richard did not know what they were talking about, and they pulled out Mackenzie's Survey," etc., etc., etc.,--more than any man would delve through at this day, unless he were searching for Paul Jones or Denis Duval, or some other hero. "What is the mark for going into Spithead?" "What is the mark for clearing Royal Sovereign Shoals?"--let us hope they were all well answered. Evidently, in Mr. Heddart's mind, they were more important than any other detail of that day, but fortunately for posterity then comes this passage:--

"After me they called up Brooke, and Calthorp, and Clements,--and then old Wingate, Tom Wingate's father, who had examined them, seemed to get tired, and turned to Pierson, and said, 'Sir Richard, you ought to take your turn." And so Sir Richard began, and, as if by accident, called up Den.

"'Mr. Duval,' said he, 'how do you find the variation of the compass by the amplitudes or azimuths?'

"Of course any fool knew that. And of course he could not ask all such questions. So, when he came on _practice_, he said,--

"'Mr. Duval, what is the mark for Stephenson's Shoal?'

"Oh, dear! what fun it was to hear Den answer,--Lyd Church and the ruins of Lynn Monastery must come in one. The Shoal was about three miles from Dungeness, and bore S.W. or somewhere from it. The Soundings were red sand--or white sand or something,--very glib. Then--

"'How would you anchor under Dungeness, Mr. Duval?'

"And Duval was not too glib, but very certain. He would bring it to bear S.W. by W., or, perhaps, W.S.W.; he would keep the Hope open of Dover, and he would try to have twelve fathoms water.

"'Well, Mr. Duval, how does Dungeness bear from Beachy Head?'--and so on, and so on.

"And Den was very good and modest, but quite correct all the same, and as true to the point as Cocker and Gunter together. Oh, dear! I hope the post-captains did not know that Sir Richard was Den's uncle, and that Den had sailed in and out of Winchelsea harbour, in sight of Beachy Head and Dungeness, ever since the day after he was born!

"But he made no secret of it when we passed-mids dined at the Anchor.

"A jolley time we had! I slept there."

With these words, Denis Duval vanishes from the Diary.

Of course, as soon as we had begged Ingham's pardon, we turned back to find the battle with the Bon Homme Richard. Little enough was there. The entry reads thus,--this time rather more in log-book shape.

On the left-hand page, in columns elaborately ruled,--

-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Week-days. |Sept. 1779.|Wind.|Courses. |Dist.|Lat. |Long. | Bearings. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | |Waiting for | | | | Flamboro. Wednesday,\| 22.23. | S.E.|Convoy till |None.|54° 9'|0°5' E.| H. Thursday. /| | |11 of | | | | N. by W. | | |Thursday. | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The rest of that page is blank. The right page, headed, "_Remarks, &c., on board H.M.S. Serapis_," in the boy's best copy-hand, goes on with longer entries than any before.

"42 vessels reported for the convoy. Mr. Mycock says we shall not wait for the rest."

"10 o'clock, A.M. Thursday. Two men came on board with news of the pirate Jones. Signal for a coast-pilot,--weighed and sailed as soon as he came. As we pass Flamboro' Head, two sails in sight S.S.W., which the men say are he and his consort."

Then, for the next twenty-four hours,--

-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Week-days.|Sept. 1779.|Wind. |Courses.|Dist. |Lat. |Long. | Bearings. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | | | |Flamb. H. Thursday,\| 23.24. |S.S.W.| E.S.E. |Nothing.|52.13.|0.11. E.|W. aftern. Friday. /| | | W.S.W. | | | |W. by N. --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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.

----------------------------------------------------------------------- Week-days.|Sept., 1779.|Wind. |Courses.|Dist.|Lat. |Long. |Bearings. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday, \|24th, 25th. |S.S.W.| |None.|As |As |As above. Saturday./| | | | |above. |above. | -----------------------------------------------------------------------

"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.[H]

"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 Phoenix 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.[I] 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.