The letter continues:—
"I have been looking back on my own boyish journal of that time. My mother made me keep a log, as I hope yours does. But it is strange to see how little of the action it tells. The truth is, I was nothing but a butterfly of a youngster. To save my conceit, the first lieutenant, Wallis, told me I was assigned to keep an eye on the after-battery, where were two fine old fellows as ever took the King's pay really commanding the crews and managing the guns. Much did I know about sighting or firing them! However, I knew enough to keep my place. I remember tying up a man's arm with my own shirt-sleeves, by way of showing I was not frightened, as in truth I was. And I remember going down to the cockpit with a poor wretch who was awfully burned with powder,—and the sight there was so much worse than it was at my gun that I was glad to get back again. Well, you may judge, that, from two after-portholes below, first larboard, then starboard, I saw little enough of the battle. But I have talked about it since, with Dale, who was Jones's first lieutenant, and whom I met at Charlestown when he commanded the yard there. I have talked of it with Wallis many times. I talked of it with Sir Richard Pearson, who was afterwards Lt.-Gov. of Greenwich, and whom I saw there. Paul Jones I have touched my hat to, but never spoke to, except when we all took wine with him one day at dinner. But I have met his niece, Miss Janet Taylor, who lives in London now, and calculates nautical tables. I hope you will see her some day. Then there is a gentleman named Napier in Edinburgh, who has the Richard's log-book. Go and see it, if you are ever there,—Mr. George Napier. And I have read every word I could find about the battle. It was a remarkable fight indeed. 'All of which I was, though so little I saw.'"
[Mem. by F.C. And dear Ingham's nice old grandfather is a little slow in getting into action, me judice. It was a way they had in the navy before steam.]
The letter continues:—
"I do not know that Captain Pearson was a remarkable man; but I do know he was a brave man. He was made Sir Richard Pearson by the King for his bravery in this fight. When Paul Jones heard of that, he said Pearson deserved the knighthood, and that he would make him an earl the next time he met him. Of course, I only knew the captain as a midshipman (we were 'volunteers' then) knows a post-captain, and that for a few months only. We joined in summer (the Serapis was just commissioned for the first time). We were taken prisoners in September, but it was mid-winter before we were exchanged. He was very cross all the time we were in Holland. I do not suppose he wrote as good a letter as Jones did. I have heard that he could not spell well. But what I know is that he was a brave man.
"Paul Jones is one of the curiosities of history. He certainly was of immense value to your struggling cause. He kept England in terror; he showed the first qualities as a naval commander; he achieved great successes with very little force. Yet he has a damaged reputation. I do not think he deserves this reputation; but I know he has it. Now I can see but one difference between him and any of your land-heroes or your water-heroes whom all the world respects. This is, that he was born on our side, and they were born on the American side. This ought not to make any difference. But in actual fact I think it did. Jones was born in the British Islands. The popular feeling of England made a distinction between the allegiance which he owed to King George and that of born Americans. It ought not to have done so, because he had in good faith emigrated to America before the Rebellion, and took part in it with just the same motives which led any other American officer.[H]
"He had a fondness for books and for society, and thought himself gifted in writing. I should think he wrote too much. I have seen verses of his which were very poor."
[Mem. by F.C. I should think Ingham's grandfather wrote too much. I have seen letters of his which were very long, before they came to their subject.]
The letter continues:—
"To return. The Serapis, as I have said, was but just built. She had been launched that spring. She was one of the first 44-gun frigates that were ever built in the world. We (the English) were the first naval power to build frigates, as now understood, at all. I believe the name is Italian, but in the Mediterranean it means a very different thing. We had little ships-of-the-line, which were called fourth-rates, and which fought sixty, and even as low as fifty guns; they had two decks, and a quarter-deck above. But just as I came into the service, the old Phœnix and Rainbow and Roebuck were the only 44s we had: they were successful ships, and they set the Admiralty on building 44-gun frigates, which, even when they carried 50 guns, as we did, were quite different from the old fourth-rates. Very useful vessels they proved. I remember the Romulus, the Ulysses, the Actæon, and the Endymion: the Endymion fought the President forty years after. As I say, the Serapis was one of a batch of these vessels launched in the spring of 1779.