From an engraving by Dodson after the portrait by Wood.
Meantime arrangements had been making to give Captain Jones a fleet instead of a single ship. The Congress had built a frigate of thirty-two guns—she carried thirty-six, however, all told—which, because of the recently formed alliance between France and the United States, was named the Alliance. As a further compliment to the French one Pierre Landais, a French naval lieutenant, was placed in command of her. It was a pleasant thing to compliment France, but disastrous to appoint Landais, for he had a vein of insanity in him due to brooding over his previous failure to gain promotion in the service of his own country. The Alliance was detailed to carry Lafayette home to France after his service in America, and this duty she performed, although she was narrowly saved from capture when a number of Englishmen in her crew mutinied—a crime, by the way, for which no penalty was inflicted, because of the noble generosity of Lafayette. The Alliance was ordered to sail under Captain Jones. To these was added a merchant ship called the Pallas, commanded by Capt. Denis Nicholas Cottineau. She was armed with thirty-two guns. Then a brig, called the Vengeance, Captain Ricot (also a Frenchman), was secured, and then the squadron was completed with a man-o’-war cutter carrying eighteen small guns.
It was at first intended that Lafayette, with a considerable force of soldiers, should go with the fleet and make a flying assault upon Liverpool, but this project was abandoned because the French meditated a more formidable assault upon the somewhat “tight little isle.” Then a general cruise against British commerce was proposed and carried out.
But before any detail of this cruise is given a paragraph must be inserted here from a letter of instructions which Franklin, as the head of the American commissioners in France, sent to Captain Jones. When considered in connection with the act of Parliament by which American prisoners in England were starved, it is worth printing in italics:
“As many of your officers and people have recently escaped from English prisons, you are to be particularly attentive to their conduct toward the prisoners which the fortune of war may throw into your hands, lest the resentment of the more than barbarous usage by the English in many places toward the Americans, should occasion a retaliation and imitation of what ought rather to be detested and avoided for the sake of humanity and for the honor of our country.”
It was on February 4, 1779, that Captain Jones was ordered to the Bonhomme Richard. It was not until June 19th that he was able to sail with his little fleet. He had a right to suppose that his troubles were now at an end, but as a matter of fact they were only begun. Capt. Pierre Landais was, from the start, mutinous. He had claimed superiority of rank, and this not being allowed, he was determined to thwart his chief in every way possible. On the first night out he ran the Alliance foul of the Bonhomme Richard by steering across her bows, carrying away his own mizzenmast and a lot of the headgear of the Bonhomme Richard. At this a return to port became necessary, and it was two months before the investigation by the authorities and the repairs were completed.
Unfortunate as this mishap appeared at the time, it proved in the end a blessing, for while lying in port 119 Americans came over from England through an exchange of prisoners, and more than 100 of them shipped with Captain Jones. In the fight that was to come not a man of these could have been spared.
When, on August 14, 1779, the fleet once more sailed from L’Orient, it had been augmented by the Monsieur and the Granville, two very good French privateers. But, although they added to the number of guns, they were a source of trouble. When four days out the Monsieur captured a Holland ship that was in the hands of a British crew. The captain of the Monsieur appropriated this as the private property of his ship instead of the property of the squadron. When Jones interfered the two privateers left the squadron. As they were Frenchmen many of their countrymen in the fleet sympathized with them, and discontent was thus spread in the crews.
On August 21st a brigantine was captured and sent to L’Orient. On the 23d, off Cape Clear, the Bonhomme Richard, during a calm, was set toward some rocks by a current. When some rowboats were lowered with a line to tow her clear some Englishmen in one of them cut the tow-line and made a successful dash for shore. Sailing Master Lunt pursued them in another boat, was lost in a fog, and was finally obliged to go ashore. He was, of course, sent to Mill prison.