ncertain and confused was it all, that I know, when I heard
the cry, 'They've struck,' I took it for granted it was the
Richard. In fact, Captain Pearson had struck our flag with his own
hands. The men would not expose themselves to the fire from the
Richard's tops. Mr. Mayrant, a fine young fellow, one of Jones's
midshipmen, was wounded in boarding us after we struck, because
some of our people did not know we had struck. I know, when
Wallis, our first lieutenant, heard the cry, he ran
up-stairs,--supposing that Jones had struck to us, and not we to
him.

"It was Lieutenant Dale who boarded us. He is still living, a fine
old man, at Philadelphia. He found Captain Pearson on the lee of
our quarter-deck again, and said,--

"'Sir, I have orders to send you on board the ship along-side.'

"Up the companion comes Wallis, and says to Captain Pearson,--

"'Have they struck?'

"'No, Sir,' said Dale,--'the contrary: he has struck to us.'

"Wallis would not take it, and said to Pearson,--

"'Have you struck, Sir?'

"And he had to say he had. Wallis said, 'I have nothing more to
say,' and turned to come down to us, but Dale would not let him.
Wallis said he would silence the lower-deck guns, but Dale sent
some one else, and took them both aboard the Richard. Little
Duval--a volunteer on board, not yet rated as midshipman--went
with them. Jones gave back our captain's sword, with the usual
speech about bravery,--but they quarrelled awfully afterwards.

"I suppose Paul Jones was himself astonished when daylight showed
the condition of his ship. I am sure we were. His ship was still
on fire: ours had been a dozen times, but was out. Wherever our
main battery could hit him, we had torn his ship to
pieces,--knocked in and knocked out the sides. There was a
complete breach from the main-mast to the stern. You could see the
sky and sea through the old hulk anywhere. Indeed, the wonder was
that the quarter-deck did not fall in. The ship was sinking fast,
and the pumps would not free her. For us, our jib-boom had been
wrenched off at the beginning; our main-mast and mizzentop fell as
we struck, and at day-break the wreck was not cleared away. Jones
put Lieutenant Lunt on our vessel that night, but the next day he
removed all his wounded, and finally all his people, to the
Se