The above is quoted from the “British Journal” of an old date. Dale was of the opinion that, once that officer got below, he would have disregarded the surrender--that he would have used the three guns to send the _Bonhomme Richard_ “to the devil,” as he had proposed to do. That he might have done so is not doubted. [Illustration: CAPTAIN SIR RICH^D. PEARSON KN^T. _Lieutenant Governor of Greenwich Hospital_] And then came John Paul Jones to receive the sword of the defeated Pearson. According to the older accounts of this fight, Pearson said, as he handed his sword to his conqueror: “It is painful to deliver up my sword to a man who has fought with a halter around his neck.” To this, it is said, Jones replied: “Sir, you have fought like a hero; and I make no doubt your sovereign will reward you in the most ample manner.” [Illustration: John Paul Jones. _After a rare engraving._] In the present era of intense desire for arbitration instead of war a historian of this battle has written that “The story that Captain Pearson said, in giving up his sword, that it added to his mortification to give up his sword to a man who fought with a rope around his neck, is an idle fabrication, and a slur on Captain Pearson.” Whether Captain Pearson said it or not cannot now be definitely determined, but the reader shall judge for himself, further on, whether the story is “a slur on” him or not. The fight occurred so close inshore as to be plainly visible from the bluff overlooking the sea, and hundreds of people from the country-side gathered there to gaze upon the scene. For a time, of course, there was nothing distinguishable but the flash of the guns through the night, but after an hour the moon rose out of the sea, and then two ships, locked in the embrace of death, stood out in the midst of a cloud of smoke. That these spectators looked on confidently rejoicing in the prospect of a victory for their own ship, need not be doubted. How they rejoiced as they thought that their shores were now to be rid of the “pirates” is easily imagined; but who shall picture their consternation when a boatload of their countrymen escaped ashore and told the direful facts? To show the spirit in which English historians have always written about any matter in which the American navy had part, it is worth noting that Allen (“Battles of the British Navy”), ignoring the presence of tens of thousands of Hessians in the British forces in America, tries to throw contempt on the crew of the _Bonhomme Richard_ by calling them “hirelings,” and even stigmatizes the established fact of the treachery of Landais as an “absurd” charge.