of course most
deadly, and told fearfully upon the rotten hull of the Richard. To add
to Jones's embarrassment, he was repeatedly fired upon by Landais,
from the Alliance, which always kept her position with the Richard
between her and the enemy. This extraordinary circumstance is only to
be accounted for by an entire lack of presence of mind in the
confusion, or by absolute treachery. The Serapis poured in her fire
below from a full battery, while the Richard was confined to three
guns on deck. She had efficient aid, however, in clearing the deck of
the Serapis, from the musketry and hand-grenades of her men in the
tops. One of these missiles reached the lower gun-deck of the Serapis,
and there setting fire to a quantity of exposed cartridges, produced a
destruction of life, an offset to the fearful loss of the Richard by
the bursting of her guns in the opening of the engagement. The injury
to the Richard, from the wounds inflicted upon her hull, was at this
time so great that she was pronounced to be sinking, and there was a
cry among the men of surrender; not, however, from Jones, who was as
much himself at this extremity as ever. Seeing the English prisoners,
who had been released below, more than a hundred in number, rushing
upon deck, where in a moment they might have leaped into the Serapis,
and put themselves under then country's flag, he coolly set them to
working the pumps, to save the sinking ship. Human courage and
resolution have seldom been more severely tried than in the exigencies
of this terrible night on board the Richard. Jones continued to ply
his feeble cannonade from the deck, levelled at the mainmast of the
adversary. Both vessels were on fire, when, at half-past ten, the
Serapis struck.

The loss in this extraordinary engagement, which outstrips and
exaggerates the usual vicissitudes of naval service, was of course
fearful. The entire loss of the Richard is estimated by Cooper at one
hundred and fifty, nearly one-half of all the men she had engaged.
Captain Pearson reported at least one hundred and seventeen
casualties. The Bon Homme Richard was so riddled by the enemy's fire,
and disembowelled by the gun-room explosion, that she could not be
saved from sinking. When the wind freshened, the day after the
victory, she became no longer tenable; her living freight was taken
from her, and Jones, in the forenoon of the 25th, "with inexpressible
grief," saw her final plunge into the depths of the oce