Both ships were now in flames, and water rushed into the Richard faster than the pumps could keep it out. Some of the officers begged Captain Jones to pull down his flag and surrender, but he would not give up. He thought there was always a chance while he had a deck under his feet.
Soon the cowardly French traitor quit firing and sailed off, and Paul Jones began his old work again, firing at the Serapis as if the battle had just begun. This was more than the British captain could bear. His ship was a mere wreck and was blazing around him, so he ran on deck and pulled down his flag with his own hands. The terrible battle was at an end. The British ship had given up the fight.
Lieutenant Dale sprang on board the Serapis, went up to Captain Pearson, the British commander, and asked him if he surrendered. The Englishman replied that he had, and then he and his chief officer went aboard the battered Richard, which was sinking even in its hour of victory.
But Captain Jones stood on the deck of his sinking vessel, proud and triumphant. He had shown what an American captain and American sailors could do, even when everything was against them. The English captain gave up his sword to the American, which is the way all sailors and soldiers do when they surrender their ships or their armies.
The fight had been a brave one, and the English King knew that his captain had made a bold and desperate resistance, even if he had been whipped. So he rewarded Captain Pearson, when he at last returned to England, by making him a Knight, thus giving him the title of "Sir." When Captain Jones heard of this he laughed, and said: "Well, if I can meet Captain Pearson again in a sea fight, I'll make him a lord."
The poor Bon Homme Richard was such an utter wreck that she soon sank beneath the waves. But, even as she went down, the stars and stripes floated proudly from the mast-head, in token of victory.
Captain Jones, after the surrender, put all his men aboard the captured Serapis, and then off he sailed to the nearest friendly port, with his great prize and all his prisoners. This victory made him the greatest sailor in the whole American war, and the most famous of all American seamen.
Captain Jones took his prize into the Dutch port of Texel, closely followed by a British squadron. The country of Holland was not friendly to the Americans, and though they let him come in, he was told that he could not stay there. So he sailed again, in a howling gale, straight through the British squadron, with the American flag flying at his peak. Down through the narrow Straits of Dover he passed, coming so near the English shore that he could count the warships at anchor in the Downs. That was his way of showing how little he feared them. The English were so angry at Holland because it would not give up the Americans and their prizes that they declared war against that country.
When Captain Jones reached Paris he was received with the greatest honor, and greeted as one of the ablest and bravest of sea-fighters.
Everybody wished to see such a hero. He went to the King's court, and the King and Queen and French lords and ladies made much of him and gave him receptions, and said so many fine things about him that, if he had been at all vain, it might have "turned his head," as people say. But John Paul Jones was not vain.