Roars of laughter and applause greeted this, and Bill was compelled to respond to an encore. The evening and a part of the night passed in gayety and merriment, and the sober Dutchmen were much astonished at the hilarity on the American ship. Paul Jones had had the ship dressed for Christmas, and the British at the Texel were obliged to endure the sight of an American flag flying from every masthead on the Alliance. At last, two days after Christmas, Peter Maartens, the pilot, was sent for. The weather was thick, and a tremendous gale seemed to be rising. When Paul Jones proposed to take the ship out, Peter shook his head very solemnly.
“Any pilot who takes a ship out in this weather is likely to lose his license, and I can’t risk it,” he said.
Peter had rather a weakness for the bottle, although it was said that he was as good a pilot when he was half seas over as when he was quite sober. It was Christmas time, and Peter was liable to yield to temptation. Paul Jones was therefore not surprised when, as night was falling, a few hours after, Peter Maartens’s boat hailed the ship, and he announced that he was ready to carry her out. Immediately the anchor was lifted, and within an hour the Alliance stood down the river in the teeth of a northeast gale.
It was a murky December night when, with a strong wind, the ship started on her way toward the open sea. A perfectly new American ensign had been run up for the occasion, and Sir Joseph Yorke had the mortification of knowing that the ship went boldly out to run the gauntlet of her enemies, without any disguise whatever. Dale, as first lieutenant, was on deck. Bill Green was at the wheel. Peter Maartens’s orders, although very judicious, were not very distinct, as he had been indulging in the flowing bowl, and the first thing the Alliance knew she was afoul of a Dutch merchantman. The Alliance dropped her best bower anchor, in the effort to get clear, and in the wind, the darkness, and confusion, the cable parted or was cut by the Dutchman. Peter Maartens then declared that nobody but the devil himself would put to sea in such a gale, and flatly refused to carry the ship out that night. However, he brought her to anchor so close inshore that in the morning they were forced to cut the cable themselves in order to get out, thus leaving both their bower anchor and sheet anchor in the roads of Texel; but they were out of the Dutch port, or purgatory, as Paul Jones himself expressed it, and under close-reefed topsails they were heading for the ocean in the midst of a roaring gale. But the American ensign flew as long as they were in sight of land, and until they were three marine leagues out. The Alliance hugged the shoals so close, in order to keep to windward of the blockading British squadrons, that several times they had hard work in clawing off. At last, however, they were clear.
Paul Jones, wrapped in a cloak and with a sou’wester pulled down over his eyes, called to him Lieutenant Dale, who had the deck.
“Dale,” he said, carelessly, “what passage, think you, shall we take to France?”
“The northward, I presume, sir,” replied Dale, astonished at the question from his commander.
“And do the officers and crew expect we shall go north, and away from the British Isles?”
“Certainly, sir,” replied Dale, still more surprised.
“Then,” said Paul Jones, laying his hand on Dale’s shoulder, “you may depend upon it, if all my officers and men expect me to avoid the English Channel, every British captain that is hunting for me likewise will look for me to the northward. But I will sail through their channel, under the very noses of their fleet at Spithead.”