CHAPTER IX.The Mutiny of Landais.
The Visit of Jones to Versailles.—Intrigues of Landais.—The Alliance Wrested from Jones.—Complicity of Arthur Lee.—Magnanimity of Jones.—Strong Support of Dr. Johnson.—Honors Conferred upon Jones.—Strange Career of Landais.—His Life in America, and Death.—Continued Labors and Embarrassments of Jones.—His Correspondence.
Jones immediately, upon his arrival at L’Orient, made preparations for his departure, with the two armed ships, the Alliance and the Ariel, which were to convoy several American vessels, with cargoes amounting to four hundred thousand dollars in value. Having heard that his authority had been called in question, he, on the morning of the 13th of June, mustered the crew of the Alliance on the quarter-deck, and caused his commission from Congress to be read to them, together with the order from Dr. Franklin for him to take command of the Alliance, and a subsequent order to take her to Philadelphia. When he asked if any of the crew had any complaint to make against him, not one stepped forward. All seemed to be satisfied.
Soon after, he went ashore to confer with the French authorities in reference to the armament of the Ariel. Landais was on the watch. As soon as Commodore Jones stepped ashore, Captain Landais sent an order to one of his confederates, by the name of Degges, who had been first lieutenant of the Alliance, to take command of the ship until he should receive further orders. Degges mustered the crew; read the order to them, and also the very decided opinion of Commissioner Lee, that Landais was the legal commander of the Alliance. The sailors were bewildered. They were in danger of losing all their prize-money, and their wages for several months of arduous and perilous labor. Landais had made them golden promises. The majority decided for Landais. At that opportune moment, he came over the side of the ship and took the command.
Lieutenant Dale and the other officers of the Richard, who had come from the Serapis on board the Alliance, and who remained faithful to Commodore Jones, were thrust into boats and sent ashore. It is hardly just to call this a mutiny, on the part of the sailors, for they were reasonably in doubt as to who was the commander they were legally bound to obey.
Commodore Jones, hearing the cheers of the crew of the Alliance, hastened on board. He foundLandais parading up and down the deck, flourishing his commission in his hand, and haranguing the crew in broken English. Jones was also unceremoniously sent ashore with his officers. He hastened to Versailles, to inform the governmental authorities there of what had transpired. On the 17th of June, Dr. Franklin wrote to Commodore Jones. He had probably not then been fully informed of the very serious character of the events which had taken place. In this letter he said:
“Having been informed by several gentlemen of and from L’Orient, that it is there generally understood the mutiny on board your ship has been advised or promoted by the Honorable Arthur Lee, whom I had ordered you to receive as a passenger, I hereby withdraw that order so far as to leave the execution to your direction. If from the circumstances which have come to your knowledge it should appear to you that the peace and good government of the ship, during the voyage, may be endangered by his presence, you may decline taking that gentleman; which I apprehend need not obstruct his return to America, as there are several ships going under your convoy, and no doubt many of their passengers may be prevailed to change places. But if you judge these suspicions groundless you will comply with the order aforesaid.”
Honorable Arthur Lee was a disappointed and angry man. He had quarrelled with his associates, and was returning to America in very ill humor. The Alliance was crowded with freight of the utmost importance to the struggling colonies. Mr. Lee insisted upon large accommodation for himself and family, for room for his carriage, and for a vast amount of baggage. This would have demanded space which was needed for transportation of the soldiers’ clothing. Commodore Jones, with his soul absorbed in devotion to the public interests, and who scarcely allowed chest-room for himself, objected to the surrender of so much space to the commissioner and his family. This grievously offended Mr. Lee, and added to his discontent. Commodore Jones gives the following account of the difficulty:
“I am convinced that Mr. Lee has acted in this manner merely because I would not become the enemy of the venerable, the wise, the good Franklin, whose heart as well as head does, and will always do, honor to human nature. I know the great and good, in this kingdom, better perhaps than any other American who has appeared in Europe since the treaty of alliance. And if my testimony could add anything to Franklin’s reputation, I could witness the universal veneration and esteem with which his name inspires all ranks, not only at Versaillesand all over this kingdom, but also in Spain and Holland. And I can add from the testimony of the first characters of other nations that, with them, envy itself is dumb when the name of Franklin is but mentioned.”
Upon the day of the mutiny which put Landais in possession of the Alliance, Paul Jones dined with the French admiral. He was keenly sensible of the disgrace to our nation should two commissioned officers, in a foreign port, each perhaps leading two hundred men, have a bloody battle on the deck of one of our war-ships. Such an untoward event would have disgraced our country, and the holy cause in which we were engaged, in the eyes of all Europe. And it would but add to our reproach that, in this deplorable conflict, the commissioners, sent to Paris to win France to our cause, were divided, Mr. Lee being on the one side and Dr. Franklin on the other.
The Alliance was in a French port, and consequently under French law. When the commissioners were in antagonistic opinion whether Jones or Landais was the legal commander of the ship, the sailors might well be excused for being also honestly divided in their views. Commodore Jones, a humane man, a lover of peace and justice, could not bear the thought of strewing the deck of the shipwith the bloody corpses of these ignorant men. He preferred to submit the question to the arbitration of the laws, rather than to brutal violence.
Jones despatched an express to the court, at Versailles, and immediately followed it. Upon his arrival he found, that through the intervention of Dr. Franklin, orders had already been issued for the detention of the Alliance, and the arrest of Landais. Journeying was comparatively slow in those days. After the absence of a week Commodore Jones returned. He found that, during the night preceding his arrival, Landais had warped the ship from the inner to the outer harbor, which was called Port Louis. There was still a narrow entrance through which the ship must pass before it could be out at sea. A battery commanded that passage. A boat was sent on board, with an officer, to arrest Landais in the king’s name, and to announce that the Alliance would be sunk should she attempt to leave the port. Captain Landais, standing beneath the Stars and Stripes, and surrounded by his men, refused to surrender himself.
The Alliance had been placed by Congress at the disposal of Dr. Franklin. He, as the representative of the Government, was to order all her movements in Europe. This both Lee and Landais knew perfectly well. The French officer now presentedto Landais the positive orders of Dr. Franklin to Landais, his officers and his men, to surrender the ship to the command of Commodore Jones.
The commodore now had the ship completely in his power. One or two broadsides from the battery would sink her and all her crew in the bottom of the bay. French soldiers were accustomed to obey command. The guns were loaded. The gunners stood ready with lighted matches. At one word of command a storm of balls would pierce the ship, and all France would receive another impressive lesson of the peril involved in disobeying the orders of the king. And yet the madman Landais, reckless of all consequences, was firm in his insubordination.
The Alliance was by far the finest ship in the feeble navy of the colonies. It was freighted with stores of inestimable value to our thinly clad, hungry, ill-provided soldiers, struggling against the most formidable military power then upon the globe. A large minority, probably a majority of the sailors were in favor of Commodore Jones. Those who adhered to Landais were assured by Commissioner Lee that they were surely in the right, and that if they abandoned Landais they would be exposed to be hung for mutiny against their lawful commander.
All the sailors felt deeply wronged. They couldnot understand why they received neither wages nor prize-money. They could not know but that the malignant and artful representations of Landais were true; that Jones, with his confederate aristocrats of the court, was squandering, in luxurious dissipation, their hard earnings. Under these circumstance it would have been cruel to consign these poor men to destruction, and our country to so great a loss. Commodore Jones, forgetting his resentment, acted the part of a magnanimous man, for which he merits the highest commendation.
He hastened to the quarters of M. Thevenard, the commandant of the port, and by his personal interposition, prevented him from opening fire upon the Alliance. He wrote to Dr. Franklin:
“Thevenard had received orders to fire on the Alliance and sink her to the bottom, if they attempted to approach and pass the barrier that had been made across the entrance to the port. Had I even remained silent an hour the dreadful work would have been done. Your humanity will, I know, justify the part I acted, in preventing a scene that would have rendered me miserable for the rest of my life. Yesterday the within letter was brought me from Mr. Lee. He has pulled off the mask, and I am convinced is not a little disappointed that hisoperations have produced no bloodshed between the subjects of France and America. Poor man!”
The commandant of the port called all his officers together, and they signed a paper, minutely stating the preparations they had made to render the departure of the Alliance impossible, and their great admiration of the magnanimity of Commodore Jones in causing their operations to be suspended.
Landais, unopposed, warped his ship through the mouth of the harbor and cast anchor in the roadstead of Groix. We must now take leave of Landais, with but a brief record of his subsequent career.
Pierre Landais was the youngest son of one of the proudest and, in rank, one of the most illustrious families in Normandy. Their ancestral estates had gradually passed away, and the family had become impoverished, but not the less proud. Pierre entered the Naval School, and was thoroughly instructed in the theory both of building and navigating a ship. He, however, found it difficult to get a commission so as to put his knowledge into practice. He had neither money, nor interest at court, with which to purchase court favor.
He was thus kept a mere midshipman until he was thirty-two years of age. Then for many years he remained in the humble situation of a sub-lieutenant. He was serving in this capacity, greatlydiscontented with his lot, when the war broke out between England and her American colonies. Landais then came to this country in command of a French merchant-ship laden with public stores. He was a man of much address and of boundless assurance. According to his representation he enjoyed the rank of captain in the royal navy; had commanded a ship of the line; had been chief officer of the naval depot at the port of Brest, and could have commanded any advancement he desired in his own country.
But he said that his love for freedom was such, and such his admiration of the heroism of the Americans in drawing the sword in defence of popular rights, against such a gigantic power as that of Great Britain, that he had declined receiving the Cross of St. Louis, and had abjured the Roman Catholic religion, the religion of his forefathers, that he might, with all his energies, enter into the service of America.
Believing all this, and wishing, as we have said, to compliment France, Congress placed its finest frigate in the hands of Landais. The result, until the time when the Alliance left L’Orient, the reader knows.
The Alliance, with Mr. Lee on board, at length reached Philadelphia. The conduct of Landais, whose title to command his own men doubted, was soinsane that the officers, passengers and crew all became incensed. Mr. Lee was prominent in this movement. The ship was committed to the officer next in rank. A court of inquiry was held, in which Mr. Lee testified strongly against the captain as insane. The charge was so fully sustained that he was dismissed from the service of the United States. It was not deemed expedient to waste time by prosecuting the more serious charges against him. He was consequently consigned to insignificance. Thus thrown out of service, Landais took up his residence in the city of New York. Destitute of funds, he was miserably poor, living, one can hardly tell how, upon an income of but two hundred dollars a year. Still he retained all his ancient pride, maintaining the air of a gentleman, and refusing any assistance which could indicate that he was in want.
He contrived, at every session of Congress, whether at Philadelphia or Washington, to make his appearance, and to urge a memorial expressive of the injustice which he thought had been done him, and demanding restitution to his rank and the arrears of pay. It is said that at one time he was reduced almost to nothing, when an unexpected division of some prize-money gave him an annuity of one hundred and five dollars. With true French hilarity hesaid, “I have now two dollars a week on which to live, and an odd dollar for charity at the end of the year.”
To the last he kept up the exterior and the courtly bearing of a gentleman. All that was visible of his linen was ever spotlessly clean. His thread-bare coat was brushed with the utmost neatness. On ceremonious occasions, or when making a call, he wore conspicuously a pair of paste knee-buckles, yellow silk stockings, carefully preserved, though much faded, and which were adorned with what were then called red clocks.
Claiming to be an officer in the United States Navy, unjustly deprived of command, he ever wore upon his hat the American cockade. On the Fourth of July, and on the day which commemorated the evacuation of the city of New York by the British troops, Landais, who had assumed the title of admiral, invariably dressed himself in his old Continental uniform. The large brass buttons, though they had lost their brilliance, attracted attention. The long skirts of his blue coat reached almost to his heels, enveloping his thin, shrivelled form. The sleeves seemed to have shrunken, for they scarcely came to his wrists. He thus paraded the streets, with all the airs of a nobleman of the ancient regime.
His spirit of independence was such that he refused all presents, even the most trifling. A gentleman, on one occasion, sent him a dozen bottles of Newark cider. He returned them because it was not in his power to reciprocate.
He became, with advancing years, very irritable in temper. In one of the debates in Congress in reference to his claims, a member spoke, as he thought, disrespectfully of him. He dressed himself in his uniform, belted a small sword at his side, and repairing to the gallery of the House, announced to all the acquaintances he met, that he was prepared to fight a duel with any gentleman who might give him occasion to do so. “If there is any bad blood in Congress,” said he, “I am prepared to draw it.” He always affirmed that he, and not Jones, captured the Serapis. The ship, he said, was compelled to surrender because he raked her with the guns of the Alliance.
Thus this strange man lived for forty years, until he had attained the age of eighty-seven. He died, or, to use his own language, disappeared from this life, in the summer of 1818. As he was buried in the church-yard of St. Patrick’s Cathedral it is probable that he had returned to the Roman Catholic faith. Some unknown friend raised a plain marble slabover his remains with the inscription, beneath a cross:
A la MémoiredePierre de Landais,Ancien Contre-Amiralau serviceDes Etats-Unis.Qui Disparut,Juin 1818.Age, 87 years.
A la MémoiredePierre de Landais,Ancien Contre-Amiralau serviceDes Etats-Unis.Qui Disparut,Juin 1818.Age, 87 years.
A la Mémoire
de
Pierre de Landais,
Ancien Contre-Amiral
au service
Des Etats-Unis.
Qui Disparut,
Juin 1818.
Age, 87 years.
Let us now return to Paul Jones. There were five hundred tons of public stores still at L’Orient to be shipped to the United States. The Ariel, which was in port preparing to sail, could afford additional room for but about one hundred tons. There were thus four hundred tons to be provided for. The Serapis, which Paul Jones had so heroically captured, was one of the finest and most strongly built war-ships in the British navy. The king had just purchased the prize for a sum amounting to about forty thousand dollars. As France was certainly indebted to an American commodore for his valuable prize, and as France was in alliance with America, and as the cause of the two countries was, in some respects, a common cause, France wishing to resist the intolerable tyranny of England on the seas, Jones made the very reasonable suggestion to Dr. Franklin, that he should obtain the loan of the Serapis, to accompany theAriel in conveying these stores across the Atlantic. Upon their arrival in America, the two ships, as he thought, might inflict very serious damage on the common enemy. Franklin, deserted by his colleague Lee, mortified by the flight of Landais with the Alliance, and embarrassed for want of money, was in a state of great perplexity. Through irregularity of the mails he had not received Commodore Jones’s letter of the 21st of June, giving him the particulars of the departure of the Alliance. He had, however, received his letter of the 27th, proposing the loan of the Serapis. Philosopher as he was, he could not conceal the perplexities which annoyed him. He wrote:
“I only knew, by other means, that the Alliance is gone out of the port; and that you are not likely to recover, and have relinquished the command of her. So that affair is over. And now the business is, to get the goods out as well as we can. I am perfectly bewildered with the different schemes that have been proposed to me for this purpose. Mr. Williams was for purchasing ships. I told him I had not the money; but he still urges it. You and Mr. Ross proposed borrowing the Ariel. I joined in the application for that ship. We obtained her. She was to convey all that the Alliance could not take.
“Now you find her insufficient. An additionalship has already been asked and could not be obtained. I think therefore that it will be best that you take as much into the Ariel as you can, and depart with it. For the rest I must apply to the government to contrive some means of transporting it in their own ships. This is my present opinion. When I have once got rid of this business, no consideration shall tempt me to meddle again with such matters, as I never understood them.”
The stores which were ready to be transported to America, amounted in value to about four hundred thousand dollars. It was needful that immediate and vigorous measures should be taken to send them on their way. Commodore Jones, on the 27th of June, wrote, as in duty bound, to the Honorable Robert Morris, giving him a very unimpassioned and truthful account of the untoward events which had occurred. He closed this admirable letter with the following words:
“I cannot see where all this will end. But surely it must fall dreadfully on the heads of those who have stirred up this causeless mutiny. For my own part I shall make no other remark than that I have never directly or indirectly sought after the command of the Alliance. But after having, in obedience to orders, commanded her for seven months, and after Mr. Lee had made a writtenapplication to me, as commander of that ship, for a passage to America, I am at a loss what name to give to Mr. Lee’s late conduct and duplicity in stirring up a mutiny in favor of a man who was first sent to America, contrary to Mr. Lee’s opinion, by Mr. Deane, and who is actually under arrest by order of his sovereign.
“What gives me the greatest pain is, that after I had obtained from government the means of transporting to America, under good protection, the arms and clothing I have already mentioned, Mr. Lee should have found means to defeat my intentions. You will bear me witness, my worthy friend, that I never asked a favor for myself from Congress. You have seen all my letters, and know that I never sought any indirect influence; though my ambition to act an eminent and useful part in this glorious revolution is unbounded.
“I pledge myself to you and to America that my zeal receives new ardor from the opposition it meets with; and I live but to overcome them, and to prove myself no mock patriot, but a true friend to the rights of human nature upon principles of disinterested philanthropy. Of this I have given some proofs, and I will give more. Let not, therefore, the virtuous Senate of Americabebemisled by the insinuations of fallen ambition. Should anythingbe said to my disadvantage, all I ask is a suspension of judgment until I can appear before Congress to answer for myself.”
The next day after Commodore Jones had written this letter, on the 28th of June, a letter was despatched to him, from Monsieur de Sartines, the French minister, dated at Versailles. He wrote:
“The king, sir, has already made known his satisfaction with the zeal and valor which you have displayed in Europe, in support of the common cause of the United States of America and his majesty; and he has also informed you of the distinguished proofs he is disposed to give you thereof. Persuaded that the United States will give their consent that you should receive the Cross of the Order of Military Merit, I send you, in the accompanying packet addressed to M. de Luzerne, the one designed for you. You will be pleased to deliver him this packet, and he will see that the honor is conferred by a knight of the order agreeably to his majesty’s orders.”
Before the Alliance sailed, the trunks of Commodore Jones which were on board that ship were broken open, robbed of their most valuable contents, and sent on shore. Those who openly adhered to Jones, refusing to obey Landais, were confined and carried away in irons. Almostinnumerableinnumerableobstacles aroseto delay the sailing of the Ariel and the other vessels needed to transport the stores. Never did a man consecrate himself more entirely to the promotion of the public interests, to the neglect of all selfish considerations, than did Paul Jones during the months of June and July. A detailed account of his difficulties and disappointments would but weary the reader. His soul was almost consumed with the desire to strike the haughty enemy blows which he would feel. He was willing to go back to America, animated by the hope that the government, hearing of what he had already achieved, would place such a force at his command as to enable him to do something effectual toward the emancipation of America from British thraldom. On the 2d of August, just before he was ready to sail, he wrote to the Count of Vergennes. After expressing his gratitude for the favors he had received from the French court, and his intense desire for active employment, he added:
“It is absolutely necessary, my lord, to destroy the foreign commerce of the English, especially their trade to the Baltic, from whence they draw all the supplies for their marine. It is equally necessary to alarm their coasts, not only in the colonies abroad, but even in their islands at home. These things would distress and distract the enemy much more than many battles between fleets of equal force.
“England has carried on the war against America in a far more barbarous form than she durst have adopted against any power of Europe. America has the right to retaliate; and, by our having the same language and customs with the enemy we are in a situation to surprise their coast and take such advantage of their unguarded situation, under the flag of America, as can never be done under the flag of France. This is not theory, for I have proved it by my experience. And if I have opportunity I will yet prove it more fully.”
Still there were the most annoying delays. Nothing in this world can be more difficult than to fit out a military expedition without money and without credit. The Ariel sailed out of the harbor and cast anchor in the road of Groix. Commodore Jones received during this time many flattering letters from admiring ladies of the French court. But his engagements were so pressing that he found but little time to reply to them. His instinctive sense of courtesy was such that this apparent neglect sometimes quite seriously annoyed him. To one lady he wrote:
“When one is conscious of having been in fault, I believe it is the best way to confess it and to promise amendment. This being my case in respect to you, madam, I am too honest to attempt to excusemyself; and therefore cast myself at your feet and beg your forgiveness, on condition that I behave better hereafter. For shame, Paul Jones! How could you let the fairest lady in the world, after writing you two letters, wait so long for an answer. Are you so much devoted to war as to neglect wit and beauty? I make myself a thousand such reproaches, and believe I punish myself as severely as you would do, madam, were you present here.”
Again he wrote to a noble lady, Madame L’Ormoy: “My particular thanks are due you, madam, for the personal proofs I have received of your esteem and friendship, and for the happiness you procured me in the society of the charming countess and other ladies and gentlemen of your circle. But I have a favor to ask of you, madam, which I hope you will grant me. You tell me, in your letter, that the inkstand I had the honor to present you as a small token of my esteem, shall be reserved for the purpose of writing what concerns me. Now I wish you to see my idea in a more expanded light, and would have you make use of that inkstand to instruct mankind, and support the dignity and rights of humannature.”nature.”