There were six feet of water in the hold. The flood, in streams, was rushing in. The ship was apparently sinking. At that awful moment one of the officers rushed below and, with humane intentions, released three hundred prisoners who were in the hold. They came pouring upon deck in a frenzy of dismay. Water would drown them in the hold. Bullets and cannon-balls would strike them on the deck. The Richard was on fire in several places. The rudder was cut off the stern-frame, and the transoms shot away. Fire had broken out in several places. It was burning within a few inches of the powder magazine. The timbers on the ship’s side, from the main-mast to the stern, were entirely shot away, so that the balls of the Serapis passed directly through, meeting with no obstruction but the bodies of men. A few blackened posts alone prevented the upper deck from falling.
The flames were so near the magazine that Captain Jones ordered the powder kegs to be brought up and thrown into the sea. He compelled the prisoners to work at the pumps, and in the endeavor to extinguish the flames. They were indeed ready enough to do this; for the sinking of the ship would drown them, and they were in imminent peril of being burned up by the conflagration.
In the midst of this awful confusion, after the battle had raged for two and a half hours, Captain Pearson thought he heard the cry of some one on board the Richard calling for quarter. This cry probably came from the quartermaster.
“Hearing this,” Captain Pearson writes, “I called upon the captain, to know if he had struck. No answer being made, after repeating my words two[two] or three times, I called for the boarders and ordered them to board; which they did. But the moment they were on board the Richard, they discovered a superior number, lying under cover, with pikes in their hands ready to receive them; on which our people retreated instantly to their guns again, till after ten o’clock.”
The powder-boys of the Serapis, whose business it was to bring up the cartridges for the guns, appalled by the horrible scene, of dismounted guns, mutilation, and death, scarcely knowing what they did, threw the cartridges upon the deck, and went back for more. The cartridges were trampled upon and broken. The deck was soon quite covered with cartridges and loose powder. A hand grenade, thrown from the Richard, set fire to this, and produced an awful explosion.
The effect was horrible. More than twenty were instantly blown to pieces. Many others had every particle of clothing blown from their bodies, and were thrown down, writhing in agony, blackened, and scorched almost to cinders, Captain Pearson, in his official report says:
“A hand grenade, being thrown in at one of the lower ports 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 people and officers that were quartered abaft the mainmast; from which unfortunate circumstances, all those guns were rendered useless for the remainder of the action, and I fear that the greater part of the people will lose their lives.”
Just before ten o’clock[o’clock] the Alliance, which had stood aloof during all these hours, made her appearance; I must give this extraordinary occurrence in the words of Captain Jones.
“I now thought,” he wrote, “that the battle was at an end. But to my utter astonishment he discharged a broadside full into the stern of the Bon Homme Richard. We called to him for God’s sake to forbear. Yet he passed along the off side of the ship, and continued firing. There was no possibility of his mistaking the enemy’s ship for the Bon Homme Richard, there being the most essential difference in their appearance and construction. Besides it was then full moonlight, and the sides of the Bon Homme Richard were all black, and the sides of the enemy’s ship were yellow. Yet for the greater security I showed the signal for our reconnoisance, by putting out three lanterns, one at the bow, one at the stern, and one at the middle, in a horizontal line.
“Every tongue cried that he was firing into the wrong ship, but nothing availed. He passed round firing into the Bon Homme Richard, head, stern, and broadside, and by one of his volleys killed several of my best men, and mortally wounded a good officer of the forecastle. My situation was truly deplorable. The Bon Homme Richard received several shots under the water from the Alliance. The leak gained on the pumps; and the fire increased much on board both ships. Some officers entreated me to strike, of whose courage and sense I entertain a high opinion. I would not, however, give up the point.”