Captain Paul Jones goes down to l’Orient to begin the overhaul and refit of the Richard. The ship is twenty years old, and he finds it shaken and worn by time and weather. It is not a good ship, not a ship on which a prudent commander would care to stake his life and reputation; but it is the best he can get, and Captain Paul Jones accepts it, shrugging his shoulders. He has been so beaten upon by disappointments, so carked and rusted by delays, since his old ship Ranger spread its sails for home, and left him as it were an exile on French shores, that rather than further endure such heart-eating experiences he is ready to embrace the desperate. As the work of refitting progresses, Doctor Franklin comes over from Passy.

“The ship is old, Doctor,” says Captain Paul Jones, as he and Doctor Franklin canvass the situation. “That, however, is the least of my troubles. What causes me most uneasiness is the crew. Out of a whole muster of three hundred and seventy-five, no more than fifty are Americans.”

“Then you do not trust the French? Surely you don’t mean to say they are not brave men?”

“Brave enough—the French; but that is not the point. They are not good water fighters. By nature they are too hysterical, too easily excited, to both sail and fight a ship. Those English whom we go to meet are born water dogs, stubborn and cool; and the only ones afloat who, man for man, may match them are Americans.”

“And of Americans you have but fifty?”

“Only fifty.” Then, with a heartfelt oath: “I would give my left hand to have back my old crew of the Ranger.”

Captain Paul Jones begins pacing to and fro, his thoughts running regretfully on the Ranger, and those stout hearts with whom he fought the Drake. But the Ranger and those stout, tarry ones are half a world away; and in the end he returns perforce to the Richard, and what poor tools in the way of crew are offered him by Fate. There is, too, a matter of gravity which he desires to lay before the Doctor’s older and more prudent judgment. For Captain Paul Jones, so unmanageable by others, defers to the sagacious Doctor, and accepts his opinions and follows his commands with closed eyes.

“This Captain Pierre Landais, Doctor,” he begins, “who is to sail the Alliance in my company?”

“Yes?” interrupts the Doctor.

“You know him?—you have confidence in him?”

The Doctor purses his lips, but says never a word.

“Then I’ll tell you what I think!” cries Captain Paul Jones, who reads distrust in the good Doctor’s pursed but silent lips; “I’ll tell you what I think, and what I’ll do. Already I’ve had some dealings with this Landais. The fellow is mad—vanity-mad. Jealous, insubordinate, he has twice taken open occasion to disobey my orders. This I have stomached in silence—being on French shores. I now warn you that as soon as I find myself in blue water, at a first sign of rebellion against my authority, I’ll clap the fellow in irons. By heaven! I’ll string him to his own yard arm, sir; make a tassel of him for the winds to play with, if it be required to preserve a discipline which his example has already done much to break down.”

Doctor Franklin meets this violent setting forth concerning the recalcitrant Landais with a negative gesture of unmistakable emphasis.

“You must do nothing of the kind, Paul!” he replies. “Captain Landais, as you say, is doubtless mad—vanity-mad. But he is also French; and we must do nothing to estrange from our cause French sympathy and French assistance. I urge you to bear with Landais in silence, rather than jeopardize us with King Louis.”

Captain Paul Jones growlingly submits. “It will result disastrously, Doctor,” he says. “We shall yet suffer for it, mark my word.” Then, disgustedly: “I marvel that the Marine Committee in Philadelphia should turn over to such a madman a brisk frigate like the Alliance.

“Your friend, the Marquis de Lafayette, had something to do with it, I think. You observe that on his present visit to France, it is Landais with his Alliance who brings him.”

Captain Paul Jones says no more, but seems to accept Landais as he accepts the Richard, desperately. His final comment shows the uneasy complexion of his thought.

“We shall do the best we can, Doctor,” he says.

“Young as I am, I have lived long enough to know that one can’t have all things ordered as he would.”

Captain Paul Jones, now commodore, clears for the Irish coast on a bright, clear day in June. Besides the Richard, he has with him the Alliance, thirty-two guns, Captain Landais; the Pallas, twenty-eight guns, Captain Cottineau; and the Vengeance, twelve guns, Captain Ricon. Four days later he returns limping into l’Orient for repairs, the Richard having been fouled by the Alliance through the criminal carelessness or worse of Captain Landais.

The breast of the young commodore is on fire with anger over the delay, and the vicious clumsiness that caused it. He burns to destroy Landais, as the mean reason of his troubles, but the thought of Doctor Franklin restrains him. Also, as events unfold, that enforced return to l’Orient proves of good fortune, and he forgets his chagrin in joy over the flattering new turn in his affairs. Doctor Franklin has succeeded in bringing about an exchange of prisoners, and barters to the British admiralty one hundred and nineteen Englishmen, captured in the Drake and other prizes taken by the Ranger, for one hundred and nineteen Americans held by King George. While Commodore Paul Jones is curing the damage done the Richard by the evil Landais, those exchanged Americans are landed under a cartel in Nantes. He goes down to Nantes and enlists one hundred and fifteen of them for the Richard.

Before Commodore Paul Jones weighs anchor for a second start, he goes over to Passy for a final word with Doctor Franklin. The pair walk in the Doctor’s favorite garden, now a wilderness of foliage and flowers, the Doctor serene, the boy commodore cloudy, taciturn and grim. His resolution has set iron-hard to do or die; the cruise shall be a glorious one or be his last. Doctor Franklin asks about his plans.

“I shall make for the west coast of Ireland,” says he, “and go north about the British islands. Wind and weather favoring, I may sack a town or two by way of retaliation for what the foe has done to us. They will find that I have not forgotten Lord Dunmore, and my ruined plantation by the Rappahannock.”

“The waters you will sail in are alive with British ships of war. With your poor force it seems a desperate cruise.”

“Desperate, yes; but, Doctor, we are in no shape to play cautious. We are weak; therefore we must be reckless.”

“It is a strange doctrine,” muses the Doctor. “And yet I will not say but what it smells of judgment. I have faith in you, Paul; it teaches me to hope that, when next I greet you, I shall greet a victor.”

“Doctor,” returns Commodore Paul Jones, and his tones are grave with meaning, “I shall not disappoint you. Nor do I care to conceal from you my resolution. When I sail, I sail looking for battle; and I shall not hesitate to engage an enemy superior to my force. The condition of our cause is such that, to sustain it, we need a striking, ay! a startling naval success, and I shall do all I know, fight all I know, to bring it to pass. More; my mind is made up: If I fail, I fall; I shall return victorious or I shall not return.”

It is daybreak on a day in middle August when Commodore Paul Jones, with the Richard as flagship of the little squadron of four, puts the Isle of Groaix astern, and points for the open ocean. His course is west by north, so as to weather Cape Clear, and fetch the Irish coast close aboard. With winds light and baffling, the squadron’s pace is slow; it is nine days out of France before Cape Clear is sighted. Then it creeps northward alo............