the turn of the tide, confident of success, when accident, which so often gives the turn to human events, frustrated the design which had thus far so prosperously proceeded. The wind suddenly shifted, and blew strongly down the river, and about the same time an English brig which had been captured at the mouth of the river, was either by accident or design run on shore, and her former crew took the opportunity of making their escape, notwithstanding every exertion to prevent them. As it was obvious that these fugitives would give the alarm to the town, and that in consequence, the garrison of the castle, which commands the harbour of Leith, would be notified, so as to prevent their departure pretty effectually, it was instantly resolved to take advantage of the wind, which fortunately favoured, to return to sea. This they did without being fired upon by the castle, or in any way molested in their progress.

From thence they cruised off Scarborough, where, after remaining some days without any incident worth relating, on the 22d of September, 1779, they fell in with a convoy of thirty-seven sail, under the protection of two ships of war. Jones immediately gave signal for the squadron to chase, and on coming up and discovering that the two convoying vessels were, one a frigate, the other a sloop of war, directed the Alliance to engage the former in conjunction with the Good Man Richard, the Palais to take care of the sloop. When pretty near, the enemy hoisted St. George's ensign, which was immediately followed by running up the thirteen stripes. Almost immediately after, the largest of the enemy's ships made a signal, upon which the smaller one, set all sail, and made the best of her way to the leeward, followed by the Palais and the Alliance, the latter thus disobeying Jones's express orders. The Vengeance being far astern, did not come up during the whole ensuing action, and the Good Man Richard now remained alone to try the event of the contest. Just before its commencement, the St. George's ensign was hauled down on

board the enemy, who hoisted a red flag, which was nailed to the flag-staff by the captain himself.

The Good Man Richard was at this time upwards of sixty years old. She was originally a French king's ship, condemned at Brest, and purchased by the French East India company. After making two voyages in their service, she was again condemned, and laid up as a hulk in the basin of L'Orient, from whence she was permitted to be fitted out by the Americans. She carried forty guns; six eighteens, fourteen twelves, fourteen nines, and six sixes. Her crew amounted to three hundred and eighty, men and boys.

The Serapis was commanded by captain Parsons, who was, it is said, descended like Jones from poor parents, and born in the county of Cornwall. Accident brought him into the service, and merit raised him to his present station. His ship, according to the English custom, was rated a forty-four, but mounted fifty guns, as follows: twenty eighteen-pounders on the lower deck, and thirty sixes on the upper deck, quarter deck, and forecastle. Her crew consisted of three hundred and twenty men. We shall give the details of the action in the words of an eye-witness.

"At a quarter past 8, just as the moon was rising with a majestic appearance, the weather being clear, the surface of the great deep perfectly smooth, even as in a mill-pond, the enemy hailed us what ship is that?' The answer from our ship was, come a little nearer and I'll tell you.' The next question put by the enemy in a contemptuous manner was, 'what are you laden with?' The answer was, if iny memory does not deceive me, 'round, grape, and double-headed shot.' Instantly the Serapis poured her range of upper and quarter deck guns into us; as she did not show her lower deck guns until about ten minutes after the action commenced. The reason of this I could not learn, but suppose, they intended to have taken us without the aid of their lower deck guns. We returned the enemy's fire, and thus the action began. At the first fire, three of our starboard lower deck guns burst, and killed and wounded most of the men stationed at

them. As soon as captain Jones heard of this circumstance, he gave orders not to fire the three other eighteen pounders mounted upon that deck, but that the men stationed at them should abandon them. Soon after we perceived the enemy, by the light of their lanterns, busy in running out their guns between decks, which convinced us the Serapis was a two-decker, and more than our match. She had by this time got under our stern, which we could not prevent. She now raked us with whole broadsides, and showers of musketry, several of her eighteen pound shot having gone through and through our ship, on board of which she made a dreadful havoc among our crew. The wind was now very light, and our ship not under proper command, and the Serapis outsailing us two feet to one, which advantage the enemy discovered, and improved it by keeping under our stern and raking us fore and aft, till at last the poor French colonel, who was stationed on the poop, finding almost all his men slain, quitted that station with his surviving men, and retired upon the quarter deck. All this time our tops kept up an incessant and well directed fire into the enemy's tops, which did great execution. The Serapis continued to take a position under our stern or athwart the bow, and galled us in such a manner, that our men fell in all parts of the ship by scores. At this juncture, it became necessary on the part of our commander, to give some orders to extricate us from this scene of bloody carnage; for had it lasted half an hour longer, in all human probability, the enemy would have slain nearly all our officers and men, and we been obliged to strike our colours and yield to a superior force. Accordingly, captain Jones ordered the sailing master, a true blooded Yankee, whose name was Stacy, to lay the enemy's ship on board; and as the Serapis soon after passed across our fore foot, our helm was put hard a weather, the main and mizen topsails braced aback, were filled away, and a fresh flaw of wind swelling them at that instant, our ship shot quick ahead, and ran her jibboom between the enemy's starboard mizen shrouds and mizen vang. Jones at the same time cried out, well done, my brave lads, we have got her now; throw on board the grappling irons, and stand by for boarding.' This was done, and the enemy soon cut away the chains which were fixed to the grappling irons; more were thrown on board, and often repeated.

We now hauled the enemy's ship snug along side ours, with the trailings to our grappling irons; her jib-stay was cut away aloft, and fell upon our ship's poop, where captain Jones was at that time assisting Mr. Stacy in making fast the end of the enemy's jib-stay to our mizen mast. He here checked the sailing master for swearing, by saying, Mr. Stacy, this is no time for swearingyou may be the next moment in eternity; but let us do our duty.' A strong current was now setting in towards Scarborough; the wind ceased to blow, and the sea again became smooth as glass. By this time, the enemy, finding they could not easily extricate themselves from us, let go one of their anchors, expecting that if they could cut us adrift, the current would set us away out of their reach, at least for some time. The action had now lasted about forty minutes, and the fire from our tops having been kept up without intermission, with musketry, blunderbusses, swivels, and pistols, directing into their tops, these last, at this time became silent, excepting one man in her fore top, who would once in a while peep out from behind the head of their fore mast, and fire upon us. As soon as I perceived this fellow, I ordered the marines in the main top to reserve their next fire, and the moment they got sight of him, to level their pieces and fire, which they did, and we soon saw this skulking tar, or marine, fall out of the top upon the enemy's forecastle. Our ensign staff was shot away, and both that and the thirteen stripes had fallen into the sea in the beginning of the action. This ought to have been mentioned before, but I had so many other circumstances to relate of more importance, and the succession was so quick, one close upon the heels of another, that I hope the reader will take this for an excuse. Both ships now lying head and stern, and so near each other, that our heaviest cannon amid ships, as well as those of the enemy, could be of no usc, as they could be neither spunged or loaded. In this situation, the enemy, to prevent, as they told us afterwards, our boarding them, leaped on board of our ship, and some of them had actually got upon the fore part of our quarter deck. Several were there killed, and the rest driven back on board their own ship, whither some of our men followed them, and were mostly killed. Several other attempts to board were made by both parties in quick succession, in consequence of which many were slain upon the two

ships' gangways, on both sides. We were now something more than a league E. by S. from a point of land called Flamborough Head, and in about ten or twelve fathom water; and the reader may rest assured, that as the Serapis' anchor was at the bottom, and her crew not having leisure to weigh it, we remained here till the battle was at an end. At this time the enemy's fleet was discernable by the moonlight in shore of us, but we could not perceive any of our squadron except the Vengeance, and the small tender which lay about half a league astern of us, neither of whom dared to come to our assistance. It had now got to be about 48 minutes since the action began, as near as I can judge, for we certainly had no time to keep glasses running, or to look at our watches. The enemy's tops being entirely silenced, the men in ours had nothing to do, but direct their whole fire down upon his decks, which we did, and with so much success, that in about 25 minutes more we had cleared her quarter and main decks, so that not a man on board the Serapis was to be seen. However, they still kept up a constant fire with four of their foremost bow guns on the starboard side, viz. two eighteen pounders upon her lower gun deck, and two nine pounders on her upper gun deck. These last were mounted on her forecastle, under cover from our fire from the tops. Her cannon on the larboard side upon the quarter deck and forecastle, from the position of both ships, were rendered altogether useless. Her four guns which she could manage, annoyed us, however, very much, and did considerable damage.

"About this tinie some of the enemy's light sails caught fire; this communicated itself to her rigging, and from thence to ours: thus were both ships on fire at the same time, and the firing ceased on both sides till it was extinguished by the contending parties, after which the action was renewed again. By the time this was done, the top-men in our tops had taken possession of the enemy's tops, which was done by reason of the Serapis' yards being locked together with ours, so that we could with ease go from our main top into the enemy's fore top; and so on, from our fore top into his main top. Having a knowledge of this, we transported from our own into the enemy's tops, flasks, hand-granades, &c., which we threw among them whenever they made their appearance. The battle had now continued about three hours, and as