Jones again set sail for English waters, with the following vessels:
Alliance, thirty-six; Pallas, thirty; Cerf, eighteen; Vengeance, twelve;
and two French privateers. Owing to the humiliating conditions imposed
upon him by the French Minister of Marine, Commodore Jones did not have
absolute command. In a gale on the 26th the two privateers and the Cerf
parted company, never to return. After the most outrageous conduct off
the coast of Ireland, Landais, in the 'Alliance', left the squadron on
September 6th, and did not reappear until the 23d, the day of the battle.

Mr. Carvel was the third lieutenant of the 'Bon homme Richard', tho' he
served as second in the action. Her first lieutenant (afterwards the
celebrated Commodore Richard Dale) was a magnificent man, one worthy in
every respect of the captain he served. When the hour of battle arrived,
these two and the sailing master, and a number of raw midshipmen, were
the only line-officers left, and two French officers of marines.

The rest had been lost in various ways. And the crew of the 'Bon homme
Richard' was as sorry a lot as ever trod a deck. Less than three score
of the seamen were American born; near four score were British, inclusive
of sixteen Irish; one hundred and thirty-seven were French soldiers, who
acted as marines; and the rest of the three hundred odd souls to fight
her were from all over the earth,--Malays and Maltese and Portuguese.
In the hold were more than one hundred and fifty English prisoners.

This was a vessel and a force, truly, with which to conquer a fifty-gun
ship of the latest type, and with a picked crew.

Mr. Carvel's chapter opens with Landais's sudden reappearance on the
morning of the day the battle was fought. He shows the resentment and
anger against the Frenchman felt by all on board, from cabin-boy to