. The history of our Navy from its origin to the present day, 1775-1897. s bucket tothe sheet-block, he began dropping the lightedgrenades into her hold. The hand grenade is a shell near the weightof a baseball. The first one he dropped ex-ploded on a great heap of gun cartridges thathad accumulated along the low^r deck behindthe guns. A tremendous explosion followed. It was awful ! Some twerfty of our menwere fairly blown to pieces. There were othermen who were stripped naked, with nothingon but the collars of their shirts and wrist-bands. Farther aft there was not so muchpowder, perhaps, and
. The history of our Navy from its origin to the present day, 1775-1897. s bucket tothe sheet-block, he began dropping the lightedgrenades into her hold. The hand grenade is a shell near the weightof a baseball. The first one he dropped ex-ploded on a great heap of gun cartridges thathad accumulated along the low^r deck behindthe guns. A tremendous explosion followed. It was awful ! Some twerfty of our menwere fairly blown to pieces. There were othermen who were stripped naked, with nothingon but the collars of their shirts and wrist-bands. Farther aft there was not so muchpowder, perhaps, and the men were scorchedor burned more than they were wounded. Ido not know how I escaped, but I do knowthat there was hardly a m_an forward of myguns who did escape. So wrote CaptainHeddart, already quoted. The explosion alsoset the Serapis on fire. That was the decisive moment of the the British had been disabling all butthree or four of the guns on the upper deckof the Bonhonmie Richard, the ijien in the topsof the Yankee ship and the mucderous fire of17. Paul Jones Capturing the an sngraving of the picture hy Chappel, THE HISTORY OF 259 the nine-pounders, which Jones himself hadworked, had gradually driven all the men offthe upper deck of the Serapis. That CaptainPearson had escaped injury is a marvel, for hehad with undaunted courage directed the bat-tle from the quarter-deck. But as the smokeof the great explosion rose through his hatches,he found himself practically alone, while Jones,with a cocked pistol in hand, was rallying hismen successfully to increase fhe fire of hisupper-deck guns. As the British commander saw the fight, hewas now without men, and the other Yankeefriofate had but a short time before fired abroadside from which some balls entered theSerapis. Captain Pearson knew nothing ofthe treachery on the Alliance. He knewnothing (and this was to his discredit) of thereal state of affairs on the lower decks of theBonhomme Richa
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