ACTION BETWEEN PAUL JONES AND CAPTAIN PEARSON.
One of the most active partisans in the American cause was the celebrated Paul Jones. This man was a native of Scotland, and the son of a gardener of Galloway. He had taken to the sea at a very early age, and had finally settled in Virginia. At the breaking out of the war he offered his services to congress, and a commission was given him, under which he cruised among our West India Islands, where he made many prizes. His nautical skill and his success were so great that he acquired the name of the best of all corsair captains. In 1777 he was appointed to the command of a French-built ship under American colours, and he then proceeded upon a cruise to the coast of Britain. Many were the exploits which he transacted. He took many prizes in places where the American flag had never before been seen; he made a descent at the mouth of the Dee, near to Kirkcudbright, and plundered the house of the Earl of Selkirk; and he made another descent on the Cumberland coast, spiked the guns of the fort at Whitehaven, and burned one or two vessels. He also cruised up and down between the Solway and the Clyde; scaring the whole coast, after which he returned to Brest, boasting that he had kept the north-western coast of England and the southern coast of Scotland in a constant state or alarm. In the summer of the present year he returned to cruise along our eastern coasts, having at this time a squadron manned by desperadoes of various countries under his command. Alarm spread from Flamboroughhead to the Frith of Tay, for the name of Paul Jones had become synonymous with all that is terrible. His great object this year was to intercept the Baltic trade, which was under the convoy of Captain Pearson, in the ship “Serapis,” of forty guns, and Captain Piercy, in the “Countess of Scarborough,” of twenty guns. This fleet arrived safely off the Yorkshire coast, when Paul Jones appeared to encounter it. Captain Pearson made a signal for his convoy to bear down under his lee; and he himself made way to get between the enemy’s ships and the convoy. The “Countess of Scarborough” took a similar position, and while the enemy was advancing, the merchant-vessels made their way in haste to the shore. At length the squadron of Paul Jones, consisting of three large ships, a cutter, and a brig, reached the “Serapis” and the “Countess,” and a terrible conflict took place between the former and the “Bon Homme Richard,” a two-decker, carrying forty guns, and which was Paul Jones’s own ship. The two ships were brought into such a situation that the muzzles of their guns came in contact, and in this manner the action continued with the greatest fury for two hours, during which time Jones, who had far more men than his opponent, vainly attempted to board, and the “Serapis” was set on fire ten or twelve times. The fire each time was extinguished, and Captain Pearson had the best of the battle; but, in the meantime the “Countess of Scarborough” had been disabled by the other ships of the enemy, and then one of the frigates came to the assistance of the “Bon Homme Richard.” Almost every man on the quarter or main-decks of the “Serapis” was killed or wounded by the united fire of the enemy; and the calamity was increased by the accidental ignition of a cartridge of powder near one of the lower deck-ports, and the flames spreading from cartridge to cartridge all the way aft, blew up the whole of the officers and people that were quartered abaft the mainmast. In this state Captain Pearson was compelled to strike his colours, and Captain Piercy was under the necessity of following his example. The “Bon Homme Richard,” however, was in a still more pitiful condition than the “Serapis.” Her quarters and counter on the lower deck were driven in; all her guns on the deck were dismounted; her decks were strewed with killed and wounded; and she was on fire in two different places, and had seven feet of water in her hold. On the day after the battle Paul Jones was obliged to quit her, and she sank with a great number of her wounded on board. The prizes were carried by their captor into the Texel, and the French government gave Paul Jones thanks, in the name of Louis XVI., and conferred upon him the Order of Merit! Congress, also, at a later date, sent him a vote of thanks, and promoted him to the command of a new ship, called the “America!”