“Because, as he dashed past her in the Alliance, pushing ahead to reconnoitre, before the fight began, he cried out that if the enemy proved to be a forty-four, the only course for the Americans was immediate flight. He practiced on that idea, too, hauling off and leaving the Richard and the Pallas to do the fighting.
“Our French allies did us more harm than good in the naval battles of the Revolutionary War. If Captain Landais wasn’t crazy, he must have been one of the greatest scoundrels that ever trod a quarter-deck.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Lulu, “when I read about his firing into the Bon Homme Richard—when the poor fellows on it had been fighting so hard and long, so many of them dreadfully wounded, and the ship almost sinking already—I felt as if I could hardly stand it to think he escaped being well punished for it. He ought to have been hung; for his fire killed some of our poor fellows.”
“So he ought, the miserable coward!” assented the English lad. “I’m not partial to the French anyway,” he added. “Of course my own countrymen come first in my estimation, but I put the Americans next. We’re a sort of cousins, you know.”
“Yes,” said Max. “But wasn’t it a crazy idea that this great big country should go on being ruled by that little one across the sea? Most absurd, I think.”
“At the beginning of the trouble between them it must have looked like great folly for the thirteen weak colonies to go into the fight with England,” remarked Albert.
“Particularly to the English, who didn’t know how in love with liberty, and determined to keep her, the Americans were,” said Max. “Papa says we triumphed at the last because our cause was the cause of right, and God guided our counsels and gave success to our arms.”
“I don’t believe I’m as well-read on the subject as you are,” remarked Albert. “I presume I would naturally take less interest in it than you would.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” replied Max. “I’ve studied the history of the United States, my native land, a great deal, especially in the last year or two, and have had many talks with papa about the events, and especially the doings of the navy; they interested me more than any other part; first, because papa was a naval officer, and then because I’m hoping to go into the navy myself.”
“And those studies didn’t increase your love for us—the English, I mean?” said Albert interrogatively.