And may fortune soon renew
Equal battle on the flood!
Long live the glorious names of the brave!
O’er these martyrs of the deep
Oft the roving wind shall weep,
Crying ‘Sweetly may they sleep
’Neath the wave!’”
The attentions shown Paul Jones personally by the Dutch naval officers were very displeasing to the British ambassador, and by intrigue he succeeded in having Captain Rimersima, who had been very polite to the Americans, superseded in favor of Vice-Admiral Reynst, as commander of the Dutch fleet. This vice-admiral belonged to the court party, and was notoriously unfriendly to Paul Jones. On the 12th of November he sent Paul Jones a peremptory order to sail with the first fair wind. In spite of every effort, the American ship was not yet in condition to keep the sea. But, for this very reason, the vice-admiral constantly urged Paul Jones to depart, and even threatened him in case he did not. At last, on the 28th of November, a positive threat was made. The vice-admiral wrote that, unless Paul Jones went out, the Dutch fleet would drive him out. The wind at the time was contrary. Paul Jones received this message from a junior Dutch officer on the quarter-deck of the Alliance, and replied, in a loud, firm voice that not only all the men on the Alliance could hear, but all the sailors in the Dutch man-of-war’s boat:
“The vice-admiral demands impossibilities,” he said. “Can any ship get out of the road in such a wind as this?”
Then he called up an old Dutch pilot that he had kept on board for a week past—Peter Maartens.