A naval discord now arose, which tried the patience and temper of Franklin. No sooner did Jones and Landais reach the Texel, than each wrote to Franklin making charges against the other. Jones accused Landais of gross insubordination and misbehavior and specifically charged him with intentionally firing into the “Bon Homme Richard” and killing a “number of our men and mortally wounding a good officer.” The French government, which was inclined to attribute the loss of the “Bon Homme Richard” and so many of her crew to the conduct of Landais, took a hand in the dispute, and asked Franklin to call Landais to account at Paris. In cases of this sort the Naval Office had little authority or means to effect discipline in the navy. A sufficient number of commissioned officers could not be assembled in France to hold a court-martial; and if they could, it was doubtful whether the Naval Office had the power to order such a court. Their inability to hold courts-martial had been regretted more than once by the American Commissioners. Landais came to Paris, and Franklin investigated the case before friends of the two disputants; but satisfactory evidence and witnesses could not be obtained to prove or disprove the charges, so Franklin did the only thing possible, by referring the dispute to Congress, and a properly constituted court-martial in America. Franklin thought his inquiry had one good effect, the preventing of a duel in Holland between the two officers.[363] On the coming of Landais to Paris, Franklin placed Jones in command of the “Alliance.” After cruising through the English Channel to Spain, Jones, in February, 1780, brought his vessel into L’Orient. Acting under Franklin’s orders, Jones now refitted his vessel with the purpose of returning to America with a cargo of supplies. In the spring of 1780 Landais began to beseech Franklin to restore him to the command of the “Alliance,” and he soon raised the question whether the American minister at Paris had the power to remove him from the command of a vessel to which Congress had appointed him. His request was refused by Franklin in bald and vigorous terms. “I think you,” Franklin wrote, “so imprudent, so litigious, and quarrelsome a man, even with your best friends, that peace and good order, and consequently the quiet and regular subordination so necessary to success, are, where you preside, impossible.”[364] Later he charged Landais “not to meddle with the ‘Alliance’ or create any disturbance on board her, as you will answer the contrary at your peril.”[365] About the first of June Jones left his vessel, and came up to Paris to hasten the sale of his prizes. Landais now appeared at L’Orient, raised a mutiny on board the “Alliance,” and, acting on Arthur Lee’s advice, took charge of her. Early in July, without taking the stores which had been assigned to his ship, Landais sailed for America. It was on this passage that he developed a strangeness, a madness, some