THE CRUISE OF THE ARIEL.

Early in the month of July Jones received the sword which had been bestowed upon him by the king. He commented enthusiastically upon its beauty and its value, saying that it had cost twenty-four hundred dollars--a large sum for that day. The month was passed in preparing the Ariel for departure, and in a vigorous correspondence with Franklin and his friends, feminine and otherwise. On the 2d of August, in a note to the Prime Minister, the Count de Vergennes, Jones informed him that he was nearly ready to sail. The last of July Franklin had sent him his final dispatches with the Count de Vauban, who expected to sail with him, but for unexplained reasons Jones did not take his departure until the 4th of September, when the Ariel was warped out to the open roads of Groix. From the 4th of September to the 7th of October he was detained, partly by contrary winds and partly by a rumor, to which, perhaps, he should not have given credence, that further dispatches were to be sent to him. On the 7th of October, at two o'clock in the afternoon, he weighed anchor and put to sea, convoying three merchant ships. The wind, being from the north-northwest, blew fair for their departure, and the weather was mild and pleasant.

The next morning the wind shifted and came in violent squalls from the southward. The ship was not yet clear of the land. The island of Groix lay about fifteen miles to the northeastward, and, as the weather became very thick and the wind increased until it was blowing a tremendous gale, they soon lost sight of the shore to the leeward. In spite of their efforts, they were unable to make any headway against the storm, and were accordingly carried down toward the Penmarque Rocks, a series of sharp, low reefs, jagged needles of the sea, terminating the southeastern extremity of the peninsula of Brittany, among the most dangerous in the world. The ship was in that position above all others dreaded by the mariner--drifting upon a lee shore in a gale of wind. The Ariel had been put under close-reefed fore and main sails, and her head laid to the northwest in the hope that she might stretch along and clear the reefs; but the wind, increasing to a perfect hurricane, in the language of Mackenzie, "smothered" the ship, at last obliging Jones to furl the courses and prevented him from showing even a storm staysail.

In the report of the officers it is stated that the storm had become so violent that "the lee fore yardarm was frequently under water; the lee gangway was laid entirely under water, and the lee side of the waist was full." The water in the hold flowed into the cockpit, notwithstanding the utmost efforts of the chain pumps. The ship was very heavy laden, and lay deep in the water, dipping her yardarms with every roll. As the tempest rose in violence it became impossible to tell just where they were, as the murky darkness of the storm hid every landmark. It was evident, however, from an inspection of the compass that they were still drifting toward the shore. This fact was confirmed by the rapid shoaling of the water, a fact Jones established by personally taking successive casts with the hand lead. There was no room to veer and get the ship headed the other way. If there had been, the result would probably have been no different. In the face of such a storm she would have continued to drift toward the reef. Their progress to leeward was frightfully rapid. The ship was leaking badly, and one of the chain pumps had become choked and refused to work. Destruction seemed inevitable. In all his varied experiences Jones had seen nothing like the storm. In his report he says that never before did he fully conceive the awful majesty of a shipwreck. In their distress, as a last resort, he determined to anchor.

A hasty consultation was had among the officers on the quarter-deck, and this desperate resort was agreed upon. At eleven o'clock in the morning the best bower anchor was let go with thirty fathoms of cable. The effect was not perceptible. The ship was not brought to, and continued to drift broadside on toward the land in the trough of the sea. She dragged her anchor as if it had been a straw. Two other cables were spliced on and veered out. Still she drove on. The pressure of the gale upon the bare spars was tremendous. The wind roared through the top-hamper with amazing velocity. The masts quivered and buckled under the awful strain to which they were subjected; the standing rigging to windward stood out as taut and rigid as if it had been cut from bars of steel. As the frigate lay in the trough of the sea the mighty waves tossed her about like a cockboat. Broad sheets of foam swept over the deck, washing away everything not tightly secured. To relieve the pressure and get the ship to ride to her anchor, Jones now ordered the weather shrouds of the foremast to be cut, and the wind instantly snapped off the mast above the deck; with all its weight of spars and rigging it fell to leeward and carried away the other bower anchor and a kedge anchor, and smashed up the head badly.

This afforded some relief, for immediately after the anchor took hold and the ship gradually swung head to the wind at last. Her drift toward the rocks was not entirely checked, but while they were hesitating as to what to do next, the mainmast, the heel of which had been jerked out of its step by the violent motion of the ship, so that it had been vibrating to and fro like a smitten reed, parted just where it entered the main deck. The wind hurled the immense mass of timber and cordage aft, where it fell across the decks, carrying with it the mizzenmast, smashing the lee quarter gallery, and generally wrecking the after part of the vessel. The ship was thus stripped of her spars except the bowsprit, and they could do no more. If she did not bring to her anchor and cease her drag toward the rocks, over which the breakers could now be seen crashing with terrible force, and with a roar heard above the mad noises of the tempest, they were lost. They hastily cleared the wreck as they were able, letting it drift to leeward, and waited with still hearts and bated breaths for the next happening. No mere seamanship, no human skill could save them now. They were in God's hands. Since their other anchor had been lost by the fall of the foremast, if their present anchor gave way they were helpless. Fortunately the stripped ship, relieved of the tremendous pressure of the wind upon her top-hamper, at last rode to her anchor, and her drift on the rocks was stopped. For the present they were saved. They could do nothing now but wait and trust to the strength of the iron fluke and the hempen cable. Fortunately, both held.

For two days and three nights the Ariel swung to that single anchor, and passively endured the tremendous buffeting of wind and waves within a short distance of the mighty reefs upon which, if she had struck, every soul on board must have perished. For the greater part of this time the motion of the mastless ship was so violent that the most experienced seaman could not keep his legs upon the deck. On the 12th the gale had sufficiently moderated to permit the crew to erect jury masts under which they could regain the harbor. The cable was hove short, but the anchor could not be weighed, as it was probably caught upon a rock. Indeed, nothing but a rock hold would have saved them; so the cable was cut, and the battered Ariel limped back to L'Orient, which she reached on the 13th of October. The gale was one of the most severe with which that storm-bound coast had ever been visited within the memory of man. The whole shore was strewed with wrecks and the bodies of drowned men. The merchant ships of the convoy were lost, with hundreds of other vessels. That the Ariel, in the most dangerous position which could possibly have been imagined even, escaped without loss of life was due to the Providence of God and the brilliant seamanship of her captain. Long afterward Richard Dale wrote thus of his commander's conduct in these trying circumstances:

"Never saw I such coolness and readiness in such frightful circumstances as Paul Jones showed in the nights and days when we lay off the Penmarques, expecting every moment to be our last; and the danger was greater even than we were in when the Bon Homme Richard fought the Serapis."

Two months were required to put the Ariel in shape for sea once more. All the arms which she was carrying out for the use of the army had been so damaged by water as to be useless. They were left behind and their place supplied by other cargo. During this interval, when not occupied in superintending the repairs to the ship, Jones amused himself with his usual prolific correspondence. He had also a spirited encounter with one Thomas Truxtun, afterward the distinguished naval officer, at that time master of a privateer called the Independence. Truxtun entered the harbor of L'Orient flying a pennant, the use of which was restricted by act of Congress to regularly commissioned vessels of war, except in the case of privateers cruising alone. A sharp correspondence was carried on between Jones and Truxtun, who was a mere boy at the time. Truxtun at fi............