CHAPTER XIV—THE SAILING OF THE “RICHARD”
Captain Paul Jones goes down to l’Orient to begin the overhaul and refit of the Richard. The ship is twenty years old, and he finds it shaken and worn by time and weather. It is not a good ship, not a ship on which a prudent commander would care to stake his life and reputation; but it is the best he can get, and Captain Paul Jones accepts it, shrugging his shoulders. He has been so beaten upon by disappointments, so carked and rusted by delays, since his old ship Ranger spread its sails for home, and left him as it were an exile on French shores, that rather than further endure such heart-eating experiences he is ready to embrace the desperate. As the work of refitting progresses, Doctor Franklin comes over from Passy.
“The ship is old, Doctor,” says Captain Paul Jones, as he and Doctor Franklin canvass the situation. “That, however, is the least of my troubles. What causes me most uneasiness is the crew. Out of a whole muster of three hundred and seventy-five, no more than fifty are Americans.”
“Then you do not trust the French? Surely you don’t mean to say they are not brave men?”
“Brave enough—the French; but that is not the point. They are not good water fighters. By nature they are too hysterical, too easily excited, to both sail and fight a ship. Those English whom we go to meet are born water dogs, stubborn and cool; and the only ones afloat who, man for man, may match them are Americans.”
“And of Americans you have but fifty?”
“Only fifty.” Then, with a heartfelt oath: “I would give my left hand to have back my old crew of the Ranger.”
Captain Paul Jones begins pacing to and fro, his thoughts running regretfully on the Ranger, and those stout hearts with whom he fought the Drake. But the Ranger and those stout, tarry ones are half a world away; and in the end he returns perforce to the Richard, and what poor tools in the way of crew are offered him by Fate. There is, too, a matter of gravity which he desires to lay before the Doctor’s older and more prudent judgment. For Captain Paul Jones, so unmanageable by others, defers to the sagacious Doctor, and accepts his opinions and follows his commands with closed eyes.