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Updated: July 10, 2025
There was a French captain Landais, who entered the service of the States and was given the command of a ship in what was dignified by the name of Jones's "squadron." Of all the excitable Frenchmen who have ever lived none can have been more hot-headed than this remarkable man.
When the two got together they stirred up a mutiny on board, and more trouble was made for Franklin. At last they got away, and Landais went crazy during the voyage, was deposed by his officers, and placed in confinement.
Soon he quarreled with Jones; Franklin had to intervene; then Landais advanced all sorts of preposterous demands, which Franklin refused; thereupon he quarreled with Franklin; a very disagreeable correspondence ensued; Franklin finally had to displace Landais from command of his ship; Landais defied him and refused to surrender command. Then Lee decided to go home to the States in Landais's ship.
While attempting to capture a brigantine, Jones, through the desertion of some of his English sailors, lost two of his small boats, for which he was bitterly and unjustly reproached by the crazy, incompetent, and greedy Landais, captain of the Alliance, who said that hereafter he would chase in the manner he saw fit.
'Twas then I first remarked that the Alliance had left her place in line and was sailing swiftly ahead toward the Serapis. The commodore seemed to read my exclamation. "Landais means to ruin me yet, by hook or crook," said he. "But he can't intend to close with them," I replied. "He has not the courage." "God knows what he intends," said the commodore, bitterly. "It is no good, at all events."
An' they beant seamen eno' to keep a full an' by with all their 'takteek'. Ez fer that Landais, I hearn him whinin' at the commodore in the round house when we was off Clear, an' sayin' as how he would tell Sartin on us when he gets back to Paree. An' jabberin to th'other Frenchmen as was there that this here butter-cask was er King's ship, an' that the commodore weren't no commodore nohow.
The Alliance, under the infamous Captain Landais, who had been dishonorably discharged from the French navy, refused to cooperate with Jones and soon disappeared on some unknown errand.
I've had my bellyful o' Frenchies, Mr. Carvell save it be to fight 'em. An' I tell 'ee 'twould give me the greatest joy in life t' leave loose 'Scolding Sairy' at that there Landais. Th' gal ain't had a match on her this here cruise, an' t' my mind she couldn't be christened better, sir." I left him patting the gun with a tender affection.
Landais paid no attention to Jones's signals, but left the squadron for days, unfortunately returning. Against Jones's orders he sent two prizes into Bergen, Norway, where they were given by the Danish government to the English, and were for many years after the war a source of trouble between Denmark and the United States.
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