University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.
THEY FIGHT THE SERAPIS.

THE battle between the Bon Homme Richard and the
Serapis stands in history as the first signal collision
on the sea between the Englishman and the American.
For obstinacy, mutual hatred, and courage, it is without
precedent or subsequent in the story of ocean. The
strife long hung undetermined, but the English flag struck
in the end.

There would seem to be something singularly indicatory
in this engagement. It may involve at once a type, a
parallel, and a prophecy. Sharing the same blood with
England, and yet her proved foe in two wars—not wholly
inclined at bottom to forget an old grudge—intrepid, unprincipled,
reckless, predatory, with boundless ambition,
civilized in externals but a savage at heart, America is,
or may yet be, the Paul Jones of nations.

Regarded in this indicatory light, the battle between
the Bon Homme Richard and the Serapis—in itself so
curious—may well enlist our interest.

Never was there a fight so snarled. The intricacy of

those incidents which defy the narrator's extrication, is
not illy figured in that bewildering intertanglement of all
the yards and anchors of the two ships, which confounded
them for the time in one chaos of devastation.

Elsewhere than here the reader must go who seeks an
elaborate version of the fight, or, indeed, much of any
regular account of it whatever. The writer is but brought
to mention the battle because he must needs follow, in
all events, the fortunes of the humble adventurer whose
life he records. Yet this necessarily involves some
general view of each conspicuous incident in which he
shares.

Several circumstances of the place and time served to
invest the fight with a certain scenic atmosphere casting
a light almost poetic over the wild gloom of its tragic
results. The battle was fought between the hours of
seven and ten at night; the height of it was under a
full harvest moon, in view of thousands of distant spectators
crowning the high cliffs of Yorkshire.

From the Tees to the Humber, the eastern coast of
Britain, for the most part, wears a savage, melancholy,
and Calabrian aspect. It is in course of incessant decay.
Every year the isle which repulses nearly all other foes,
succumbs to the Attila assaults of the deep. Here and
there the base of the cliffs is strewn with masses of rock,
undermined by the waves, and tumbled headlong below,
where, sometimes, the water completely surrounds them,
showing in shattered confusion detached rocks, pyramids,
and obelisks, rising half-revealed from the surf—the Tadmores
of the wasteful desert of the sea. Nowhere is this

desolation more marked than for those fifty miles of coast
between Flamborough Head and the Spurm.

Weathering out the gale which had driven them from
Leith, Paul's ships for a few days were employed in
giving chase to various merchantmen and colliers; capturing
some, sinking others, and putting the rest to flight.
Off the mouth of the Humber they ineffectually manœuvred
with a view of drawing out a king's frigate, reported
to be lying at anchor within. At another time a large
fleet was encountered, under convoy of some ships of
force. But their panic caused the fleet to hug the edge
of perilous shoals very night the land, where, by reason
of his having no competent pilot, Paul durst not approach
to molest them. The same night he saw two strangers
further out at sea, and chased them until three in the
morning, when, getting pretty nigh, he surmised that they
must needs be vessels of his own squadron, which, previous
to his entering the Firth of Forth, had separated
from his command. Daylight proved this supposition
correct. Five vessels of the original squadron were now
once more in company. About noon a fleet of forty
merchantmen appeared coming round Flamborough Head,
protected by two English men-of-war, the Serapis and
Countess of Scarborough. Descrying the five cruisers
sailing down, the forty sail, like forty chickens, fluttered
in a panic under the wing of the shore. Their armed
protectors bravely steered from the land, making the disposition
for battle. Promptly accepting the challenge,
Paul, giving the signal to his consorts, earnestly pressed
forward. But, earnest as he was, it was seven in the

evening ere the encounter began. Meantime his comrades,
heedless of his signals, sailed independently along.
Dismissing them from present consideration, we confine
ourselves, for a while, to the Richard and the Serapis,
the grand duellists of the fight.

The Richard carried a motley crew, to keep whom in
order one hundred and thirty-five soldiers—themselves a
hybrid band—had been put on board, commanded by
French officers of inferior rank. Her armament was
similarly heterogeneous; guns of all sorts and calibres;
but about equal on the whole to those of a thirty-two-gun
frigate. The spirit of baneful intermixture pervaded
this craft throughout.

The Serapis was a frigate of fifty guns, more than half
of which individually exceeded in calibre any one gun
of the Richard. She had a crew of some three hundred
and twenty trained man-of-war's men.

There is something in a naval engagement which radically
distinguishes it from one on the land. The ocean,
at times, has what is called its sea and its trough of the
sea; but it has neither rivers, woods, banks, towns, nor
mountains. In mild weather it is one hammered plain.
Stratagems, like those of disciplined armies—ambuscades,
like those of Indians, are impossible. All is clear, open,
fluent. The very element which sustains the combatants,
yields at the stroke of a feather. One wind and one tide
at one time operate upon all who here engage. This
simplicity renders a battle between two men-of-war, with
their huge white wings, more akin to the Miltonic contests

of archangels than to the comparatively squalid tussles
of earth.

As the ships neared, a hazy darkness overspread the
water. The moon was not yet risen. Objects were perceived
with difficulty. Borne by a soft moist breeze over
gentle waves, they came within pistol-shot. Owing to the
obscurity, and the known neighborhood of other vessels,
the Serapis was uncertain who the Richard was. Through
the dim mist each ship loomed forth to the other vast,
but indistinct, as the ghost of Morven. Sounds of the
trampling of resolute men echoed from either hull, whose
tight decks dully resounded like drum-heads in a funeral
march.

The Serapis hailed. She was answered by a broadside.
For half an hour the combatants deliberately manœuvred,
continually changing their position, but always within
shot fire. The Serapis—the better sailer of the two—
kept critically circling the Richard, making lounging
advances now and then, and as suddenly steering off; hate
causing her to act not unlike a wheeling cock about a
hen, when stirred by the contrary passion. Meantime,
though within easy speaking distance, no further syllable
was exchanged; but an incessant cannonade was kept up.

At this point, a third party, the Scarborough, drew near,
seemingly desirous of giving assistance to her consort.
But thick smoke was now added to the night's natural
obscurity. The Scarborough imperfectly discerned two
ships, and plainly saw the common fire they made; but
which was which, she could not tell. Eager to befriend
the Serapis, she durst not fire a gun, lest she might unwittingly

act the part of a foe. As when a hawk and a
crow are clawing and beaking high in the air, a second
crow flying near, will seek to join the battle, but finding
no fair chance to engage, at last flies away to the woods;
just so did the Scarborough now. Prudence dictated the
step; because several chance shot—from which of the
combatants could not be known—had already struck the
Scarborough. So, unwilling uselessly to expose herself,
off went for the present this baffled and ineffectual
friend.

Not long after, an invisible hand came and set down
a great yellow lamp in the east. The hand reached up
unseen from below the horizon, and set the lamp down
right on the rim of the horizon, as on a threshold; as
much as to say, Gentlemen warriors, permit me a little
to light up this rather gloomy looking subject. The lamp
was the round harvest moon; the one solitary foot-light
of the scene. But scarcely did the rays from the lamp
pierce that languid haze. Objects before perceived with
difficulty, now glimmered ambiguously. Bedded in strange
vapors, the great foot light cast a dubious, half demoniac
glare across the waters, like the phantasmagoric stream
sent athwart a London flagging in a night-rain from an
apothecary's blue and green window. Through this sardonical
mist, the face of the Man-in-the-Moon—looking
right towards the combatants, as if he were standing in
a trap-door of the sea, leaning forward leisurely with his
arms complacently folded over upon the edge of the horizon—this
queer face wore a serious, apishly self-satisfied
leer, as if the Man-in-the-Moon had somehow secretly

put up the ships to their contest, and in the depths of his
malignant old soul was not unpleased to see how well
his charms worked. There stood the grinning Man-in-the-Moon,
his head just dodging into view over the rim of the
sea:—Mephistopheles prompter of the stage.

Aided now a little by the planet, one of the consorts of
the Richard, the Pallas, hovering far outside the fight,
dimly discerned the suspicious form of a lonely vessel
unknown to her. She resolved to engage it, if it proved
a foe. But ere they joined, the unknown ship—which
proved to be the Scarborough—received a broadside at
long gun's distance from another consort of the Richard
the Alliance. The shot whizzed across the broad interval
like shuttlecocks across a great hall. Presently the battledores
of both batteries were at work, and rapid compliments
of shuttlecocks were very promptly exchanged.
The adverse consorts of the two main belligerents fought
with all the rage of those fiery seconds who in some
desperate duels make their principal's quarrel their own.
Diverted from the Richard and the Serapis by this little
by-play, the Man-in-the-Moon, all eager to see what it was,
somewhat raised himself from his trap-door with an added
grin on his face. By this time, off sneaked the Alliance,
and down swept the Pallas, at close quarters engaging
the Scarborough; an encounter destined in less than an
hour to end in the latter ship's striking her flag.

Compared to the Serapis and the Richard, the Pallas
and the Scarborough were as two pages to two knights.
In their immature way they showed the same traits as
their fully developed superiors.

The Man-in-the-Moon now raised himself still higher to
obtain a better view of affairs.

But the Man-in-the-Moon was not the only spectator.
From the high cliffs of the shore, and especially from
the great promontory of Flamborough Head, the scene
was witnessed by crowds of the islanders. Any rustic
might be pardoned his curiosity in view of the spectacle
presented. Far in the indistinct distance fleets of frightened
merchantment filled the lower air with their sails, as
flakes of snow in a snow-storm by night. Hovering undeterminedly,
in another direction, were several of the
scattered consorts of Paul, taking no part in the fray.
Nearer, was an isolated mist, investing the Pallas and
Scarborough—a mist slowly adrift on the sea, like a floating
isle, and at intervals irradiated with sparkles of fire
and resonant with the boom of cannon. Further away,
in the deeper water, was a lurid cloud, incessantly torn
in shreds of lightning, then fusing together again, once
more to be rent. As yet this lurid cloud was neither
stationary nor slowly adrift, like the first-mentioned
one; but, instinct with chaotic vitality, shifted hither
and thither, foaming with fire, like a valiant water-spout
careering off the coast of Malabar.

To get some idea of the events enacting in that cloud,
it will be necessary to enter it; to go and possess it, as a
ghost may rush into a body, or the devils into the swine,
which running down the steep place perished in the sea;
just as the Richard is yet to do.

Thus far the Serapis and the Richard had been manœuvring

and chasséing to each other like partners in a
cotillion, all the time indulging in rapid repartee.

But finding at last that the superior managableness of
the enemy's ship enabled him to get the better of the
clumsy old Indiaman, the Richard, in taking position,
Paul, with his wonted resolution, at once sought to neutralize
this, by hugging him close. But the attempt to
lay the Richard right across the head of the Serapis ended
quite otherwise, in sending the enemy's jib-boom just over
the Richard's great tower of Pisa, where Israel was stationed;
who, catching it eagerly, stood for an instant holding
to the slack of the sail, like one grasping a horse by
the mane prior to vaulting into the saddle.

“Aye, hold hard, lad,” cried Paul, springing to his
side with a coil of rigging. With a few rapid turns he
knitted himself to his foe. The wind now acting on the
sails of the Serapis forced her, heel and point, her entire
length, cheek by jowl, alongside the Richard. The projecting
cannon scraped; the yards interlocked; but the
hulls did not touch. A long lane of darkling water lay
wedged between, like that narrow canal in Venice which
dozes between two shadowy piles, and high in air is
secretly crossed by the Bridge of Sighs. But where
the six yard-arms reciprocally arched overhead, three
bridges of sighs were both seen and heard, as the moon
and wind kept rising.

Into that Lethean canal—pond-like in its smoothness as
compared with the sea without—fell many a poor soul
that night; fell, forever forgotten.

As some heaving rent coinciding with a disputed frontier

on a volcanic plain, that boundary abyss was the
jaws of death to both sides. So contracted was it, that
in many cases the gun-rammers had to be thrust into the
opposite ports, in order to enter to muzzles of their own
cannon. It seemed more an intestine feud, than a fight
between strangers. Or, rather, it was as if the Siamese
Twins, oblivious of their fraternal bond, should rage in
unnatural fight.