Battle in the North Sea
HMS Serapis vs. Bonhomme Richard
The sun had passed over the yardarm of the Continental ship Bonhomme Richard when lookouts perched high in the crosstrees sighted a convoy of forty British merchant vessels approaching from the east, on a return voyage to England from the Baltic States. Escorting the merchant fleet were two Royal Navy ships: HMS Serapis, a heavy frigate, and a smaller sloop-of-war, Countess of Scarborough.
John Paul Jones in Command
The commander of Bonhomme Richard was John Paul Jones, a Scotsman by birth and the most accomplished sea officer in the Continental Navy. He and his small squadron of French and American warships had cruised around the northern reaches of Great Britain from the Irish Sea to the North Sea. His mission: to instill fear in the British populace and to draw Royal Navy ships away from the English Channel in pursuit of him. At the time, France was planning to invade England, and all that stood in her way was the "wooden wall" of the British Navy.
Jones knew he was out-gunned as he sailed eastward from Flamborough Head. Serapis was rated for forty guns, but in fact carried fifty guns: twenty 18-pounders on her lower gundeck, twenty 12-pounders on her upper deck, and ten 6-pounders on her quarterdeck. In contrast, Bonhomme Richard carried six ancient 18-pounders and thirty guns of lesser authority. To make matters worse, all but one ship in the American squadron sailed away before the battle started, leaving Jones to fight Serapis alone and a smaller vessel, Pallas, to challenge Countess of Scarborough.
"I Have Not Yet Begun to Fight"
The battle lasted for three-and-a-half hours under the yellow glow of a harvest moon. After trading broadsides to no avail and with most of his guns upended, Jones maneuvered his ship close enough to the British frigate to grapple her. For an hour the two ships lay locked together side by side, as British guns pounded the American ship in close quarters and French marines fired back with muskets and swivel guns from up in the fighting tops. Twice, the British captain demanded that Jones surrender. Twice, Jones refused. Finally, as Bonhomme Richard was being reduced to floating rubble and was in danger of her decks caving in on top of each other, an American midshipman walked out on a yard from a fighting top and onto the same yard of the British ship. From that height he managed to drop a grenade onto a stack of flannel powder bags placed near an open hatchway. The discharge ignited a number of other powder bags leading down to the lower gundeck, causing a rapid sequence of explosions that rocked Serapis to her core. The British captain, seeing the futility of further resistance, surrendered his sword to Jones
Victory at Flamborough Head
The battle, in essence, was a draw. Shortly after the Americans and their French allies transferred the Stars and Stripes to Serapis, the severely damaged Bonhomme Richard slipped beneath the waters of the North Sea. Both sides had fought bravely. Indeed, the British captain was knighted for having saved the forty merchant vessels that, during the battle, had fled northward to safety under the guns of Scarborough Castle. But the battle will forever be remembered for the gallantry and bravery of John Paul Jones, and as a victory that inspired hope in thousands of patriots in the former colonies. America had taken on the vaunted Royal Navy, and America had prevailed.
Sources:
John Paul Jones: A Sailor's Biography by Samuel Eliot Morrison, Naval Institute Press, 1999
Ships and Seamen of the American Revolution by Jack Coggins, Promontory Press, 1969
A Fighting Ship
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