As may well be imagined, a blank-book suitable for a log was not available at that moment of supreme confusion, so that the muster-roll book of the _Richard_, with only a few of its pages in use, was seized upon and used to enter the daily transactions on board the _Serapis_, from the time of her capture until, as a result of the political situation between Holland and England, she was turned over to the French, and, under the command of Captain Cottineau, hoisted the French colors in the Texel Roads. The book was reversed, and the log of the _Serapis_ begun at the other end, preceded by a brief memorandum--"Some Remarkable Occurrences that happened on the 23d day of September, 1779,"--which briefly records the capture of the _Serapis_. No other or more circumstantial account of the fight existed in the book when it came into the possession of its later owners, but a close examination showed that, besides minor mutilations, two leaves, immediately preceding that containing the statement of "Some Remarkable Occurrences," had, at some time, been torn out. In order to incorporate into the book a clearer and more circumstantial account of the fight, a former owner caused to be copied on several blank leaves the narrative found amongst the Peter Force Collection of Manuscripts, "John Paul Jones Papers," Volume VI, number 29. The authorship and penmanship of this document have been ascribed by various biographers of Jones to Richard Dale.[4] [Footnote 4: Memoirs of Rear-Admiral Paul Jones, Edinburgh, 1830; Professor Marion, John Paul Jones' Last Cruise and Final Resting Place, Washington, 1906.] The present owner's attention was specially called to it by seeing a small photographic reproduction, published in a book by Professor Marion entitled, "John Paul Jones' Last Cruise and Final Resting Place," Washington, 1906. The author describes this valuable and historical document as a "manuscript written on two pages of rough, greenish paper, evidently torn out of a log book," and attributes it to Richard Dale, the first lieutenant of the _Bon Homme Richard_. The compiler of the "John Paul Jones Manuscripts" in the Library of Congress attributes it possibly to Jones' secretary.[5] The author of the "Memoirs of Rear-Admiral Paul Jones," published in Edinburgh and London, 1830, Volume I, page 192, states "that the fact of Landais' firing into the _Bon Homme Richard_ is also confirmed by the log-book, which was preserved when the ship sunk, and by a very interesting and seaman-like narrative of the engagement, drawn up by Mr. Dale." He adds in a footnote in reference to the log-book: "This battered volume, after many adventures by land and water, is now (1830) in the possession of Mr. Richard Napier, Advocate." [Footnote 5: Calendar of John Paul Jones Manuscripts, pp. 104, 105.]