An off-shore gale springs up; adrift and helpless, the Serapis is carried seventy miles towards the coast of Norway. This is fortunate; it carries the ship outside the search of those twenty frigates and ships of the line, which are already furiously ransacking the English coast in quest of Commodore Paul Jones.
The wind veers to the southwest, and blows a hurricane. The Serapis is all but thrown upon the coast of Denmark, and has work to keep afloat. With one hundred and six wounded, and the dead who went down with the Richard, Commodore Paul Jones is short of hands to work his ship. At the best, no more than one hundred and fifty are fit for duty. In the end the battered Serapis makes the Texel, and a common sigh of relief goes up from those seven hundred and twelve souls—crew and wounded and prisoners—who are aboard the ship.
And now Commodore Paul Jones must lay aside his sword for chicane, abandon his guns in favor of diplomacy. His anchors are hardly down in Dutch mud, before Sir Joseph Yorke, English Ambassador to Holland, demands the Serapis from the Dutch authorities. Also, he declares that they must arrest Commodore Paul Jones “as a rebel and a pirate.”
The Dutch display a wish to argue the case with Sir Joseph, while Commodore Paul Jones double-shots his guns and runs them out; for much in the way of repairs has been effected aboard the Serapis, and although it can’t sail it can fight.
Sir Joseph, at the grinning insolence of the Serapis’ broadsides—ports triced up and muzzles showing—almost falls in an apoplectic fit. Purple as to face, he sends a second time to the Dutch, to learn whether or no he is to have the Serapis and the rebel and pirate Paul Jones.
For five days the Dutch drink beer, smoke pipes, and think the matter over. Then they tell Sir Joseph that, while they don’t know what to call Commodore Paul Jones, they have decided not to call him a pirate. Rebel, he may be; but in that role of rebel King George and Sir Joseph must catch him for themselves. The most the Dutch will do is order the Serapis to leave the Texel. At this the empurpled Sir Joseph becomes more empurpled than ever. It is the best he can get, however; and since, during the night, a fleet of British men of war, hearing of the whereabouts of Commodore Paul Jones, have invested the mouth of the Helder and are waiting for him to come out, he begins to be a trifle comforted. If the Dutch will but drive the “rebel” from the port, it should do nicely; the English fleet outside will snap him up at a mouthful.
Commodore Paul Jones refuses to be driven out. He sits stubbornly by his anchors, decks cleared, guns shotted, boarding nettings up—an insult to the purple Sir Joseph and a frowning defiance to the Dutch! The Dutch and Sir Joseph look at him, and then at each other. They agree that he is either the most exasperating of rebels, or the most insolent of pirates, or the most impertinent of guests, according to their various standpoints.
Meanwhile, the French Ambassador is bestirring himself. He makes a stealthy visit to Commodore Paul Jones. The French king has sent him, post-haste, a commission as Captain in the French marine. The French Ambassador tenders the commission. Upon accepting it, Commodore Paul Jones can run up the French flag. The Dutch will respect the tri-color, and there will come no more orders for the Serapis to quit the Texel.
Commodore Paul Jones declines the French commission. Neither will he run up the French flag. “I am an officer of the American Navy,” says he, “and the French tri-color no more belongs at my masthead than at General Washington’s headquarters. I shall stand or fall by the Stars and Stripes. Also, here at the Texel I stay, until I’m ready to leave; that I say in the teeth of Dutchman and Englishman alike.”
When this hardy note goes ashore, the Dutch look solemn, Sir Joseph retires with the gout, while the English outside the mouth of the Hel-der, stand oft and on, gnashing their iron teeth.