Many of the most distinguished colonists were not only British subjects, but they had worn the king's uniform, fought under the king's flag, and eaten the king's bread; as, for instance, the great Washington. Richard Montgomery, an Irishman, who laid down a life valuable to his adopted country when he fell in the assault on Quebec, had been a British officer; and there were many others, some of whom, like the traitor Charles Lee and the worthless Gates, were actually half-pay officers in the British army when they entered the American service! Among the naval officers, the heroic Biddle, who matched the little Randolph, of thirty-two small guns, against the huge line of battle ship Yarmouth, and fought until his ship was blown to pieces, and he and all his crew were lost except four men, had been a midshipman in the British navy with Nelson. Stout old John Barry, who commanded the Alliance when he captured the Atlanta and the Trepassy, and fought the last action of the war by beating the frigate Sibylle, of superior force, was an Irishman.[65] The most bigoted Englishmen to-day speak of those men with respect which they will not accord to Jones. Why is this? The reason for the strange exception lies in the brilliant success with which he cruised and fought. The English claimed and exercised an absolute and practically undisputed supremacy on the high seas. Their arrogant navy for more than a hundred years had been invincible. In single ship actions they had always conquered. No enemy had landed on their shores for over a century. They could stand being beaten on land--they were accustomed to it. With few notable exceptions England does not produce great soldiers--Carlyle feelingly refers to the average English commander as a "wooden hoop pole wearing a cocked hat"[66]--but such a line of sailors as had sprung from their shores has never been equaled in the history of the world. Such sea leadership and such sea fighting has never been exceeded, or even equaled, by any nation.[67]