“A hand grenade, being thrown in at one of the lower ports a cartridge of powder was set on fire; the flames of which, running from cartridge to cartridge all the way aft, blew up the whole of the people and officers that were quartered abaft the mainmast; from which unfortunate circumstances, all those guns were rendered useless for the remainder of the action, and I fear that the greater part of the people will lose their lives.” Just before ten o’clock the Alliance, which had stood aloof during all these hours, made her appearance; I must give this extraordinary occurrence in the words of Captain Jones. “I now thought,” he wrote, “that the battle was at an end. But to my utter astonishment he discharged a broadside full into the stern of the Bon Homme Richard. We called to him for God’s sake to forbear. Yet he passed along the off side of the ship, and continued firing. There was no possibility of his mistaking the enemy’s ship for the Bon Homme Richard, there being the most essential difference in their appearance and construction. Besides it was then full moonlight, and the sides of the Bon Homme Richard were all black, and the sides of the enemy’s ship were yellow. Yet for the greater security I showed the signal for our reconnoisance, by putting out three lanterns, one at the bow, one at the stern, and one at the middle, in a horizontal line. “Every tongue cried that he was firing into the wrong ship, but nothing availed. He passed round firing into the Bon Homme Richard, head, stern, and broadside, and by one of his volleys killed several of my best men, and mortally wounded a good officer of the forecastle. My situation was truly deplorable. The Bon Homme Richard received several shots under the water from the Alliance. The leak gained on the pumps; and the fire increased much on board both ships. Some officers entreated me to strike, of whose courage and sense I entertain a high opinion. I would not, however, give up the point.” The fire from the tops of the Richard had struck down every man on the quarter-deck of the Serapis. Captain Jones’s guns had so cut the main-mast of the foe that it reeled and fell with a fearful crash, tearing down with it spars and rigging, and leaving the ship almost a helpless wreck. Flames were bursting forth in several places. Captain Pearson saw that all was lost. With his own hands he struck his flag. Lieutenant Richard Dale immediately, with the consent of Captain Jones, jumped upon the gunwale, seized the main-brace pendant, and swung himself upon the quarter-deck of the captured ship. He was followed by Midshipman Mayrant, with a large party of sailors. The confusion was so great that it was not known, at that moment, throughout either ship, that the Serapis had surrendered. One of the enemy, stationed at the waist, ran his boarding-pike through the thigh of the midshipman.