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The commandant of the defenses at L'Orient had received orders from the French government to fire on the Alliance, if Landais should attempt to take her out of the harbor; and it seems he would have obeyed and probably sunk the ship, had not Jones himself interfered, and induced him to stay his hand. In a letter to Franklin, Jones said:
Lee and Landais consequently encouraged the discontent among the crew of the Alliance, and one day, June 13, when Jones was on shore at L'Orient, Landais went on board the ship, and, supported by his old officers and by Lee, took possession.
The Bellerophon was, indeed, overpowered by L'Orient, 200 of her crew killed, and all her masts and cables shot away, so that she drifted away as night came on; but the Swiftsure came up in her place, and the Alexander and Leander both poured in their shot. Admiral Brueys received three wounds, but would not quit his post, and at length a fourth shot almost cut him in two.
As it was, he was compelled to put back for repairs to L'Orient, where, in a series of letters, he manoeuvred in vain for the loan of the fine ship Terpsichore. It was not until December 18 that the Ariel got under way again for America. The voyage was uneventful, with the exception of a night battle with a British privateer sloop of inferior force.
Captain Paul Jones being at L'Orient, within a day's journey of Brest, where Captain Peyrouse's vessels lay, I desired him, if he could not satisfy himself at L'Orient of the nature of this equipment, to go to Brest for that purpose: conducting himself so as to excite no suspicion that we attended at all to this expedition.
Franklin and with the revolutionary party generally; to such a degree, indeed, that he was accused, not unjustly, of treachery to the cause of American independence. At the time that the Alliance was at L'Orient, Lee was waiting an opportunity to return to America.
During the battle of Aboukir he was the chief of the staff, under Admiral Brueys, and saved himself by swimming, when l'Orient took fire and blew up.
When the surgeon pronounced his hurt to be superficial, he refused to take the rest which was recommended, and at once sent for his secretary to write despatches. While he was thus engaged, a cry was heard which rose above the din of battle, proclaiming that the L'Orient was on fire.
Puchilburg, a merchant of L'Orient, who seems to have kept himself unknown till money was to be received, now presents powers to receive it, signed by the American officers and crews: and this produces a hesitation in the person to whom your order was directed.
However, Fitch went to L'Orient and deposited the plans and specifications of his invention with the American consul. Then he departed for London. In the following year a man by the name of Robert Fulton took up his residence with the family of Joel Barlow, in Paris. There he devoted himself to his art, which was that of a painter.
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