Jones, nevertheless, mustered his boarders on the forecastle at this moment, heading them himself, but the English appeared in such force at the point of contact that the attempt was of necessity abandoned. The two ships hung together a moment, then separated, and, the Serapis going ahead, the Richard backing off, they formed a line ahead, the bow of the Richard following the stern of the Serapis. There was not a single great gun which bore on either ship. The roar of the battle died away, and even the crackle of the small arms ceased for a space. At this moment Pearson hailed the Richard. Having been subjected to the battering of his superior force for so long a time, Pearson concluded that it was time for the Richard to surrender. He was right in theory--in practice it was different. His own ship had suffered severely in the yardarm to yardarm fight, and he realized that the loss upon the Richard must have been proportionately greater. Even the most unskilled seaman had learned by this time the difference in the power of the two vessels. Therefore, taking advantage of the momentary cessation of the battle, he sprang up on the rail of the Serapis in the moonlight and called out: "Have you struck?" And to this interrogation Paul Jones returned that heroic answer, which since his day has been the watchword of the American sailor: "_I have not yet begun to fight!_" he cried with gay audacity. The ringing tones of his voice carried his answer not only to the ears of the English captain, but threw it far up into the high tops where the eager seamen had so busily plied their small arms. The men on the gun deck heard it with joy. It even penetrated to the gloomy recesses of the gun room, which had been the scene of such misfortune and disaster as would have determined the career of any other ship. The wounded caught the splendid inspiration which was back of the glorious declaration, and under the influence of it stifled their groans, forgot their wounds, and strove to fight on. It told the dying that their lives were not to be given in vain. Nay, those mighty words had a carrying power which lifted them above the noise of the conflict, which sent them ringing over the narrow seas, until they reverberated in the Houses of Parliament on the one side and the Court of Versailles on the other. They had a force which threw them across the thousand leagues of ocean until they were heard in every patriot camp, and repeated from the deck of every American ship, until they became a part of the common heritage of the nation as eternal as are its Stripes and Stars! The dauntless phrase of that dauntless man: "_I have not yet begun to fight!_"