The conferring of this last honor made Paul Jones a chevalier of the Order of Military Merit, and he was already the Commodore of the American Navy. But none of these titles were used by him. His cards bore the simple but proud name of “Paul Jones.” He needed not titles or distinctions; and, although he appreciated them, he knew that they could not confer any title upon him that would add one iota to his reputation.
CHAPTER XVII.
The American commissioners were so poorly provided with money that they could never secure Paul Jones a ship worthy of him, and the best they could do was to get the Ariel, a French sloop of war. But Richard Dale and Henry Lunt, together with nearly all the officers and men of the Bon Homme Richard, were available for the Ariel, so that Paul Jones had the same splendid company that had served under him in his last glorious cruise.
A singular fatality seemed to attend all of Paul Jones’s departures from port. He could never get the ship he wanted, or one worthy of him; nor could he ever leave when he wished. Contrary winds detained him in the roads of Groix for several weeks. When the wind finally changed, on the morning of the 8th of October, there was every indication of squally weather.
“Do you know,” said Paul Jones to Dale, whom he always treated with the utmost confidence, “I have private information that Sir James Wallace, in the Nonesuch line of battle ship, is waiting for me outside; and she, you know, is copper sheathed, and one of the finest ships in the world.”
“But it is not written, Paul,” answered Dale, with an affectionate smile, “that Paul Jones is ever to be taken by the British.”
The most affectionate intimacy had now grown up between the commodore and his young lieutenant; and although Paul Jones was some years older than Dale, the young lieutenant in private called his commander “Paul.”[5] They were like an older and a younger brother. In public, the strictest official etiquette was observed by both; yet when they were alone they were like two boy friends in their tender friendship.
The wind increased in violence as they got out into the bay, and by nightfall it was a roaring tempest. Then came up a storm of which, Paul Jones himself wrote afterward, “until that night I did not fully conceive the awful majesty of tempest and of shipwreck. I can give no idea of the tremendous scene.... I believe no ship was ever before saved from an equal danger off the point of the Penmarque rocks.”
These Penmarque rocks are among the most dangerous in the world, and lie between L’Orient and Brest. The gale continued to increase, and on the night of the 9th of October, when the Ariel had the Penmarques under her lee, the storm became utterly terrific. The sky was of a dreadful darkness, and the waves rushed up into great green mountain slopes, with a crest of white phosphorus that made a weird and awful glare upon the storm-swept ocean. Black as the sky was, it seemed to grow suddenly blacker, as a great mass of clouds went flying over to the northwest, where it formed a terrible bank that reached from the surface of the sea to the arch of the heavens. The edges were of a luminous green, and lightnings began to play upon the face of this awful cloud bank. It spread quickly over the sky like a great black pall, and then a blast burst forth. It was as if the cloud were a volcano, spouting wind, rain, hail, thunders, and lightnings. A vast grayish-white veil of rain was tossed by the screaming wind between heaven and earth, and rent by the forked lightning.
The little Ariel, unable to show a single sail, staggered along, trembling and shuddering like a human thing in mortal terror and agony. The frightful buffeting of the waves had opened her seams, and water poured into her both from below and above. The shrieking of the wind through her cordage was like the howling of a thousand fiends. The guns broke loose from their fastenings, and rolled over the decks with a reverberation like the thunder which roared overhead. All night long this lasted, and no officer or man left his post that night or closed his eyes to sleep. The pumps were kept going, and every effort was made to bring the ship’s head to the wind, but in vain.