“In the evening I sent for all the captains to come on board the Bon Homme Richard, to consult on future plans of operations. Captains Cottineau and Ricot obeyed me; but Captain Landais obstinately refused, and after sending me various uncivil messages, wrote me a very extraordinary letter, in answer to a written order which I had sent him on finding that he had trifled with my verbal orders.” Three of the officers of the other ships, gallant officers and courteous gentlemen, Messrs. Mease, Cottineau, and Chamillard, went on board the Alliance to endeavor to persuade Landais not to pursue a course so ruinous to the efficiency of the expedition. The angry man would not listen to the voice of reason. He spoke of Captain Jones in the most contemptuous and insulting terms. He even went so far as to say: “I will soon meet Captain Jones on shore. Then I will either kill him or he shall kill me.” On the afternoon of the 5th of September, a storm arose. For four days one of the fiercest of gales ploughed the seas of those high northern latitudes; for the squadron was then in the parallel of northern Labrador. In the second night of the gale the Alliance again disappeared, though there was nothing to prevent the vessels of the squadron from keeping in sight of each other. The Vengeance and the Pallas alone remained with the Richard. The squadron followed down the eastern coast of Scotland far out at sea. Their first sight of land revealed the summits of the Cheviot Hills, far away in the south. This was in the evening of the 13th. The next day they gave chase to several vessels and succeeded in capturing a large ship and a brig, both laden with coal, some distance off the frith or bay of Edinburgh. The city of Leith is the seaport of the city of Edinburgh, which stands about a mile back from the bay. Leith contained a population of about twenty-five thousand, and its harbor was crowded with shipping. Captain Jones learned, from his prizes, that there was no land battery to defend Leith, and that there was, in the harbor, in addition to the ordinary shipping, an armed vessel of twenty guns, and three fine cutters. Captain Jones, always eager for heroic measures, and whose courage, extraordinary as it was, was ever tempered by discretion, seeing both Leith and Edinburgh within reach of his blows and reposing in indolence and supposed security, desired to make an instantaneous attack. He summoned Captain Cottineau of the Pallas and Captain Chamillard of the Vengeance to meet in his cabin. As he opened his bold plan to them they were appalled at the idea of attacking, with three small vessels, Leith, and consequently Edinburgh, which would instantly send all her forces to the rescue. Captain Jones eloquently urged upon the French officers the motives which influenced his own mind.