BOARDING THE SERAPIS
From a rare print
Seeing his men falling back, Captain Pearson knew that he was a defeated man, and struck his colors to save those of his crew still alive.
The capture of the British frigate came none too soon, for the old shot-torn Bon Homme Richard was settling fast. By the combined efforts of crew and prisoners, the fire in both ships was extinguished. Then all bent their efforts to removing the wounded and prisoners from the Richard to the Serapis, together with ammunition and other valuables.
All the rest of that night the heroic old craft kept afloat, with the Stars-and-Stripes—the same flag the Colonial maids of Portsmouth had given Paul Jones upon his departure in the Ranger—flying proudly at her peak. Then, as if waiting for daylight to illuminate her last action before man, she slowly sank just as the sun came up across the waters in the east. The very last vestige anybody saw of her was her flag, still flying—unstruck!
When, two years later, Paul Jones returned to America, he met Miss Mary Langdon, who had been one of the girls to make this ensign. "I wished above all things to bring this flag to America," said he; "but, Miss Mary, I could not bear to strip the old ship in her last agony, nor could I deny to my dead on her decks, who had given their lives to keep it flying, the glory of taking it with them."
"You have done exactly right, commodore," exclaimed she. "That flag is just where we all wish it to be—flying at the bottom of the sea over the only ship that ever went down in victory!"