devouring sea monster. While the people
crowded the shore, watching the dreaded
vessel, an eccentric old Presbyterian minister
came pushing through the crowd, carrying
an old arm-chair, which he jammed
down close to low-water mark, the tide
coming in, and commenced a prayer for a
change of wind.

"Dinna send, Lord," he said, "this
vile pirate to strip the puir folk o' Kirkcaldy,
for ye ken they are a' puir enough an' hae
naething to spare. The puir women are
maist frightened out o' their wits, and the
bairns are shrieking after them. He'll be
here in a jiffy, and wha kens what he'll do?
He'll burn their houses, tak awa their duds,
even to their very sarks, and wha kens
but the bluidy villain might tak their lives?
I canna tholl; I canna tholl. I hae been
lang a faithfu' servant to ye, O Lord, but
gin ye wunna turn the wind aboot, and
blaw this scoondrel out o' our gate, I'll nae
star a fut, but will joost sit here until the
tide comes in and droons me. Sae tak
yer wull of it." Luckily for the worthy
minister the wind changed, and Paul Jones
disappeared from the Fifeshire coast.

It was during this swoop along the
English, Scotch, and Irish coasts that
Paul Jones was attacked, off Carrickfergus,
by an English ship of war, the Drake, of
twenty guns. The action lasted one hour
and four minutes, when the English called
for quarter, having lost their captain,
lieutenant, and forty-two men. Their sails and
rigging were entirely cut to pieces. Jones
lost only three men, while five were wounded.

At this very time Paul Jones's bills were
being dishonoured in France, while his
officers and men wanted clothes, and he
scarcely knew where to look for the
morrow's dinner for himself and crews.
Nevertheless, at this very juncture, Jones's
restless and ambitious mind projected many
daring expeditions to alarm our coasts and
injure our trade. He offered, with three
frigates, to burn Whitehaven, and so stop
the winter's supply of coal to Ireland.
He wished to attack and destroy all the
shipping of the Clyde, and also to burn
Greenock and Port-Glasgow. He planned
the destruction of the Campbeltown fishery,
and of the coal shipping of Newcastle, and
offered to intercept the English, West India
or Baltic fleets, or to assail our Hudson
Bay ships and Greenland fishery. Paul
was always complaining to the French and
American governments of the shameful
inactivity in which he was kept for want of
money and ships.

After months of painful suspense, chiefly
occasioned by the jealousy of the French
officers, the French Minister of Marine
at last gave this intrepid man a ship,
of forty-two guns, then lying at L'Orient,
and this slow, half worn-out vessel Paul
re-christened Le Bon Homme Richard,
in compliment to Franklin's Poor Richard.
There also sailed with him the Alliance,
thirty-six guns, Pallas, thirty guns, Cerf,
eighteen guns, and Vengeance, twelve
guns. Jones, eager to fly his hawks at
our Jamaica fleet, was also anxious to
land at Leith, and levy a contribution
of one hundred thousand pounds. This
last daring scheme being prevented by a
contrary wind, Paul Jones, after sweeping
many prizes into his nets, fell in with our
Baltic convoy (forty-one sail) off the
Yorkshire coast. He instantly closed with our
frigate, the Serapis (forty-four guns), by
moonlight off Flamborough Head, which
was crowded with spectators. At the same
time the Pallas grappled with the Countess
of Scarborough (twenty guns), the
companion of the Serapis. This was the great
moment of Paul Jones's life. The crew of the
Serapis were picked men, and the ship just
off the stocks. The crew of the Bon Homme
was a motley one, consisting of Americans,
English, French, Maltese, Portuguese, and
Malays. The Serapis and the Bon Homme
were so close together that the muzzles of
the guns almost touched each other. The
first hour it went badly for Paul Jones,
according to his own account, and he writes,
with evident honesty, the Bon Homme
received several eighteen-pound shots below
the water line, and her chief dependence,
a battery of twelve-pounders, was silenced
and abandoned. Six old ten-pounders on
the lower gun-deck proved useless, and half
of them burst, killing almost all the men
stationed by them. Colonel de Chamillard,
and twenty soldiers in the poop, deserted
their station. The purser, who commanded
the guns on the quarter-deck, being dangerously
wounded, Paul Jones had to take his
place. The tops alone seconded the fire of
his three small nine-pounders, and his
efforts, with double-headed shot, to disable
the masts of the Serapis. Three of Paul's
under officers, the gunner, carpenter, and
master-at-arms, began to talk of surrender,
and even called to the English sailors
for quarter. Two of these men were
wounded, and dispirited the third, the
carpenter, who was terrified because he
knew the pumps of the Bon Homme
were shot away, and believed the ship to