“Accordingly the whole was laid before them—even the silver teapot which was used at breakfast, and which had not been since washed out. The officer on receiving it ordered his men to pack it all, again respectfully apologising for his conduct on this occasion, which he called a dirty business, and then taking his leave of her ladyship, he retired with his party, and returned to his ship, leaving the family not a little pleased at their escape from a worse fate, which they apprehended. Still, however, as the ship did not immediately get under weigh, her ladyship, entertaining fears of a second visit, lost no time in sending off her children, and removing to a place of security whatever property was likely to induce them to pay her another visit.” In a few hours she was gratified by seeing the privateer getting under weigh, and proceeding to sea without offering any further violence. Lady Selkirk received, a few days after, a letter from Jones, written in a romantic and almost poetical style, in which he entreated her ladyship’s pardon for the late affront, assuring her that, so far from having been suggested or sanctioned by him, he had exerted his influence in order to prevent its taking place; but his officers and crew had insisted on the enterprise, in the hope of getting possession of the person of Lord [pg 75]Selkirk, for whose ransom they anticipated a considerable sum might be realised. This, Jones declared, was the object of their first visit, in which having failed, they began to murmur on their return on board, and insisted on their landing again and plundering the castle; he was therefore reluctantly obliged to give his assent. He added that he would endeavour to buy the plunder they had so disgracefully brought away, and transmit the whole, or such as he could obtain, to her ladyship.
“Several years elapsed without hearing anything from Jones, and all hope of realisation of his promises had vanished; but in the spring of the year 1783, to the great and agreeable surprise of her ladyship, the whole of the plate was returned, carriage paid, precisely in the same condition in which it had been taken away, and to every appearance without having ever been unpacked, the tea-leaves remaining in the silver teapot, as they were left after breakfast on the morning of the plunderers’ visit to the castle.” It is hardly to be doubted that Jones was sincere in this matter, and that the real state of the case was that he had spoken before the others of Lord Selkirk’s estate and his early experiences, until they had become inflamed with a desire to plunder the castle, and, if possible, secure the person of that nobleman, with the hope of obtaining a large ransom. This, at first sight the most piratical act of Paul’s life, really shows him to advantage, and that he had some humanity left for his early associates. Lord Selkirk himself received the news in London, with a few additions, to the effect that his castle had been burned to the ground and his family taken prisoners. Those were not the days of special correspondents and telegraphy. About half-way on his journey he, however, obtained a more correct version of the affair.
Jones now made for the Irish coast, where in the Belfast Loch he burned or captured several fishing-boats. A sloop-of-war, the Drake, under the command of Captain Burden, was lying there. The commander thought that the Ranger was a merchantman, and sent off a boat’s crew to impress some of her men for the navy. Jones allowed them to come on board, and then impressed them! He did not, however, wish to risk an engagement just then, and therefore put about and crowded on all sail. Captain Burden, finding that his boat did not return, at last suspected something wrong, gave chase, and, coming up with the privateer, opened a sharp fire. The night was so dark that the firing could not be continued with any prospect of success. Next morning the engagement was renewed, and at the end of over an hour’s gallant fighting on both sides—by which time Captain Burden, his first lieutenant, and some of the crew, being killed, and more disabled, and the ship much damaged—the Drake surrendered to the Ranger. Jones took his prize into Brest—and communicated his success to Dr. Franklin,[9] then the American diplomatic agent in Paris.
In the following winter we find Jones in command of a frigate, the Bonne Homme Richard, of forty guns, with a complement of 370 men, having under him another frigate, the Alliance, of nearly equal size, a brig, and a cutter, all acting in the service of the American Congress. A French frigate, the Pallas, also formed one of the squadron. Some of his first essays were failures. Landing a boat’s crew on the coast of Kerry to take some sheep, the farmers and people defended their property bravely, and the aggressors [pg 76]were sent to Tralee gaol. So, when he conceived the bold idea of burning the shipping in Leith harbour, a gale blew his ship to sea. It is said that laying off Kirkaldy, Jones sent a summons to the townspeople to make up a ransom, or he would fire the town. A number of the inhabitants had collected on the beach, among whom was a venerable minister, who offered up a prayer to the Almighty, and exhorted the people to courage and trustfulness. Soon after the wind increased to the gale above-mentioned, and the privateer had to be let go before the wind. Not long previous to this, however, Jones had captured several prizes, all of which were sent to French ports.
But off Scarborough Jones and his squadron fell in with a British convoy of merchantmen from the Baltic, under escort of H.M.S. Serapis (forty-four guns), in the command of Captain Pearson, and the Countess of Scarborough (twenty guns), Captain Piercy. The result was a brilliant engagement, in which the British captains behaved most gallantly, although the privateer force was in excess of their own. Captain Pearson, while a prisoner on the Pallas, communicated a full account to the Lords of the Admiralty, of which the following narrative contains some verbatim extracts:—
On the 23rd September, 1799, the privateer squadron and the two English ships were in sight of each other. Captain Pearson’s first anxiety was to get between the merchant-ships he was convoying and the privateers, which he successfully accomplished. Shortly after the action commenced the muzzles of the guns of the Serapis and Alliance actually touched each other. “In this position,” wrote Captain Pearson, “we engaged from half-past eight till half-past ten, during which time, from the great quantity and variety of combustible matter which they threw upon our decks, cabins, and, in short, into every part of the ship, we were on fire no less than ten or twelve times in different parts of the ship, and it was with the greatest difficulty and exertion imaginable, at times, that we were able to get it extinguished. At the same time the largest of the two frigates kept sailing round us during the whole action, and raking us fore and aft, by which means she killed or wounded almost every man on the quarter and main decks. At half-past nine, either from a hand-grenade being thrown in at one of our lower deck ports or from some other accident, a cartridge of powder was set on fire, the flames of which, running from cartridge to cartridge all the way aft, blew up the whole of the officers and crew that were quartered abaft the mainmast; from which unfortunate circumstance all those guns were rendered useless for the remainder of the action.
“At ten o’clock they called for quarter from the ship alongside, and said they had struck. Hearing this, I called upon the captain to say if they had struck, or if he asked for quarter, but receiving no answer after repeating my words two or three times, I called for the boarders, and ordered them to board, which they did; but the moment they were on board her they discovered a superior number lying under cover, with pikes in their hands, ready to receive them, on which our people retreated instantly into our own ship, and returned to their guns again until half-past ten, when the frigate coming across our stern, and pouring her broadside into us again without our being able to bring a gun to bear on her, I found it in vain, and in short impracticable, from the situation we were in, to stand out any longer with any prospect of success. I therefore struck; our mainmast at the same time went by the board.
PAUL JONES.
“The first lieutenant and myself were immediately escorted into the ship alongside, when we found her to be an American ship-of-war, called the Bonne Homme Richard, of forty guns and 375 men, commanded by Captain Paul Jones; the other frigate which engaged us to be the Alliance, of forty guns and 300 men; and the third frigate, which engaged and took the Countess of Scarborough after two hours’ action, to be the Pallas, a French frigate, of thirty guns and 274 men; the Vengeance, an armed brig of twelve guns and seventy men: all in Congress service, under the command of Paul Jones. They fitted and sailed from Port l’Orient the latter end of July, and then came north. They have on board 300 English prisoners, which they have taken in different vessels in their way round since they left France, and have ransomed some others. On my going on board the Bonne Homme Richard I found her in the greatest distress, her quarters and counter on the lower deck being entirely drove in, and the whole of her lower deck guns dismounted; she was also on fire in two places, and six or seven feet of water in her hold, which kept increasing upon them all night and next day, till they were obliged to quit her. She had 300 men killed and wounded in the action. Our loss in the Serapis was also very great.” Captain Pearson concludes with a proper tribute to the bravery of Captain Piercy, who with his small frigate had engaged the Pallas, a much larger vessel, and to the men in general. The honour of knighthood was afterwards conferred on Captain Pearson, while Piercy [pg 78]and the officers were suitably promoted. The Royal Exchange Insurance Company presented both captains with services of plate. It need not be said that Paul Jones was for the nonce a much-appreciated man in America.