“Do you wish to furnish men to carry the prize you have taken to port, or do you wish me to furnish men. If it is your wish that I should take charge of the prize, I shall not allow any boat or any individual from the Bon Homme Richard to go near her.”
Captain Jones was very anxious, for the honor of our country, and for the success of the cause of American liberty, to avoid all jealousies and bickerings with our allies the French. He therefore, in a spirit of exalted patriotism, endured indignities, which, under other circumstances, it would not have been his duty to tolerate. With noble forbearance he replied that Captain Landais might take the exclusive charge of the prize. In his journal for the king he wrote:
“Ridiculous as this appeared to me, I yielded to it for the sake of peace; and received the prisoners on board the Bon Homme Richard, while the prize was manned from the Alliance.”
It was needful for Captain Jones to make this statement, in consequence of the result which ensued. The half-crazed Landais, instead of sending the prizes directly home to some port in France, probably fearing that they might be captured by some English war-ship, despatched them to Bergen, in Norway. The Danish Government, being on friendly terms with England, gave them both up to the British ambassador. Landais pursued this strange course in direct violation of the order he had received from Jones. The value of the two prizes, thus foolishly lost, was estimated to exceed two hundred thousand dollars.
In the afternoon of the same day another large ship appeared in the horizon, near the Flamie Islands. As we have said, the Richard was a lumbering merchantman of slow speed. The Alliance was a finely built, swift-footed American frigate. Jones signalled the Alliance to aid him in the pursuit by immediately giving chase. Instead of obeying the commands of the appointed commodore of the squadron, he deliberately wore ship, and laid his course in the opposite direction. Night came. The stranger escaped. In the morning, Captain Jones signalled Landais to come on board the Richard. He wished to confer respecting more cordial coöperation. Landais contemptuously paid no regard to the signal.
The next morning, which was the 2d of September, daylight revealed a sail in the distance. The Richard and the Vengeance gave chase, followed sullenly by the Alliance. The ship proved to be the Pallas, which had, in some way, succeeded in repairing the loss of her rudder. A rendezvous had been appointed, in case the fleet should get separated, at Fair Island, north of Scotland. The squadron turned its course in that direction hoping to find the Cerf there. On the evening of the next day, September 3d, the Vengeance captured a small brig returning to England from Norway. The Alliance had disappeared. It had gone, no one knew where. The terrible annoyances to which Captain Jones was exposed, in ways innumerable, may be inferred from the following extracts from his journal:
“On the morning of the 4th the Alliance appeared again, and had brought two very small coasting sloops in ballast, but without having attended properly to my order of yesterday. The Vengeance joined me soon after, and informed me that, in consequence of Captain Landais’ orders to the commanders of the two prize-ships, they had refused to follow him to the rendezvous. I am, to this moment, ignorant of what orders these men received from Captain Landais; nor know I by virtue of what authority he ventured to give his orders to prizes in my presence, and without either my knowledge or approbation. Captain Ricot further informed me that he had burnt the brigantine, because that vessel proved leaky. And I was sorry to understand afterward that, though the vessel was Irish property, the cargo was the property of subjects of Norway.
“In the evening I sent for all the captains to come on board the Bon Homme Richard, to consult on future plans of operations. Captains Cottineau and Ricot obeyed me; but Captain Landais obstinately refused, and after sending me various uncivil messages, wrote me a very extraordinary letter, in answer to a written order which I had sent him on finding that he had trifled with my verbal orders.”
Three of the officers of the other ships, gallant officers and courteous gentlemen, Messrs. Mease, Cottineau, and Chamillard, went on board the Alliance to endeavor to persuade Landais not to pursue a course so ruinous to the efficiency of the expedition. The angry man would not listen to the voice of reason. He spoke of Captain Jones in the most contemptuous and insulting terms. He even went so far as to say:
“I will soon meet Captain Jones on shore. Then I will either kill him or he shall kill me.”