Celebrated frigate duel between John Paul Jones' 'Bonhomme Richard' & HMS 'Serapis'. The Bonhomme Richard was an old East Indiaman, many of it's guns were old, at least three burst from firing, killing many of their crews.
according to the later recollection of First Lieutenant Richard Dale, Bonhomme Richard’s bow ran into Serapis’ stern and, with neither side able to take advantage of the situation, Captain Pearson cheekily asked the punning question, "Has your ship struck?". Dale reports Jones's reply as, very simply, "I have not yet begun to fight!".
Shortly afterwards, John Paul Jones got the opportunity he had been striving for—not a moment too soon, as his ship had been holed below the waterline and was becoming increasingly unresponsive. Serapis’ jib-boom caught in the rigging of Bonhomme Richard’s mizzen mast, and Jones immediately led his crew in attaching the two ships together as strongly as they could. Seeing the danger, Pearson dropped anchor. Because both ships were under sail, when Serapis came to an abrupt halt, Bonhomme Richard would keep going, and with luck, tear free. Jones’ men had been very efficient, so what actually happened was that Bonhomme Richard’s motion was turned into a rotation, and the two ships, still firmly attached, ended up side-by-side, facing in opposite directions, their great guns touching each other’s hull planks. Better still for Jones, Serapis’ spare anchor caught in the woodwork of Bonhomme Richard’s stern, locking the two ships in that extraordinary position. Making a virtue of necessity, Pearson’s crew fired broadsides straight into Bonhomme Richard’s hull, tearing huge holes in its side, and doing terrible damage to the gun-decks.
After that, Bonhomme Richard started definitively losing the battle. Still, efforts to make the situation too hot for the British, both figuratively and literally, continued. Just after 9:30 pm, one of these attempts succeeded in spectacular fashion. According to Jones's published campaign report, grenade-thrower William Hamilton ventured right out along a yard-arm until he could look almost straight down on the deck of Serapis (by this time, almost cleared of men), and began trying to drop grenades, not onto the deck but down the hatches. By good fortune, one of these ignited a charge of gunpowder placed in readiness (contrary to standard fire safety practice, but Captain Pearson had encouraged his men to "fire briskly") for loading into one of Serapis’ 18-pound guns. The problem with this version of the story is that the 18-pounders were on the lower deck, so it would take a very lucky drop to reach them from high above. Captain Pearson speculated that either a grenade had been thrown through a hole in the hull, from Bonhomme Richard’s gun deck, or that the charge had been ignited by accident. Whatever the cause, the effect was devastating. As the ignited charge blew up, it scattered burning gunpowder, setting off other charges nearby, and ultimately the chain reaction covered the entire rear half of Serapis’ lower gun-deck, killing or severely burning many of the gunnery crewmen, forcing some to leap into the sea to extinguish their burning clothes, and putting five guns out of action. In the confusion, some of the crew clambering back on board after jumping into the sea were nearly mistaken for American boarders.[12]
1780. Maj. John Andre is captured, revealing Benedict Arnold's treason
1921 Pertab Singh (1845-1922), one of the most notable Indian princes during the height of British Raj, was quite a character. During the course of his long and faithful service to the British Empire, Sir Pertab became a personal friend to Queen Victoria, her son Edward VII, and the latter’s son George V. So when, in 1921, the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII), toured India, he quite naturally looked up the old family friend.
Sir Pertab took the young prince pig sticking, a favorite sport among the Indian horsey set, and one at which he was quite adept. The prince, although an accomplished polo player, was much less experienced in the pig sticking business, and made a careless mistake; He dismounted during the hunt, before the pig had been killed, which could have cost him dearly.
At that, Sir Pertab told him, “I know you are the Prince of Wales, and you know that you are the Prince of Wales, but the pig doesn’t know you are the Prince of Wales.”