However, we might accept the statements of these men as decisive were it not for the fact that Pearson, whose report is very explicit indeed, makes no claim whatever to having succeeded in raking the Richard, though it would be so greatly to his credit if he had done so that it is hardly probable he would fail to state it. His account of the battle accords with the plan of the present work. Again, when the Serapis engaged the Richard in the final grapple, she had to blow off her starboard port shutters, which were therefore tightly closed. If she had been engaged to starboard (which would necessarily follow if she had been on the port side of the Richard at any time), the ports would have been opened.[22] This is not absolutely conclusive, because, of course, it would be possible that the ports might have been closed when the men were shifted to the other battery, but in the heat of the action such a measure would be so improbable as to be worthy of little consideration. But the most conclusive testimony to the fact that the Serapis was not on the port side of the Richard at any time is found in the charges which were signed by the officers concerning the conduct of Landais. Article 19 reads: "As the most dangerous shot which the Bon Homme Richard received under the water were under the larboard bow and quarter, they must have come from the Alliance, _for the Serapis was on the other side_."[23] Captain Mahan well sums it up: "As Landais' honor, if not his life, was at stake in these charges, it is not to be supposed that six officers (besides two French marine officers), four of whom were specially well situated for seeing, would have made this statement if the Serapis had at any time been in position to fire those shots." This consideration, therefore, seems to settle the question. Again, the maneuvers as they have been described in this volume are the simple and natural evolutions which, under the existing conditions of wind and weather and the relative positions of the two ships, would have been in all human probability carried out. The attempt to put the ships in the different positions of the commonly accepted plans involves a series of highly complicated and unnecessary evolutions (scarcely possible, in fact, in the very light breeze), which no commander would be apt to attempt in the heat of action unless most serious contingencies rendered them inevitable. CHAPTER XII. UPHOLDING AMERICAN HONOR IN THE TEXEL.