During the American Revolution, the new United States was in a bit of a quandary. It needed to do something about the British blockade of its ports, but did not have much in the way of money to buy ships. It had no lack of skilled captains, but insufficient ships.

Seeing an opportunity to cause problems for its old nemesis, Great Britian, the French were one of the first nations to recognize the US and as such, caused the British to declare war on France. This allowed the French to get involved in the United States and one of the ways it did that was to use portions of its considerable navy as well as its ports to assist the Americans.

It was decided that the best way to reduce the number of ships in the blockade was to have them required somewhere else. In this case, it was to protect British shores and convoys from attacks from American ships and privateers. John Paul Jones had already wreaked havoc when in command of the Ranger in just this fashion and it was decided that he would do the same a bit later.

However, the US had seen that the French were willing to use their navy so no monies were spent on building new US ships. Jones would have to rely on the French.

This moves the discussion to ship types, specifically what are known as two decker ships. These were frequently called 'fifth-line' ships and they were based on the design of East Indiamen cargo ships. They had the capacity to hold a fleet admiral and his staff, could be used to transport troops, and were heavily armed enough to ward off privateers. They were frequently used in second-line or backwater areas as command ships, and for convoy escort. Many were converted cargo ships and so not as robust as a purpose built war ship, though many were also built from new. Their biggest drawback was a lack of speed and maneuverability. As cargo ships, they did not need to be fast or very maneuverable.

Back to Jones. What he got was one of these East Indiamen that had been captured earlier in the war and taken to a French port. He was supposed to get a new build Frigate that was being constructed in the Netherlands, but the Netherlands was neutral at this time and the British used their political clout to keep the ship from being delivered. So Jones outfitted the East Indiaman as a two decker, a task that took a good six months. The ship was named after Ben Franklin and crewed mostly by Irishmen, who not only spoke English (of a sort) but had no love of British. This took care of the language barrier. The other ships in his small fleet were French and a pair of privateers (who soon went their own way).

To make a longish story short, Jones went looking for battle and found it off Flamborough Head when it met up with Serapis when she was escorting a convoy. In a tale that seems as if it was made up, the two ships slowly (light wind and not very fast ships anyway) approached each other at sunset. Eventually, they came into range of about 25 yards. The Bonhomme Richard was flying a British flag (perfectly legal back then) and when in range, lowered it and raised the stars and stripes. The Serapis was expecting this and both ships fired a broadside at each other. Serapis was aimed at the waterline and Jones was trying the de-mast the quicker Serapis. The BonHomme Richard was soon in major trouble, thanks as much to its weaker cargo ship structure as anything, as the Serapis managed to put many holes in Jones' ship. Jones knew the only way to get the upper hand was to grapple the Serapis and used his large contingent of Marines to keep the British decks cleared.

This was quite successful and though both ships were now on fire and the Bonhomme Richard was sinking, it allowed a seaman with a box full of grenades to shimmy out to the edge of one of the yardarms and drop them onto the Serapis. One found powder that had been left unattended on the gun deck and explosions soon rocked the Serapis. This was enough to cause the captain of the British ship to surrender after four hours of fighting. Attempts to save the Bonhomme RIchard were futile and she eventually sank, giving Jones the victory.  

The background info on the political situation and the different ship types as well as a much more interesting version of the battle is ably penned by author Mark Lardas, who seems to be Osprey's expert in the field. This is accompanied by some excellent period illustrations as well as more modern illustrations and maps that help to put the reader on board both ships. It makes for a superb read and one I can most highly recommend.

October 2012

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