and took part in it with just the same motives which led any other
American officer.[H]

"He had a fondness for books and for society, and thought himself
gifted in writing. I should think he wrote too much. I have seen
verses of his which were very poor."

[_Mem_. by F.C. I should think Ingham's grandfather wrote too
much. I have seen letters of his which were very long, before they
came to their subject.]

The letter continues:--

"To return. The Serapis, as I have said, was but just built. She
had been launched that spring. She was one of the first 44-gun
frigates that were ever built in the world. We (the English) were
the first naval power to build frigates, as now understood, at
all. I believe the name is Italian, but in the Mediterranean it
means a very different thing. We had little ships-of-the-line,
which were called fourth-rates, and which fought sixty, and even
as low as fifty guns; they had two decks, and a quarter-deck
above. But just as I came into the service, the old Phoenix and
Rainbow and Roebuck were the only 44s we had: they were successful
ships, and they set the Admiralty on building 44-gun frigates,
which, even when they carried 50 guns, as we did, were quite
different from the old fourth-rates. Very useful vessels they
proved. I remember the Romulus, the Ulysses, the Actaeon, and the
Endymion: the Endymion fought the President forty years after. As
I say, the Serapis was one of a batch of these vessels launched in
the spring of 1779.

"We had been up the Cattegat that summer, waiting for what was
known as the Baltic fleet.[I] If there were room and time, I could
tell you good stories of the fun we had at Copenhagen. At last we
got the convoy together, and got to sea,--no little job in that
land-locked sailing. We got well across the North Sea, and, for
some reason, made Sunderland first, and afterwards Scarborough.

"We were lying close in with Scarborough, when news came off that
Paul Jones, with a fleet, was on the coast. Captain Pearson at
once tried to signal the convoy back,--for they were working down
the coast towards the Humber,--but the signals did no good till
they saw the enemy themselves, and then they scud fast enough,
passing us, and running into Scarborough harbor. We had not a
great deal of wind, and the other armed vessel