In addition to this vast preponderance in actual fighting force, there was another great advantage to the Serapis in the original composition of her crew as compared with the heterogeneous crowd which Jones had been compelled to hammer into shape. Worthily, indeed, did both bodies of men demonstrate their courage and show the effect of their training. There was a further superiority in the English ship in that she was built for warlike purposes, and was not a converted and hastily adapted merchant vessel. She was of much heavier construction, with more massive frames, stouter sides, and heavier scantling. The last advantage Pearson's ship possessed was in her superior mobility and speed. She should have been able to choose and maintain her distance, so that with her longer and heavier guns she could batter the Richard to pieces at pleasure, herself being immune from the latter's feebler attack. In but one consideration was the Richard superior to the Serapis, and that was in the personality of the man behind the men behind the guns! Pearson was a very gallant officer. There was no blemish upon his record, no question as to his capacity. In personal bravery he was not inferior to any one. As a seaman he worthily upheld the high reputation of the great navy to which he belonged; but as a man, as a personality, he was not to be mentioned in the same breath with Jones. This is no discredit to that particular Englishman, for the same disadvantageous comparison to Jones would have to be made in the case of almost any other man that sailed the sea. There was about the little American such Homeric audacity, such cool-headed heroism, such unbreakable determination, such unshakable resolution, that so long as he lived it was impossible to conquer him. They might knock mast after mast out of the Richard; they might silence gun after gun in her batteries; man after man might be killed upon her decks; they might smash the ship to pieces and sink her beneath his feet, but there was no power on earth which could compel him to strike her flag.