{"id":"01KG8AKM4V4GAP0SY5GZ8RPK7M","cid":"bafkreif2twcmp3hdyoo7qfu6oxdcjtckj44xvuqta6z6qswouetq3kmtbe","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":5368,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:05.591Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1DKC9HHJRKY25JZBEXW","start_line":5316,"text":"CHAPTER XIX.\r\nTHEY FIGHT THE SERAPIS.\r\n\r\n\r\nThe battle between the Bon Homme Richard and the Serapis stands in\r\nhistory as the first signal collision on the sea between the Englishman\r\nand the American. For obstinacy, mutual hatred, and courage, it is\r\nwithout precedent or subsequent in the story of ocean. The strife long\r\nhung undetermined, but the English flag struck in the end.\r\n\r\nThere would seem to be something singularly indicatory in this\r\nengagement. It may involve at once a type, a parallel, and a prophecy.\r\nSharing the same blood with England, and yet her proved foe in two\r\nwars—not wholly inclined at bottom to forget an old grudge—intrepid,\r\nunprincipled, reckless, predatory, with boundless ambition, civilized\r\nin externals but a savage at heart, America is, or may yet be, the Paul\r\nJones of nations.\r\n\r\nRegarded in this indicatory light, the battle between the Bon Homme\r\nRichard and the Serapis—in itself so curious—may well enlist our\r\ninterest.\r\n\r\nNever was there a fight so snarled. The intricacy of those incidents\r\nwhich defy the narrator’s extrication, is not illy figured in that\r\nbewildering intertanglement of all the yards and anchors of the two\r\nships, which confounded them for the time in one chaos of devastation.\r\n\r\nElsewhere than here the reader must go who seeks an elaborate version\r\nof the fight, or, indeed, much of any regular account of it whatever.\r\nThe writer is but brought to mention the battle because he must needs\r\nfollow, in all events, the fortunes of the humble adventurer whose life\r\nlie records. Yet this necessarily involves some general view of each\r\nconspicuous incident in which he shares.\r\n\r\nSeveral circumstances of the place and time served to invest the fight\r\nwith a certain scenic atmosphere casting a light almost poetic over the\r\nwild gloom of its tragic results. The battle was fought between the\r\nhours of seven and ten at night; the height of it was under a full\r\nharvest moon, in view of thousands of distant spectators crowning the\r\nhigh cliffs of Yorkshire.\r\n\r\nFrom the Tees to the Humber, the eastern coast of Britain, for the most\r\npart, wears a savage, melancholy, and Calabrian aspect. It is in course\r\nof incessant decay. Every year the isle which repulses nearly all other\r\nfoes, succumbs to the Attila assaults of the deep. Here and there the\r\nbase of the cliffs is strewn with masses of rock, undermined by the\r\nwaves, and tumbled headlong below, where, sometimes, the water\r\ncompletely surrounds them, showing in shattered confusion detached\r\nrocks, pyramids, and obelisks, rising half-revealed from the surf—the\r\nTadmores of the wasteful desert of the sea. Nowhere is this desolation\r\nmore marked than for those fifty miles of coast between Flamborough\r\nHead and the Spurm.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJJRQ4SKWG11NYNT96ERE","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1DKC9HHJRKY25JZBEXW","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKM4X719R4QPRVEJR7S2Y","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:10.395Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:16.858Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}