This song was greeted with great applause, and Bill stoutly claimed the honor of its composition.
The cruise was uneventful except for the capture of a few prizes, and, battered by the storms in the Bay of Biscay, the squadron returned to L’Orient to refit. Here Paul Jones had the good luck to find a considerable number of Americans who were anxious to enlist with him. Every quarter-deck officer was an American except one midshipman. Paul Jones distributed the Americans among his crew, so that nearly all the petty officers were of the sort described by Washington when he said, “Put none but Americans on guard.” Many of the ordinary seamen, though, were of other nationalities.
At last the necessary repairs were made, and at daybreak on the morning of the 14th of August Paul Jones set sail, with a premonition that, even with an inferior ship and a squadron unworthy to serve under him, he would yet do great things. This feeling was shared by Dale, and by every officer and man on the Bon Homme Richard.
Several prizes were taken, but within a week the extraordinary temper of Captain Landais manifested itself. On the 21st of August it fell calm; the squadron was then off Cape Clear, and was motionless on the still and glassy sea. The sun was sinking redly. In full view lay a fine brigantine, her sails hanging limp in the perfectly still August air. Paul Jones at once gave orders to hoist out the boats, and, putting Lieutenant Dale in charge of the expedition, they pulled off to capture the brigantine.
In the clear atmosphere everything could be plainly seen on the surface of the water, and Paul Jones could almost hear, in the perfect silence of the fast waning afternoon, the orders of his favorite lieutenant, who hailed the brigantine and demanded her surrender. There was, of course, no resistance to be made to armed boats, and in a very short time a hawser was passed aboard, and the men started to tow the captured vessel to where the Bon Homme Richard lay.
The twilight had come on fast, and the flood tide was rising. The Bon Homme Richard begun to drift dangerously near the Skelligs, that are among the most dangerous rocks on the wild Irish coast. It became necessary to tow the ship, so as to keep her head to the tide, and the commodore’s barge, being the only large boat on board, was hoisted out, with a tow line to keep the ship off the rocks.
Danny Dixon, being a strong boy, and many of the crew being absent, was in the barge. It grew dark rapidly, and in the dusk the barge looked like a black shadow ahead of the ship, as the men bent slowly to their oars, just enough to hold the ship against the tide. Suddenly Lieutenant Dale, who had the deck, noticed that the ship’s head was wearing round. At the same moment he heard a splash in the water. The boat, however, was still pulling ahead, but much faster than it had been.
For a moment he was puzzled at this, but he called out in a moment, “Avast, there! the line has parted!”
The boat, however, paid no attention to his cry, but continued to pull away faster and faster. It dawned upon him then that the line had been cut purposely, and he shouted the louder, “Return to the ship at once!” He had seen a shadow upon the water, and a continual splash after the first one, and in a moment or two he saw Danny Dixon’s tow head just under the ship’s quarter.
“Give me a line, please, sir,” called Danny, and the next moment he was landed on deck dripping wet.