Two months were required to put the Ariel in shape for sea once more. All the arms which she was carrying out for the use of the army had been so damaged by water as to be useless. They were left behind and their place supplied by other cargo. During this interval, when not occupied in superintending the repairs to the ship, Jones amused himself with his usual prolific correspondence. He had also a spirited encounter with one Thomas Truxtun, afterward the distinguished naval officer, at that time master of a privateer called the Independence. Truxtun entered the harbor of L'Orient flying a pennant, the use of which was restricted by act of Congress to regularly commissioned vessels of war, except in the case of privateers cruising alone. A sharp correspondence was carried on between Jones and Truxtun, who was a mere boy at the time. Truxtun at first refused to haul down the offending pennant, but was finally induced to do so by Richard Dale and two heavily armed boats' crews from the Ariel. Jones was not to be trifled with, and Truxtun received a good lesson in subordination and obedience to law--always of value to a privateer.[[36]]
While the Ariel was being refitted, Jones, with his usual longing for a first-class ship of war--a thing he never enjoyed during the whole course of his life--through some influential friends made an attempt to get the French Government to lend him the new and handsome frigate Terpsichore, but his request, as usual, was not complied with. Just before the Ariel sailed, Jones gave a grand entertainment on board of her, to which he invited all his friends, which closed with an exercise at general quarters, followed by a representation of battle, which greatly alarmed his fair visitors.
On the 18th of December he took his departure once more. His last letters to Madame d'Ormoy are very characteristic of Jones in his capacity as a squire of dames, and well indicate his feelings at this time:
"I can not leave France without expressing how much I feel myself honoured and obliged by the generous attention that you have shown to my reputation in your journal. I will ever have the most ardent desire to merit the spontaneous praise of beauty and her pen; and it is impossible to be more grateful than I am for the very polite attentions I received at Paris and Versailles. My particular thanks are due to you, madam, for the personal proofs I have received of your esteem and friendship, and for the happiness you procured me in the society of the charming countess, and other ladies and gentlemen of your circle. But I have a favour to ask of you, madam, which I hope you will grant me. You tell me in your letter that the inkstand I had the honour to present to you, as a small token of my esteem, shall be reserved for the purpose of writing what concerns me; now I wish you to see my idea in a more expanded light, and would have you make use of that inkstand to instruct mankind, and support the dignity and rights of human nature."
In another letter to the same lady he says:
"It is impossible to be more sensible than I am of the obligation conferred on me by your attentions and kind remembrance, joined to that of the belle comtesse, your fair daughters, and the amiable ladies and gentlemen of your society. I have returned without laurels and, what is worse, without having been able to render service to the glorious cause of liberty. I know not why Neptune was in such anger, unless he thought it was an affront in me to repair on his ocean with so insignificant a force. It is certain that till the night of the 8th I did not fully conceive the awful majesty of tempest and shipwreck. I can give you no just idea of the tremendous scene that Nature then presented, which surpassed the reach even of poetic fancy and the pencil. I believe no ship was ever before saved from an equal danger off the point of the Penmarque rocks. I am extremely sorry that the young English lady you mention should have imbibed the national hatred against me. I have had proofs that many of the first and finest ladies of that nation are my friends. Indeed, I can not imagine why any fair lady should be my enemy, since, upon the large scale of universal philanthropy, I feel, acknowledge, and bend before the sovereign power of beauty. The English may hate me, but I will force them to esteem me too."[[37]]
The voyage was uneventful. Jones chose the southern passage, which was less frequented by ships than the more direct route; the value of his cargo being so great and the force of his vessel so small, he did not wish to run any risk of being captured on this cruise. When they had reached a point about twelve hundred miles east of Florida and nine hundred miles north of Barbadoes, in latitude 26° N., longitude 60° W., they were chased by a sail, which appeared to be a large frigate. Jones, for the reasons mentioned, endeavored by crowding sail on the Ariel to escape--his reputation for courage and intrepidity was sufficiently high to allow him to run away without any imputation being warranted by this action--but the stranger had the heels of the Ariel, and gradually overhauled her. Night came on before she came within range, and Jones hoped to run away from her in the darkness; but his efforts to elude his pursuer were unavailing, and when day dawned she was still close at hand.
The wind fell during the morning, and the two ships maintained their relative positions all day. Toward evening the breeze became stronger again, and the stranger began to draw up on the Ariel. As she came nearer, Jones discovered that she was not so formidable a vessel as he had imagined, and he determined to effect her capture. Making a great show of endeavoring to escape, therefore, he cleared ship for action, sent his men to quarters, and permitted his pursuer to overhaul him. She ranged alongside the lee beam just at nightfall. Both ships were flying the English flag. Jones was ready for action, the other ship was not. The quartermaster of the Ariel, whose duty it was to hoist the flags, had unfortunately allowed one end of the halliards to escape him. Jones had intended, as the stranger ranged alongside, to haul down the English flag and substitute the American colors, then, crossing the enemy's bows, pour in a broadside and capture her by boarding; but this petty neglect, or trifling accident, on the part of the quartermaster made it impossible to haul down the flag at the appointed time, so the opportunity was lost and the project had to be given over. Vessels of war, when maneuvering for position, frequently sail under strange colors, but it is a point of honor, invariably observed, which, so far as my knowledge goes, has not been disregarded in civilized warfare--if that phrase be permissible--to fight under one's own flag.
Having lost his opportunity from this unfortunate mischance, Jones necessarily entered into a conversation with the other ship, while he made preparations for further maneuvering. What is known in sea parlance as "a regular gam" ensued. The conversation lasted for some time, during which he discovered that their pursuer was the Triumph, an American-built ship of twenty guns, Captain John Pindar, an equal match for the Ariel. She was a British privateer, though Jones and his men considered her a man-of-war. Pindar probably told them so to increase his prestige. After learning all that he could about English affairs in America from the garrulous captain of the privateer, who must have been extraordinarily stupid, Jones directed him to lower a boat and come on board with his commission to prove that he was really an Englishman. Pindar refused to do this, and Jones, watch in hand, said he would allow him just five minutes for reflection as to the disastrous consequences of a refusal to comply with this request. During this interval the Englishman endeavored to clear ship for action, his men not having gone to quarters before--a great piece of carelessness and neglect.
At the expiration of the appointed time, Pindar still proving obdurate, Jones backed his ship on the weather quarter of the Triumph, put his helm up, crossed her stern, and poured in a broadside which raked her at short range and naturally did much execution. He then ranged alongside the lee beam of the privateer, and for ten minutes poured in a vigorous fire. The resistance of the enemy, at first spirited, had grown more feeble, until at the end of that time Pindar hauled down his flag and begged for quarter, saying when he surrendered that half his crew were killed or wounded. The Ariel's men left their stations and gave three cheers, but the erstwhile stupid Pindar proved to be a more wily antagonist than they imagined. His ship had gradually moved ahead of the Ariel during the contest, and now, suddenly putting up his helm and throwing out his studding sails, he ran off dead before the wind, with all his killed and wounded. The unsuspecting and astonished Americans on the Ariel endeavored to follow the man who had so cleverly eluded them, but their overloaded ship was no match in sailing for the swift privateer, which soon made good her escape in the night.