This caused the editor to make further investigations, as it was apparent that if Fanning was not, possibly Midshipman Groube was, the writer of the logs, particularly as he had been considered competent to act as judge-advocate of a number of courts martial, and, inferentially, was a better scholar than other officers under Jones' command.
Availing himself of the cordial assistance of Mr. Putnam, the Librarian of Congress, and Mr. Hunt, chief of the Manuscripts Division, the editor procured a facsimile of a long letter written by Beaumont Groube to Captain Bell, commanding the privateer Luzerne, then at L'Orient, dated May 3, 1780, when both Groube and Fanning were attached to the Alliance, asking his good offices in accommodating a quarrel with Lieutenant Degge, one of the officers then on the Alliance.
Upon comparison of the penmanship of this letter with that of the logs, it was established, beyond any possible doubt, that Midshipman Groube was the scribe of all three logs, the handwriting being identical.[23]
There is a certain amount of interest attached to Midshipman Groube, growing out of the fact that there are a great many contemporaneous prints which represent Jones in the act of shooting a Lieutenant Grubb for attempting to haul down the colors of the Richard. As there was no Lieutenant Grubb in the ship, Groube has been made, by writers of numerous chap-books, the victim of this act of Jones. These chap-books are mainly fabrications of their authors and engravers, and may properly be called the "dime novels" of the period.
Groube probably returned to the United States with Jones in the Ariel, although he discontinued keeping the log on the 14th of October, 1780. He seems to have disappeared, as no further trace of him can be found, nor is there any account of his previous life. It is evident, however, that he was a young man of good education, as shown by his handwriting and correct spelling—unusual accomplishments of the sailors of that period—as well as from his selection as judge-advocate of the many courts martial held on the officers and men of the Richard[24] when that ship was fitting for sea at L'Orient.
The editor would call attention to the fact that, although the greater part of Jones' voluminous correspondence is now deposited in the Library of Congress, Mrs. Taylor, or her daughter Jeanette Taylor, parted with many interesting documents, and there are also to be found in the hands of individuals many others which have never been published. Besides the log-books here printed—as well as the log-books of the Ranger and Bon Homme Richard heretofore referred to—Miss Taylor informed Mr. Cooper that she had given Jones' original commission as lieutenant, dated August 8, 1776, to some one in Scotland as an autograph of President Hancock. The original certificate of Hancock, appointing him to the command of the Providence, is in the editor's collection, while his commission, dated October 10, 1776, of which Sherburne in his edition of 1851 prints a facsimile, is now in private hands.
On the following four pages are reproduced for the purpose of a comparison of the handwriting facsimiles of the first page of the Serapis' log, and opposite it a page from a letter by Beaumont Groube. On the two subsequent pages are the continuation of the letter and a page from the ship's muster-roll. Almost at a glance it can be seen that the two signatures were written by the same hand and that the writing in the log and that in the letter are identical as to penmanship.
