[Footnote 40: Quite what might have been expected from a "canny Scot." But it must not be forgotten that the chevalier had been a trader before he became a fighter.] [Footnote 41: Very unlike a "canny Scot" in this instance.] [Footnote 42: After his dismissal Landais resided in Brooklyn, where he lived in very straitened circumstances on a small annuity, the income upon an advance of four thousand dollars from Congress on account of arrears of prize money due him, which amount was to be deducted from his share of whatever was recovered from Denmark. His income was about two hundred dollars a year, but by strict economy it sufficed him. He is reputed to have cherished a high feeling of independence, and would never consent to receive a gift he was unable to return. Toward the close of his life he was a constant petitioner for five thousand dollars with interest, which he conceived to be still due him on account of the Danish claim. Every other year he contrived to visit the seat of government to plead his cause in person. On one occasion, having heard that a member of Congress had spoken slightingly of him, he put on his faded Continental uniform, buckled on his small sword, repaired to the gallery of the House of Representatives, and expressed his readiness to meet any gentleman who wished for an honorable satisfaction. His quaint figure, so attired, was often seen on the streets of New York. He used to carry his hat in his hand for hours in the street, out of respect to his lawful monarch, executed by the rebels of France! He never ceased to affirm that he, and not Paul Jones, had captured the Serapis. He died in 1818 at the age of eighty-seven years, and was buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral churchyard. He had probably returned to the Roman Catholic Church, which he is said to have abjured on his entry into the American service. One of his biographers tells us that he was a cadet of the family of a younger son of the youngest branch of one of the oldest, proudest, and poorest families in Normandy; that, owing to his lack of court interest, which was due to his poverty, he was kept for thirty years a midshipman in the French navy. The same ingenious apologist makes the following quaint comment on the respective actions and qualities of Landais and Jones: "Paul Jones, by his impetuous and undisciplined gallantry, earned the reputation of a hero, and poor Landais, by a too scrupulous attention to the theory of naval science, incurred that of a coward. I believe that naval authority is against me, but I venture to assert _meo periculo_ and on the authority of one of my uncles, who was in that action as a lieutenant to Paul Jones, that Landais erred not through any defect of bravery, but merely from his desire to approach his enemy scientifically, by bearing down upon the hypothenuse of the precise right-angled triangle prescribed in the thirty-seventh 'man[oe]uvre' of his old text-book."