The _Pallas_ did, indeed, disappear on the 22d while the squadron was near Flamborough Head, but on the morning of the 23d the flagship, with the _Vengeance_, fell in with her at daylight and found the _Alliance_ with her. It should be told, by the way, that on the 22d, while the _Bonhomme Richard_ was lying close in shore, she was accosted by a man in a small boat who said he had been sent by a member of Parliament living near the coast to ask for some powder and bullets for defence against “the pirate Jones,” who was known to be on the coast. The _Bonhomme Richard_ had been mistaken for a British warship. Captain Jones sent a barrel of powder ashore with a message of regret saying that he had no projectiles of proper size. [Illustration: _From an engraving by Guttenberg, after a drawing by Notté, in the collection of Mr. W. C. Crane._] But the day of all days in the career of John Paul Jones, the 23d of September, 1779, was now at hand. At noon, as the four vessels of the squadron were jogging along to the north, they saw with mingled feeling of consternation and hope a fleet that numbered forty-two ships come around Flamborough Head. If this was a war fleet the fate of the squadron under the American flag was sealed, and he who was called in British state papers “the pirate Jones, a rebel subject and criminal of the state,” would hang at Execution Dock. If it was a merchant fleet under an ordinary convoy the condition of affairs would be different--it would be a most exhilarating condition of affairs. There was a light breeze at the time, and the big fleet was well inshore. As Captain Jones, after a prolonged examination, concluded that he had merchantmen in a convoy of two frigates before him, he saw a small boat pull hastily off to the larger of the two frigates and a man mounted from it to her deck. A moment later three signal flags were fluttering from the maintruck of the frigate and a gun was fired to windward--a signal to the merchantmen to seek safety in flight. In wild confusion the merchantmen obeyed, scattering hither and yon; but the frigates, one of which was the _Serapis_, Captain Pearson, of fifty guns, and the other the _Countess of Scarborough_, Captain Piercy, of twenty-two six-pounders, bravely bore down to meet the enemy, in spite of the fact that the Yankee fleet numbered four to their two. The captains of these two English ships were so far worthy foes of any naval commander that ever sailed. Captain Jones now had what appeared an opportunity to not only capture two good warships of the enemy without a too severe fight, but, with good luck, some of the convoy. But once more the insubordination of Landais on the _Alliance_ became manifest, and well-nigh fatally. He not only refused to obey the signal of the flagship to fall in line, but he sailed up near the _Pallas_ and said to her captain: “If it is a ship of more than fifty guns we have nothing to do but to run away.”