Battle of the Bonhomme Richard and the Serapis.
The bold headland of Flamborough is seen on the right. The force of the explosion on the Serapis’s deck blew the British flag against the wind.
The mainmast of the Serapis was still being pounded by the three small guns on the Bon Homme Richard’s deck, which were worked under the eye of Paul Jones. Sometimes he himself took a part in the handling and pointing of the guns, and his indomitable coolness seemed communicated to the men. The spar deck of the Serapis was still pretty effectually cleared, but she was unbeaten below. The gun captain, though, who had come up from below when the great guns burst, now filled a bucket with hand grenades and climbed into the maintop. The main yard of the Bon Homme Richard lay directly over the main hatch of the Serapis. He then lay out on the main yard, until he got to the sheet block, where he fastened his bucket. Then, with perfect deliberation and unerring aim, he began to throw his grenades at the open hatchway. Every one went straight, and every one exploded. Paul Jones, who was on the poop, called out to him:
“If you could get one down on the gun deck, where there is no doubt some loose powder about—”
“That’s what I’m arter, sir,” responded the sailor coolly, and within two minutes one had rolled down the hatchway and had dropped upon a row of cartridges. An instant and terrific explosion followed. It seemed as if the whole interior of the ship had been blown out. Every gun was silenced, and an awful stillness prevailed for a moment or two. Just then the gunner, who had been below, ran up on the Bon Homme Richard’s deck, and, terrified out of his life, cried, “I don’t see the commodore!” and running, aft, he intended to strike the colors. The ensign had been shot away, however, and was dragging in the water; the man therefore yelled for “Quarter! quarter!”
Scarcely were the words out of his mouth when he saw a figure at his side, and felt a stunning blow from a pistol’s butt.
“Do you see the commodore now?” cried Paul Jones; “and let me not hear any man on this ship beg, like a cur, for quarter!”
The cry for quarter had been heard on the Serapis, and Captain Pearson called out in the half darkness:
“Do you ask for quarter?”
“No, by heaven!” shouted Paul Jones. “We will give quarter, but we never ask it.”
About this time one of the prisoners stepped through the side of the Bon Homme Richard into the Serapis, and reported the desperate condition of the American ship. Immediately the bugler on the Serapis sounded the call for boarders, and a number of them, armed with pikes and cutlasses, appeared at the bulwarks. But Paul Jones, seizing a boarding pike, stood in the gangway to receive them. It never occurred to the boarders that there was not a large body to repel them, besides the sailors on deck, and they retired. But it is a fact that no man touched a pike except Paul Jones.