Landais now deliberately fired into the Richard's quarter, killing many of her men. Standing on, he ranged past her larboard bow, where he renewed his raking fire, with like fatal effect. To remove the chance of misconception, many voices cried out that the Alliance was firing into the wrong ship; still the raking fire continued from her. Captain Pearson also suffered from this fire, as he states in his report to the Admiralty, but necessarily in a much less degree than the Richard, which lay between them. There is ample evidence of Landais having returned there several times to fire on the Richard, and always on the larboard side, or opposite one to that on which the Richard was grappled with the Serapis. While the fire of the Serapis was continued without intermission from the whole of her lower-deck battery, the only guns that were still fired from the Richard were two nine-pounders on the quarter-deck, commanded by Mr. Mease, the purser. This officer having received a dangerous wound in the head, Jones took his place, and, having collected a few men, succeeded in shifting over one of the larboard guns; so that three guns were now kept playing on the enemy, and these were all that were fired from the Richard during the remainder of the action. One of these guns was served with double-headed shot and directed at the main-mast, by Jones' command, while the other two were loaded with grape and canister, to clear the enemy's deck. In this service great aid was rendered by the men stationed in the tops of the Richard, who, having cleared the tops of the Serapis, committed great havoc among the officers and crew upon her upper deck. Thus, the action was carried on with decided advantage to the Serapis' men on the lower decks, from which they might have boarded the Richard with a good prospect of success, as nearly the whole crew of the latter had been driven from below by the fire of the Serapis and had collected on the upper deck. In addition to the destructive fire from the tops of the Richard, great damage was done by the hand-grenades thrown from her tops and yard-arms. The Serapis was set on fire as often as ten or twelve times in various parts, and the conflagration was only with the greatest exertions kept from becoming general.