The Bonne Homme Richard

In 1779 John Paul Jones fought a fierce battle off Flamborough Head. His ship, the Bonne Homme Richard, was locked in combat with the Serapis. Their riggings became locked together. At one point the magazine of the Serapis blew up. A poem written by American author Bret Hart, published in the 1915 edition of "Stories and poems" is a description of the battle as seen through the eyes of one of the American crew. Entitled "Off Scarborough" the poem describes how the man shins out on a yard arm above the deck of the British ship and throws a hand grenade into the open hatch of the British vessel.

Then a blank was all between
As the flames around me spun,
Had I fired the magazine?
Was the victory lost or won?
Nor knew I till the fight was o'er but half my work was done:
For I lay among the dead
In the cockpit of our foe,
With a roar above my head -
Till a trampling to and fro,
And a lantern showed my mate's face,
and I knew what now you know.




OTHER ARTICLES
• Naval battle off Flamborough Head - Captain Paul Jones
• Flamborough Head - Paul Jones battle
• John Paul Jones account of Flamborough battle
• The Smuggling of contraband and the coastguard in Flamborough
• The fishing community in Flamborough head - superstition and bad luck
• The national RNLI and the Scarborough lifeboat of 1861.
• The 200 year history of scarboroughs RNLI
• Filey and the gales of 1860,1867,1869 AND 1880
• Instructions to sailors - Flamborough Head
• Flamborough Head - ancient fishing village
• Stories from Flamborough Head and Filey
• Tommy Rowley - stories about loss of life at sea
• The early years of the Scarborough Lifeboat
• Thomas Crimlisk - First of the Crimlisks
• Harwood Brierleys description of Scarborough harbour at the opening of the 20th century
• The port of Scarborough in the late 15th Century
• Shipbuilding at Scarborough - the wooden barques and schooners
• Martin Frobisher and Scarborough
• The Beam trawl and the Otter trawl

HOW TO HELP THIS WEBSITE: Google rates pages posted on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites very highly. So if you have found this site useful please post it using the buttons below.

Tweet