Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 30.djvu/145

 Lough, having learnt that the Drake sloop-of-war was at anchor inside, Jones boldly ran in in the dark and let go his anchor on top of the Drake's, intending to swing down across her bow, and board. It was a cold, dark night, blowing fresh, and the Ranger, having too much way on, did not bring up till she had passed astern of the Drake. Jones immediately cut the cable, and stretched out to seaward, intending to make a second attempt, but a strong gale rendered that impossible. In the very early morning of the 23rd he entered Whitehaven harbour with two boats. Jones himself landed with a few men, clambered over the rampart of a half-ruined battery supposed to defend the harbour, spiked the old guns with which it was armed, and captured the pensioners who garrisoned it, still asleep in their beds. There were some three hundred ships in the harbour, all aground at low water, and he had ordered his lieutenant to set them on fire, but this had not been done. It was now daylight; the alarm had been given, and the townsmen were gathering in numbers that might be dangerous, so that Jones, after another hurried and futile effort to set the ships in a blaze, was obliged to retreat. An hour or two later the Ranger anchored in Kirkcudbright Bay, and Jones, with a party of men, landed on St. Mary's Isle, intending to kidnap the Earl of Selkirk and hold him as a hostage. The earl was absent; Jones's men insisted on their right to plunder, and his lieutenants backed up the men. Unable to restrain them, he allowed them to go up to the house, where the officers seized some silver-plate to the value of about 100l., though report absurdly magnified it. Jones afterwards bought the articles and returned them to Lady Selkirk.

The next morning (24 April) the Ranger was again off Carrickfergus. The Drake, hearing of the Ranger's presence on the coast, came outside the lough in the evening. Jones at once brought her to action, and captured her after a contest of little over the hour. The Americans have naturally boasted of their success, for the two ships were nominally of equal force. But, in reality, the Drake was no match for the Ranger; and at this time her crew was mainly composed of newly raised men without any officers except her captain and the registering lieutenant of the district, who came on board at the last moment as a volunteer (cf. Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. xii. 107). She had no gunner, no cartridges filled, and no preparation for handing the powder (Minutes of the Court Martial). The captain and the lieutenant were both killed. The Ranger had, however, received so much damage that Jones made the best of his way to Brest, where he arrived on 8 May. There his difficulties were serious. He had no money, the American commissioners in Paris had none either; and the French government would not advance any. To obtain provisions he had to sell some small prizes. The men mutinied, and were joined by the first lieutenant, to whom the command had been promised; for a much larger vessel (the Indienne), intended for Jones, was in course of building in Holland. Though the pressure put by the English on the Dutch had prevented the Indienne's being delivered or even got ready, it was found necessary to supersede Jones from the command of the Ranger, and to send her back to America.

It was proposed to provide for Jones by giving him a French ship to cruise under the American flag; but when, in July, open war broke out between France and England, and French ships sailed under the French flag, there was no longer any room for an adventurer like Jones, especially when he had no money. In the following spring he obtained authority to fit out, under the American flag, an old East Indiaman, the Duc de Duras, then lying at L'Orient, and said to be capable of mounting forty guns. But when ready for sea, with her name changed to Le Bonhomme Richard, ship and guns and crew were all of the most makeshift character. The ship, a converted merchantman, was a dull sailer, old, and rotten; her guns were of various calibres, and were worn out; her men were loafers and outcasts from every nation, with a backbone of about 150 French peasants, tempted from their fields by promises of bounty and booty. The Bonhomme Richard sailed from L'Orient on 14 Aug. 1779. With her were associated for the cruise four other vessels, one of which, the Alliance of 36 guns, was an American-built frigate and manned by Americans, but commanded by a Frenchman, Pierre Landais; the other three, Pallas, Cerf, and Vengeance, were French. They were all under the American flag, but sailed under French instructions.

Off Cape Clear twenty men and one of the lieutenants of the Richard took the opportunity of a calm and fog to desert with two of the ship's boats. The Cerf also parted company, and did not rejoin. The others, having made some prizes, passed up the west coast of Ireland, met off Cape Wrath, where the Alliance again lost sight of them, and so down the east coast of Scotland. On 14 Sept. they were off the Forth; the wind was fair up the firth, and Jones conceived that he might lay Leith and Edinburgh under a heavy