“That flag,” cries he, “that flag and I, as captain of the Ranger, were born on the same day. We are twins. We shall not be parted life or death; we shall float together or sink together!”
These brave words, in the long run, find amendment. The petticoat flag of the pretty New Hampshire girls is the flag which, two years later, flies from the Richard’s indomitable peak when Captain Paul Jones cuts down the gallant Pierson and his Serapis. After that fight off Scarborough Head, Captain Paul Jones writes to the pretty New Hampshire girls—for he ever remembers the ladies—recounting the last destiny of their petticoat ensign. He is telling of the Richard’s death throes, as viewed from the blood-slippery decks of the conquered Serapis:
“No one was now left aboard the Richard but my dead. To them I gave the good old ship to be their coffin; in her they found a sublime sepulcher. She rolled heavily in the swell, her gun-deck awash to the port-sills, settled slowly by the head, and sank from sight. The ensign gaff, shot away in the action, had been fished and put in place; and there your flag was left flying when we abandoned her. As she went down by the head, her taffrail rose for a moment; and so the last that mortal eye ever saw of the gallant Richard was your unconquered ensign. I couldn’t strip it from the brave old ship in her last agony; nor could I deny my dead on her decks, who had given their lives to keep it flying, the glory of taking it with them. And so I parted with it; so they took it for their winding sheet.”
At last the Ranger is ready for sea; and still those belated despatches from General Washington for the French King do not come. One cold October day a horseman, worn and haggard, rides into Portsmouth. Stained, dust-caked, reeling in his saddle, he calls for Captain Paul Jones.
“Here,” responds that gentleman. “What would you have?”
“I come from General Washington,” cries the man. “Burgoyne has surrendered! Here are your despatches for France!”
Captain Paul Jones takes the packet, stunned for the moment by the mighty news.
“And now for food and drink,” says the man faintly, as with difficulty he slips to the ground. “One hundred and eighty miles have I rode in thirty hours. It was the brave news kept me going; the thought of those beaten English held me up like wine.”
“One hundred and eighty miles!” cries Captain Paul Jones. “Thirty hours!”