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Best 1779 Revolutionary War newspaper US Navy Captain JOHN PAUL JONES in his warship, the Bonhomme Richard defeats the HMS SERAPIS British warship in his most famous Rev War naval battle - inv # home
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SEE PHOTO(s) - COMPLETE ORIGINAL NEWSPAPER, the Edinburgh Advertiser (Scotland) dated Oct 1, 1779. This original Revolutionary War newspaper contains the earliest and BEST long detailed account of the most famous naval battle of the Revolutionary War, the BATTLE of FLAMBOROUGH HEAD, in which the Bonhomme Richard defeated the HMS Serapis. The US navy vessel was commanded by Rev War US Navy Captain JOHN PAUL JONES.
This naval battle took place off the coast of Scotland and this Edinburgh, Scotland newspaper provides the earliest LOCAL account of the naval BATTLE OF FLAMBOROUGH HEAD.
This is the BEST newspaper I have ever seen with the earliest long detailed account of the famous naval victory by JOHN PAUL JONES. If a better early LOCAL account of the naval victory by John Paul Jones exists, I have not seen it !!!
The Battle of Flamborough Head was a naval battle that took place on 23 September 1779 in the North Sea off the coast of Yorkshire between a combined Franco-American squadron, led by Continental Navy officer John Paul Jones, and two British escort vessels protecting a large merchant convoy. It became one of the most celebrated naval actions of the war in America, despite its relatively small size and a considerable dispute over what had actually occurred.
John Paul Jones (born John Paul; July 6, 1747 – July 18, 1792) was a Scottish-American naval captain who was the United States' first well-known naval commander in the American Revolutionary War. Often called the "Father of the American Navy", a title sometimes also credited to John Barry, John Adams, and sometimes Joshua Humphreys, Jones is highly regarded as one of the greatest naval commanders in the history of the United States.
The Battle of Flamborough Head was a naval battle that took place on 23 September 1779 in the North Sea off the coast of Yorkshire between a combined Franco-American squadron, led by Continental Navy officer John Paul Jones, and two British escort vessels protecting a large merchant convoy. It became one of the most celebrated naval actions of the war in America, despite its relatively small size and a considerable dispute over what had actually occurred.
In 1779, Captain Jones took command of the 42-gun USS Bonhomme Richard, a merchant ship rebuilt and given to America by the French shipping magnate, Jacques-Donatien Le Ray. On August 14, as a vast French and Spanish invasion fleet approached England, he provided a diversion by heading for Ireland at the head of a five-ship squadron including the 36-gun USS Alliance, 32-gun USS Pallas, 12-gun USS Vengeance, and Le Cerf, also accompanied by two privateers, Monsieur and Granville. When the squadron was only a few days out of Groix, Monsieur separated because of a disagreement between her captain and Jones. Several Royal Navy warships were sent towards Ireland in pursuit of Jones, but on this occasion, he continued right around the north of Scotland into the North Sea. Jones's main problems, as on his previous voyage, resulted from insubordination, particularly by Pierre Landais, captain of Alliance. On September 23, the squadron met a large merchant convoy off the coast of Flamborough Head, East Yorkshire. The 44-gun British frigate HMS Serapis and the 22-gun hired armed ship Countess of Scarborough placed themselves between the convoy and Jones's squadron, allowing the merchants to escape.
Shortly after 7 p.m. the Battle of Flamborough Head began. Serapis engaged Bonhomme Richard, and Alliance fired from a considerable distance at Countess. Quickly recognizing that he could not win a battle of big guns, and with the wind dying, Jones made every effort to lock Richard and Serapis together (his famous, albeit apocryphal, quotation, "I have not yet begun to fight!" was said to have been uttered in reply to a demand to surrender in this phase of the battle). After about an hour, he succeeded, and he began clearing the British decks with his deck guns and his Marine marksmen in the rigging. Alliance sailed past and fired a broadside, doing at least as much damage to Richard as to Serapis. Meanwhile, Countess of Scarborough had enticed Pallas downwind of the main battle, beginning a separate engagement. When Alliance approached this contest, about an hour after it had begun, the badly damaged Countess surrendered.
With Bonhomme Richard burning and sinking, it seems that her ensign was shot away; when one of the officers shouted a surrender, believing his captain to be dead, the British commander asked, seriously this time, if they had struck their colours. Jones later remembered saying something like "I am determined to make you strike", but the words allegedly heard by crew-members and reported in newspapers a few days later were more like: "I may sink, but I'll be damned if I strike". An attempt by the British to board Bonhomme Richard was thwarted, and a grenade caused the explosion of a large quantity of gunpowder on Serapis's lower gun-deck. Alliance returned to the main battle, firing two broadsides. Again, these did at least as much damage to Richard as to Serapis, but the tactic worked to the extent that Serapis was unable to move. With Alliance keeping well out of the line of his own great guns, Captain Pearson of Serapis accepted that prolonging the battle could achieve nothing, so he surrendered. Most of Bonhomme Richard's crew transferred to other vessels, and after a day and a half of frantic repair efforts, it was decided that the ship could not be saved. Bonhomme Richard was allowed to sink, and Jones took command of Serapis for the trip to the island of Texel in neutral (but American-sympathizing) Holland.
In the following year, King Louis XVI of France honored Jones with the title "Chevalier". Jones accepted the honor and desired the title to be used thereafter: when the Continental Congress in 1787 resolved that a medal of gold be struck in commemoration of his "valor and brilliant services" it was to be presented to "Chevalier John Paul Jones". He also received from Louis XVI a decoration of "l'Institution du Mérite Militaire" and a sword. By contrast, in Britain at this time, he was usually denigrated as a pirate.
Jones was also admitted as an original member of The Society of the Cincinnati in the state of Pennsylvania when it was established in 1783.
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