not killed outright being left stripped of their
clothes and scorched frightfully.

At this conjuncture, being about ten o'clock, the gunner and the
carpenter of the Richard, who had been slightly wounded, became alarmed
at the quantity of water which entered the ship through the shot-holes
which she had received between wind and water, and which, by her
settling, had got below the surface. The carpenter expressed an
apprehension that she would speedily sink, which the gunner, mistaking
for an assertion that she was actually sinking, ran aft on the poop to
haul down the colors. Finding that the ensign was already down in
consequence of the staff having been shot away, the gunner set up the
cry, "Quarter! for God's sake, quarter! Our ship is sinking!" which he
continued until silenced by Jones, who threw at the recreant a pistol he
had just discharged at the enemy, which fractured his skull, and sent
him headlong down the hatchway. Captain Pearson, hearing the gunner's
cry, asked Jones if he called for quarter, to which, according to his
own words, he replied "in the most determined negative."

Captain Pearson now called away his boarders and sent them on board the
Richard, but, when they had reached her rail, they were met by Jones
himself, at the head of a party of pikemen, and driven back. They
immediately returned to their ship, followed by some of the Richard's
men, all of whom were cut off.

About the same time that the gunner set up his cry for quarter, the
master-at-arms, who had been in consultation with the gunner and the
carpenter in regard to the sinking condition of the ship, hearing the
cry for quarter, proceeded, without orders from Jones, and either from
treachery or the prompting of humane feelings, to release all the
prisoners, amounting to more than a hundred. One of these, being the
commander of the letter-of-marque Union, taken on August 31st, passed,
with generous self-devotion, through the lower ports of the Richard and
the Serapis, and, having reached the quarter-deck of the latter,
informed Captain Pearson that if he would hold out a little longer the
Richard must either strike or sink; he moreover informed him of the
large number of prisoners who had been released with himself, in order
to save their lives. Thus encouraged, the battle was renewed from the
Serapis with fresh ardor.

The situation of Jones at this moment was indeed hopeless beyond
anything that is recorded in the annals of nav