Commodore Paul Jones works slowly and cautiously southward along the east coast of Scotland. Off the Firth of Forth he decides to attack the Port of Leith, and stands in for that fell purpose. An adverse gale, seconded by off-shore currents, comes to the rescue of the threatened Scotchmen; in the teeth of his best seamanship Commodore Paul Jones and his squadron are driven out to sea. Thus the chance passes, and the sack of Leith is abandoned. It is a sore setback to the hopes of Commodore Paul Jones; but it lifts a load from the Scottish heart, to whom the Stars and Stripes have brought visions of pillage and torch and desolation. The news flies over England; beacons burn on each headland; while every semaphore is telling that the dreaded Paul Jones is hawking at the English coasts. The word causes a tremendous loss of British sleep. Off Spurn Head our industrious young commodore sinks one collier and chases another ashore. Being full of curiosity, he takes a peep into the mouth of the Humber, and discovers a frightened fleet of British merchant vessels. The merchantmen are in a flutter at the sight of the _Richard_‘s dread topsails; the frigate that it conveying them has its work cut out, to nurse them into anything like calmness. Following the look into the Humber, that sets so many timid merchantmen to shivering, Commodore Paul Jones puts out to sea under doublereefs. He plans to stand off and on throughout the night, and swoop on those tremblers, like a hawk on a covey of quail, with the first gray streaks of dawn. The frigate will doubtless fight, but the optimistic young commodore reckons on making short work of that man-of-war. In the middle watch the little brig _Vengeance_ runs under the _Richard_‘s lee, bringing word of a nobler quarry. The Baltic timber fleet, fifty sail in all, convoyed by the _Serapis_ and the _Countess of Scarboro_ has just put into Bridlington Bay. At this good news, Commodore Paul Jones gives up his designs touching the frightened covey of merchantmen in the Humber. He prefers the Baltic timber ships with the _Serapis_, the difference between the one and the other being the difference between deer and hare. He orders the _Vengeance_ to stand out to sea, find the _Alliance_, and tell Captain Landais to join him off Scarboro’ Head. “But do not,” says he to Captain Ricon, “give Captain Landais this notice in the guise of an order. He would make a point of disobeying, and seize on its reception as a pat occasion for insulting you.” While the _Vengeance_ stands eastward in search of the _Alliance_, Commodore Paul Jones signals the __Pallas__ to follow, and turns his bows for Scarboro’ Head, then forty miles away.