Battle of Flamborough Head - Jones Vs. Pearson and Landais

Jones Vs. Pearson and Landais

The absence of any other combatants had bought Serapis a considerable amount of time. Bonhomme Richard’s gun decks were now so badly damaged that most of the British shots were passing straight through without touching anything, and the great guns were almost completely silenced. There were almost as many fires to be extinguished as there were aboard Serapis, but on the other hand, the hold was filling with water because one of the pumps was in ruins. Commodore Jones was exhausted, and apparently slumped on the chicken-coop for a brief rest. Somehow (according to his later memoirs) a rumour went around that he was dead or dying, and his gunner and carpenter, both wounded, hastily consulted with the master-at-arms. Together they decided, a little before 10 pm, to surrender by striking the ship’s colours- but the flag had already been shot away, so their only option was to shout. Captain Pearson shouted back, asking whether the Americans had really struck their colours. Possibly his Lieutenant of Marines relayed this message; certainly, Jones’s reply was firmly negative. Jones himself recalled shouting something along the lines of "I have not yet thought of it, but I am determined to make you strike," at which point, presumably, the surrendering officers realised he was still very much alive and returned to their duties. A much more dramatic version appeared in newspapers within days of the event, allegedly based on the testimony of an ex-crewman who thought he heard something like "I may sink, but I’ll be damned if I strike", and witnessed the Captain using his pistols to shoot the three officers who were attempting to surrender (but another version of the story also circulated, with the chicken-coop but without the shootings, which fits better with Jones’s memory). In all the noise, Pearson could not actually hear the reply to his question, so he decided to send a boarding team. At this point, once again, Jones’s preparation paid off. The boarders were met by a previously hidden defensive force, which swiftly drove them back to Serapis. By this time, the attempts to bring down Serapis’ main mast had also borne some fruit; ironically, the only reason why it had not fallen down was because it was leaning on the Richard’s rigging. And then, perhaps about 10.15 pm, Alliance returned, and Landais delivered another of his helpful broadsides. Jones’s men yelled at him to stop, and the Commodore attempted to send orders for Alliance to help with a boarding operation. The moon was full, brightly illuminating the distinctive yellow livery of the Serapis; the Richard was clearly showing agreed lantern signals, but Landais stuck to his plan, sailing round the "safe" sides of the locked ships to fire broadsides aimed, in his theory, at both bow and stern of Serapis. In reality, Bonhomme Richard, yet again, was holed below the water-line, and started settling so rapidly that the master-at-arms took it upon himself to release the hundred or so prisoners from previous captures, who had been held on the lower decks. As they had not been put in manacles, they were completely free, and could potentially have helped Serapis’ crew to overrun the American ship. Jones reacted quickly to the new crisis, successfully urging the prisoners to put all their efforts into working the three remaining pumps, to save their own lives.

Captain Pearson of Serapis had only limited knowledge of the escalating chaos aboard the Richard. He too was losing many men from Alliance’s attacks, and he could not move his ship, so Alliance, still effectively undamaged, could keep firing at will. On the other hand, nearly every ship in the convoy he had been sent to protect had reached safety before the battle even began. Following the second of Alliance’s new round of broadsides, like Piercy before him, he decided that he could achieve nothing more by continuing to fight. Not long after 10.30 pm, he called for quarter and struck his colours in person. Thus the Americans finally got the chance to board the Serapis, but this did not go quite as well as it should; three shots were fired by British sailors who had not got the message, and Midshipman John Mayrant, following First Lieutenant Dale aboard, got a pike stuck through his leg. Pearson’s First Lieutenant was among those reluctant to believe that his captain had surrendered, and Dale made sure that he stayed with Pearson rather than leaving him to his own devices. A short time later, as Captain Pearson was boarding Bonhomme Richard to hand over his ceremonial sword, the main-mast of Serapis finally fell overboard, perhaps as a result of work to separate the two ships, dragging the damaged mizzen-top-mast with it. As Bonhomme Richard got under way, Dale attempted to follow in Serapis, and learned two important facts in quick succession. First, Serapis would not move, and second, he had a very large splinter in his leg, which now caused him to fall over. The first problem was rectified by cutting the anchor cable, the second by returning Dale to the Richard for treatment. Boats from both Serapis and Alliance were used to begin the evacuation of Richard’s crew- one or two of these boats went missing during the night, as ex-captive British crewmen took the opportunity to go home (hence the eyewitness newspaper stories). The combatants, although they probably cared little, had been observed by thousands of onlookers, for on that clear night, with a near-full moon, the action could be seen from a long stretch of the high Yorkshire coastline, Scarborough in the north to Flamborough Head itself in the south.

There is no record of final casualty figures aboard the two main combatants. Captain Pearson, in a postscript to his battle report, stated that there were "many more than" 49 dead and 68 wounded aboard Serapis, but his figure of 300 casualties aboard Bonhomme Richard seems very high, unless it includes a great many of the captives stuck below decks during the battle. British press reports claimed 70 deaths on the Richard, which, assuming a similar ratio to the Serapis figures would give around 100 wounded.