The log-book now published is one of the few relics known to exist of the engagement between the Bon Homme Richard and the Serapis, as most of the records and official papers of both ships were lost when the Bon Homme Richard sank, or following the confusion on the Serapis after her capture.
The book is fourteen inches tall, nine and one quarter inches wide, bound in old vellum, stained, warped, worn with age and hard usage on land and sea. The paper is rough, greenish in color, the hand-made linen paper of the period, with a watermark showing it to be of English manufacture.
Upon the exterior of both covers are numerous scribblings: "R. D. June 2d, 1779"—"R. D. June 26, 1779"—"Richard Dales book"—"September the 3d—1780—This book belongs to Mr. Henry Lunt, Lieutenant of the Ship of War, the (Ariel)." Richard Dale's name is also found in several places on the pages of the book.
It was first used to enter the names of the officers and crew of the Bon Homme Richard, giving their rank, rating, and the dates and places of their enlistment.[2] It evidently constituted the muster-roll of that ship when Robert Robinson was the first lieutenant, and, after the dismissal of that officer by sentence of court martial for "negligence of duty," it passed into the keeping of Richard Dale, who succeeded Robinson as first lieutenant, he entering therein, on the pages immediately following the muster-roll: "A List of The Men Names that has Desarted from The Bone Homme Richard, Lorient July, 19th. 1779"[3]
When the Richard sank off Flamborough Head, the muster-roll was saved and taken on board the Serapis, as constituting the official list of those entitled to prize money—then as now the great incentive to naval enlistment and activity.
As may well be imagined, a blank-book suitable for a log was not available at that moment of supreme confusion, so that the muster-roll book of the Richard, with only a few of its pages in use, was seized upon and used to enter the daily transactions on board the Serapis, from the time of her capture until, as a result of the political situation between Holland and England, she was turned over to the French, and, under the command of Captain Cottineau, hoisted the French colors in the Texel Roads.
The book was reversed, and the log of the Serapis begun at the other end, preceded by a brief memorandum—"Some Remarkable Occurrences that happened on the 23d day of September, 1779,"—which briefly records the capture of the Serapis.
No other or more circumstantial account of the fight existed in the book when it came into the possession of its later owners, but a close examination showed that, besides minor mutilations, two leaves, immediately preceding that containing the statement of "Some Remarkable Occurrences," had, at some time, been torn out. In order to incorporate into the book a clearer and more circumstantial account of the fight, a former owner caused to be copied on several blank leaves the narrative found amongst the Peter Force Collection of Manuscripts, "John Paul Jones Papers," Volume VI, number 29.
The authorship and penmanship of this document have been ascribed by various biographers of Jones to Richard Dale.[4]
The present owner's attention was specially called to it by seeing a small photographic reproduction, published in a book by Professor Marion entitled, "John Paul Jones' Last Cruise and Final Resting Place," Washington, 1906. The author describes this valuable and historical document as a "manuscript written on two pages of rough, greenish paper, evidently torn out of a log book," and attributes it to Richard Dale, the first lieutenant of the Bon Homme Richard. The compiler of the "John Paul Jones Manuscripts" in the Library of Congress attributes it possibly to Jones' secretary.[5] The author of the "Memoirs of Rear-Admiral Paul Jones," published in Edinburgh and London, 1830, Volume I, page 192, states "that the fact of Landais' firing into the Bon Homme Richard is also confirmed by the log-book, which was preserved when the ship sunk, and by a very interesting and seaman-like narrative of the engagement, drawn up by Mr. Dale." He adds in a footnote in reference to the log-book: "This battered volume, after many adventures by land and water, is now (1830) in the possession of Mr. Richard Napier, Advocate."