Give Me a Fast Ship

by Tim McGrath

  For Jones, such news was the perfect end to the day. As far as he was concerned, there was no reason to proceed to the mansion, and he began the long walk back to the cutter. The mission was pointless. But his officers stopped him cold: the mansion was right through the clearing ahead, unprotected, with most of the men on the estate fleeing to hide from Jones’s “press gang.” Riches awaited them inside: jewelry, gold, and silver, along with fine food, drink, and women.

  Jones could understand this coming from Cullam, a mutineer. But he was shocked that Wallingford was equally game. Ironically, they used Jones’s own rationale for burning Whitehaven against him. Unlike Simpson and Hall, they did have friends in Falmouth, and knew other civilians who had suffered under British hands. Jones was right, they said. It was time for retribution, and what better place than a lord’s estate? The men echoed their sentiments.24

  Jones had been—and would be—in hard places, but never in a circumstance like this. What his men proposed to do—and more—was way off Jones’s moral compass. But oppose them, and he could be killed right on this footpath. Wash his hands of them, and his reputation, more valuable to him than his life, would never recover. He had seconds to defuse this situation.

  He did it. The men would accompany Wallingford and Cullam to the front door, but not go in. The officers were to request—not simply seize—the Selkirk silver. They were to be on their best behavior—they were representing the United States Navy—and take only what was given them and return without one match being lit, one servant being struck, and one woman touched. The men agreed. Embarrassed that his grand, if odd, plan for freeing imprisoned sailors had become a thief’s errand, Jones remained where he stood. In insisting that his men do their duty, Jones was in dereliction of his. He waited on the path.25

  The vacuum of moral authority that Jones had created was filled once his officers knocked at the Selkirk front door. The butler let the officers in and went for Lady Selkirk, who was breakfasting with guests. There was a press gang at the door, he explained, adding that the gardeners had all fled. Peering through a window, she saw a band of “horrid wretches” outside, sent the females in the house to the third floor, and went to confront the brigands at her door.

  In the grand foyer she encountered a “younger officer in [a] Green uniform” with a “vile blackguard” in a blue coat. Wallingford and Cullam found themselves facing a very pregnant lady who swept into the room like a galleon, the perfect combination of manners and courage.

  Told by Wallingford that “we are masters of this house and everything in it,” Lady Selkirk showed neither rage nor fear. “I am sensible of that,” she answered. Exuding more discomfort than his hostess, Wallingford demanded the silver. Lady Selkirk sent the butler to retrieve it, along with some bags to carry it in. She showed the men into the parlor and gave them each a glass of wine.

  The butler did not bring down enough of it for Cullam. “Where is the teapot and the coffee pot?” he asked derisively. These were also brought to the parlor, still warm from breakfast. Lady Selkirk asked for a receipt; the uncomfortable Wallingford began writing one, but Cullam stopped him: it was time to leave.

  Somehow during this escapade Jones’s name came up. This John Paul Jones was really “One John Paul born at Arbigland, who once commanded a Kircudbright vessel,” Lady Selkirk wrote her husband, and “as great a villain ever born,” recounting his run-ins with the law as a Scottish mariner. As for the officers, she remarked that they “behaved with great civility.”26

  Jones could hear his men coming down the path before he saw them. The whole affair had taken but twenty minutes, but each one was a lifetime for the captain, pacing constantly and half expecting that the mansion and his reputation would soon be up in smoke. The men clambered into the cutter. As his men rowed Jones and their loot back to the Ranger, word spread from the runaway gardeners among the villagers. Soon it was mixed with news from Whitehaven, and the entire population along the Firth of Solway was alarmed. A few determined souls manned a decrepit cannon and fired it at the cutter, but fear was the prevalent emotion. Shops closed. People hid in their homes.

  Jones had burned neither town nor ship (the collier was saved after he departed), and had failed miserably in his brief career as a kidnapper. But he had done what he set out to do: strike terror in British hearts. It was as if the Vikings had returned.27

  And the day was not over. Once aboard the Ranger, he informed the crew that they were heading back to Carrickfergus—and the Drake. His men, in Surgeon Green’s words, showed “great unwillingness to make the attempt.” Enough was enough. Jones had been victimized by his crew twice this day, as they stepped on the line dividing sullen insubordination and mutinous betrayal. There would not be a third. Even Simpson’s mutinous remarks would not deter Jones from returning to France with a British prize, flying the American flag atop British colors, the time-honored sign of a capture.28

  By sunrise on April 24 the Ranger was sailing through Belfast Lough, heading straight for the Carrickfergus harbor and the Drake. Although it seemed impossible to Green, “the Tide & what little wind there was, had imperceptibly carry’d us in so far that there was very little chance for an Escape”—even nature was finally bowing to Jones’s “determination to go in.” To make the situation even better, the Drake was making sail, preparing to come out and confront the strange ship heading into the harbor. Looking through his spyglass, Captain Burden, an older officer whose life was spent in the Royal Navy, thought he was looking at a merchantman flying British colors, her master in a British uniform. He sent the launch to board her and investigate as his men continued readying the Drake.

  It was noon when the launch came alongside the Ranger. As the midshipman in charge came aboard, he was greeted by the Ranger’s captain, who informed him that he and his men were now prisoners. To Jones’s surprise, this easy capture had “an exhilarating effect” on his crew. Seeing the Drake now standing for them, followed by some pleasure boats manned by curious townsfolk, the Rangers caught Jones’s spirit. They were spoiling for a fight.

  Burden fired a gun to signal his men to return; Jones ran out his guns. Seeing that the coming action was not going to be a lark, the boats with curiosity seekers returned to port. Just then, the shoreline was lit up with bonfires, the centuries-old method of warning sea towns of an enemy ship since the Spanish Armada. The tide was coming in, slowing the Drake’s progress; all the while, Jones sailed the Ranger back and forth, laying his main topsail to the mast, waiting anxiously in mid-channel for the Drake.29

  On the surface, the two ships seemed evenly matched, the Ranger’s eighteen 6-pounders against the Drake’s twenty 4-pounders. Burden had a significant edge in both manpower and experience; with 150 men he had forty more than Jones, and they were battle-tested. The Americans were not—particularly Jones’s lieutenants. As the Drake neared, Jones sent Wallingford and his marines aloft and the Stars and Stripes raised: no need for pretense now.

  It was near sundown when Jones cried, “Wear Ship!” As the Drake closed within pistol shot, Jones noticed her figurehead, nearly identical to that of his old command, the Alfred. The image never left him.30

  Taking his speaking trumpet, Burden hailed the Americans: “What ship is this?” Cullam answered, “The American Continental ship Ranger” just as Jones “ordered the helm up,” crossed the Drake’s bow, and let fly. He had the guns loaded with grapeshot for this broadside, which whistled through the air, ripping through the Drake’s rigging and striking down British tars.

  “The Action was warm, close and obstinate,” Jones later reported. The Ranger had “crossed the T,” and now came the Drake’s turn as she came across the rebel’s stern. But Jones suddenly ordered the helmsman, Thomas Taylor, to send the Ranger through the light wind, bringing the ships broadside to broadside. Nevertheless, the British gunners were unerringly accurate, as were their marines in the fighting tops. Taylor felt a burning sensation on h
is hand, followed by excruciating pain: a musket ball had sheared off his little finger.

  Jones’s courage was as natural to him as breathing. Pure warrior, he devoted his full attention to directing the battle and paid no heed to personal danger. He kept his gun crews firing at the Drake’s deck and rigging. After half an hour, Burden’s ship was incapable of effectively sailing. His fore and main topsail yards were “cut away down to the cap”—the thick block of wood that held the long pieces of the mast together. The Drake’s flag had been shot away. Burden had another hoisted, only to see that one shot off as well.

  Burden’s gunners were hammering at the Ranger’s hull in an effort to sink her while British marines took deadly aim at the rebels. Aboard the Ranger, Midshipman Pierce Powers lost his right hand and nearly his left. Seaman John Dangle was cut in two by a double-headed cannon shot. From the Drake’s fighting tops a British marine took aim at a green-coated rebel counterpart across the water and fired. The ball struck Lieutenant Wallingford in the head. He fell lifeless to the deck below.

  By seven p.m. it was dark. Damaged as the Ranger’s hull was, she could still maneuver. Jones ordered another broadside fired. This one struck down both Captain Burden and his second-in-command, Lieutenant Dobbs, leaving the Drake’s sailing master in command. By now the ship’s jib was hanging in the water, and her hull was perforated. Jones’s gunners learned their trade this day.

  Seeing the futility of maintaining the fight when the Drake could no longer sail, her sailing master called for quarter. Jones sent some marines—in the Drake’s own launch—to inspect the prize and bring back the commanding officer. The Americans found the deck running with a grisly combination of blood and rum; one of Burden’s officers had brought a keg on deck, in anticipation of celebrating victory over the rebels. A cannonball had smashed it to pieces.

  The following day, Jones transferred his prisoners to the Ranger—133 in all, along with the cook’s wife (possible proof that the Boston’s sailors’ suspicions about women aboard were correct). Jones ordered the masts and rigging repaired as quickly and thoroughly as possible—the Irish Sea was no place for dawdling. The Ranger had lost three men, with five wounded; the Drake had four killed—including Captain Burden and Lieutenant Dobbs—and nineteen wounded. Jones ordered all buried with full honors. That afternoon, he freed the Irish fishermen captured days before, giving them a boat and “the last Guineas in my Possession to defray their traveling Expences” to Dublin. They in turn gave Jones “three Huzzahs” as they rowed away. He might be a brigand to Lady Selkirk, but he was Robin Hood to these Irishmen.31

  One last time Jones tried to mollify Simpson, giving him command of the Drake. “Contrary winds” forced Jones around northern Ireland, sailing south off the island’s west coast with the Drake in tow. On May 5, a sail was sighted. Jones, looking for another prize, ordered Simpson to cast off and sail “a Cable’s length” from the Ranger. Instead of releasing the hawser, Simpson had it severed; as the Ranger pursued the sail, the Drake disappeared over the horizon. It took a day to catch her.

  Over the next two days Jones spotted several potential prizes but passed up pursuit lest he lose Simpson—who would have sailed the wounded Drake back to America if he could only give Jones the slip. Both ships reached Brest on May 7, with the Drake sailing under American colors over an inverted British flag, just as Jones had envisioned. Once ashore he immediately placed Simpson under arrest for disobeying written orders.32

  Jones expected a hero’s welcome, but the crowd waiting for him in the old French port was sparse. This disappointing reception was soon overshadowed by the lack of acknowledgment of his arrival by the American commissioners in Paris. Jones was no sooner on dry land than he sent them report after report of his cruise, his two hundred prisoners, the open war with Simpson, and his undying desire for l’Indien. He also informed them that he had drawn 24,000 livres on the commissioners’ account to feed, clothe, and pay his men. For days he heard nothing from Paris.33

  Then a tidal wave of correspondence arrived: a letter from Arthur Lee, demanding more detailed reports from Jones about his cruise and expenses, and denying a court-martial for Simpson, due to the dearth of American officers to make up a board of inquiry. Lee’s solution was simple: send Simpson home.34

  Jones also began one of the oddest correspondences of the war. It commenced with a letter to Lady Selkirk, written from the Ranger’s cabin on May 8. In it he explained that his attempted kidnapping of her husband was motivated by Jones’s desire to end “the horrors of hopeless captivity” suffered by the Americans in English prisons. Nor did he consider himself a Scotsman or American but “a Citizen of the World” who had given up a life of “calm Contemplation and poetic ease” to fight for universal freedom. He ended this long-winded attempt at assuring “the feelings of your gentle Bosom” by guaranteeing that, when the Selkirk silver was put up for sale, he would buy and return it.35

  Lady Selkirk did not answer the letter. Her husband did: a long, polite rebuke of Jones’s stem-winder to his wife. Sorry as Selkirk was about the rebellion, Jones’s kidnapping of the earl would not have led to the freedom of American sailors. Further, “had any of my Family suffered outrage murder or violence, no Quarter of the Globe should have secured you.” After expressing the Selkirks’ sorrow at hearing of Wallingford’s death, his lordship insisted that the proceeds of his silver’s sale be given to the rebels left outside Selkirk’s door “as an incouragement for their good behaviour.” Selkirk gave the letter to the British postmaster, who refused to deliver it to “Such a rascal” as Jones.36

  If Jones was disappointed in his voyage he hid it well. In fact, anger was his ruling emotion, especially when justifying his arrest of the recalcitrant Simpson. But news soon reached Brest of the British reaction to Jones’s escapades. Not content to have sloops-of-war hunt down this most recent rebel celebrity, the Admiralty dispatched the frigate Thetis to capture him.

  Even as Jones’s cruise shows the frustrations of an American captain regarding malevolent junior officers and sailors—as well as the unexpected bad luck that dogs even the best-laid plans—the British press showed the rewards of Jones’s persistence. While some London newspapers, citing the brazen Whitehaven raid, called for the Earl of Sandwich’s head, others reported that the loss of the Drake at least came at the hands of rebels who were once “our own countrymen.” The diminutive Jones of real life was transformed by the British illustrators into a hulking giant, a bewhiskered buccaneer rivaling Blackbeard by their ferocious depiction.37

  When Jones planned this return home he anticipated being seen as the commoner with a noble heart; instead he was portrayed as an eighteenth-century terrorist. Jones never returned to Scotland. It took him seven years to keep his promise to return the Selkirk silver. When the silver was delivered to the earl at last, the tea leaves from that eventful morning’s breakfast were still in the teapot.38

  On April 13, Admiral d’Estaing sailed for America with a fleet that included eleven ships-of-the-line and more than four thousand men. On the surface, that did not seem a strong enough force to cause great alarm for the British. After all, Admiral Howe (still awaiting his successor, Admiral James Gambier) had ninety-two ships off the American coast. But half of them were protecting British forces in Rhode Island, New York, and Philadelphia, while the others were split between convoys, carrying dispatches, and blockading rebel ports. Howe’s ships, from the smallest tender to his flagship, were all in various states of disrepair. He knew d’Estaing was coming, but did not know where d’Estaing was heading.39

  On May 23, General Howe sailed for England aboard HMS Andromeda. So many Philadelphia Loyalists boarded the transports that had brought the Redcoats to Pennsylvania that Clinton had to march his army through New Jersey for New York. Admiral Howe was left with eight ships-of-the-line and four two-deckers. He had them assembled off Sandy Hook by June 29, the day after Washington’s Continentals held their own
against Clinton during the Battle of Monmouth.40

  While Congress viewed frigates as flagships for its still toddling navy, they were used by European navies as scouts—the eyes and ears of a fleet. In that capacity, Andrew Snape Hamond sailed the Roebuck out of Delaware Bay and up the rebel coast, where he learned that another frigate, HMS Mermaid, had spotted d’Estaing off Virginia, heading north. With his usual professional dispatch, Hamond made for Sandy Hook, where Howe’s ships were transporting Clinton’s army to Manhattan.

  From London, Lord North ordered a hastily refitted fleet to sail for America under Admiral John Byron (uncle of the famed poet). Byron, known as “Foul Weather Jack,” lived up (or is it down?) to his nickname. Storms hammered his fleet the second it reached the Atlantic; before long the ships were strewn across the ocean, victims of a shortage of quality masts and spars—supplies the Admiralty once had in abundance from the American colonies. Howe would have to confront d’Estaing alone.

  Just the news of d’Estaing’s imminent arrival, and his possibly linking up with Washington’s forces, sent shudders through Parliament. While the Earl of Sandwich boasted that “our navy is more than a match for the whole House of Bourbon,” the Earl of Chatham declared the situation “truly perilous.” On July 11, the French fleet was sighted off Sandy Hook.41

  Howe found himself in a position the Continental Navy knew all too well: being severely shorthanded, he called for volunteers from the army and Loyalists. Outnumbered and outgunned, Howe took stock of his assets, the principal one being geography: the sandbar at Sandy Hook, a roadblock of nature. He set one ship-of-the-line and two frigates ahead of the bar to give the French some trouble, with his other large ships placed broadside to broadside along with shore batteries inside the bar.

  General Washington had reached White Plains above New York City, and sent his French-speaking aide John Laurens to join d’Estaing aboard the admiral’s flagship, Languedoc, and let him know how happy Washington would be to assist in taking the city lost to Howe two years earlier. But the admiral could see the brilliance of Howe’s defense—d’Estaing could only enter the harbor one ship at a time. After staring down each other for eleven days, d’Estaing departed.42