And, Jones-like, this opportunity he seized eagerly. He saw in a flash that it was his one moment for restoring his waning power to its former pinnacle.
It was on the 23d of September, when the squadron was chasing a small ship off Flamborough Head, that a number of distant sails were seen rounding the point. A long, steady look through his glass convinced Commodore Jones that he could not be mistaken: that this was the Baltic fleet of merchantmen which he had heard were in that vicinity, and which he had hoped he might meet before he reached The Texel.
Without delay Paul Jones hoisted the signal for a general chase. Captain Landais, however, ignored the signal, and sailed on by himself. So angry was Paul Jones at this cool display of indifference--or cowardice, if that it were,--that he stamped his foot on the deck, and shouted his feelings through his speaking-trumpet, but it availed nothing; the insolent Landais kept right on going.
When the merchant ships saw Paul Jones's squadron bearing down upon them, they ran in under the lee of the shore, and, protected by two British frigates which immediately got in between them and their foe, made off down the coast at their best speed. These English frigates were the _Serapis_, a brand-new ship of forty-four guns, and the _Countess of Scarborough_, twenty guns.
[Illustration: FIGHT BETWEEN THE SERAPIS AND THE BON HOMME RICHARD]
The afternoon sun was well down in the heavens by this time. In the far distance, her sails glinting white and rosy in the path of the sun, and constantly growing smaller, was the fleeing _Alliance_. And not far behind her, in pursuit, sped the little _Vengeance_, whose captain Paul Jones had told to try to persuade the half-mad Landais to return to his duty.
This turn of affairs left two ships facing each other on each side. Commodore Jones ordered Captain Cottineau, of the _Pallas_, to look after the _Countess of Scarborough_, while he himself took care of the _Serapis_. He never lost his head; with that "cool, determined bravery," of which Benjamin Franklin spoke, and with "that presence of mind which never deserted him," recorded by Fanning, he made up his mind to make the best of a seemingly hopeless situation, and engage an enemy ship which he knew to be the superior of his own in almost every respect.