“I Have Not Yet Begun to Fight”: What John Paul Jones Said, and How We Know
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Did John Paul Jones say “I have not yet begun to fight”? Nobody can prove the exact words: the famous line was first written down in 1825, from the memory of his first lieutenant, Richard Dale, forty-six years after the battle, while Jones’s own report says only that he answered “the most determined negative.” What every account agrees on is the part that matters: on September 23, 1779, off Flamborough Head on England’s east coast, with his ship burning and sinking, Jones was asked whether he had struck his colors, and he refused.
The Man and the Ship
He was born John Paul in 1747 in Kirkbean, Scotland, the son of an estate gardener, and he went to sea at thirteen. He took the surname Jones in America, and in December 1775 was commissioned a lieutenant in the new Continental Navy, the service Congress had brought into being that October.
By 1779 he was operating out of France. The ship he was given was no prize: an old, slow former French East Indiaman, the Duc de Duras, which he renamed Bonhomme Richard in honor of Benjamin Franklin. Her guns were a patchwork and her crew came from many nations, but Jones took her into British waters at the head of a small squadron to raid enemy commerce.
The Battle off Flamborough Head
On September 23, 1779, his lookouts sighted a British merchant convoy. Its escort was HMS Serapis, a new, fast frigate rated at 44 guns, under Captain Richard Pearson, with the smaller Countess of Scarborough in company. The Serapis was faster and more heavily armed than the Richard. He closed on her anyway.
Early in the action, one or two of the Richard’s old 18-pounders blew apart, killing the men around them. Jones understood that he could not win a gun duel, so he set out to grapple and board. When the two ships finally fouled, his men lashed them together. Pearson’s own report describes the result: the ships lay “so close fore and aft, that the muzzles of our guns touched.”
For hours the two crews fought at point-blank range. Both ships were on fire. The Richard was holed below the waterline, her hull shattered, and the water rose below decks. At that point a gunner’s mate, Henry Gardner, came up from below, believed his captain was dead, and began crying for quarter. Jones, very much alive, flung a pistol at him and knocked him unconscious. Pearson heard the cry and called across to ask whether the Americans had struck.
What Did Jones Actually Say?
Here the record splits.
- Jones’s own report. In his written report of the battle, addressed to Benjamin Franklin, Jones said only that he answered Pearson with “the most determined negative.”
- Pearson’s report. The British captain wrote that he “called upon the captain to know if he had struck, or if he asked for quarters, but no answer being made after repeating my words two or three times, I called for the boarders.”
- The newspapers. Within weeks, the Edinburgh Advertiser had Jones saying, “I may sink, but I’ll be damned if I strike.” A letter from Amsterdam printed in London that October gave, “I have not as yet thought of it, but am determined to make you strike.”
- Jones’s memoir. In 1785, writing a memoir for King Louis XVI of France, Jones recalled his answer as, “I haven’t as yet thought of surrendering, but I am determined to make you ask for quarter.” The memoir was written in French; that is the English rendering.
- Richard Dale. In 1825, Henry Sherburne’s biography of Jones printed the recollection of Dale, the Richard’s first lieutenant: “the English now hailed the Bon Homme, to know whether they had struck. Jones himself answered, ‘that he had not yet begun to fight.’”
Dale’s line is the one that stuck. But it arrived forty-six years after the battle, and the accounts do not even agree on when the exchange happened: Dale placed Pearson’s question before Gardner’s cry for quarter, while Jones’s report ties his refusal to the moment after it. The exact words cannot be recovered. The refusal is certain.
How the Fight Ended
A sailor in the Richard’s rigging dropped a grenade through an open hatch on the Serapis; it touched off powder cartridges, and explosions tore through her gun deck. At about half past ten that night, Pearson struck his colors and surrendered. The fight had lasted about three and a half hours, and it was watched from the English coast.
Victory cost Jones his ship. Casualties on both sides were very heavy, and the record leaves no settled figure. The Richard could not be saved. Jones moved his crew and prisoners to the captured Serapis, and on September 25, 1779, the Bonhomme Richard went down in the North Sea. He won the battle from the deck of a ship that was sinking beneath him.
What Became of the Men
Richard Dale served on: when Congress built a new navy in 1794, he was one of the first six captains appointed to it. Jones died in Paris on July 18, 1792, at the age of 45. His body was found in 1905 and since 1913 has rested in the chapel of the Naval Academy at Annapolis. The Navy still keeps its birthday on October 13, the day in 1775 when the Continental Congress resolved to buy two armed ships; this year marks the 251st.
Why Men Still Wear the Words
The meaning was never in the phrasing. Jones stood on a burning ship, with men crying for quarter and the enemy offering him a way out, and he chose to keep fighting. That is what the line has carried for more than two centuries: not bravado, but refusal to surrender what is not yet lost.
It is the spirit behind the ancient charge in With Your Shield or On It, and part of the American story that runs back to the Stamp Act, told in What Does 1765 Mean. For a Christian man the application is close at hand: the fight that matters most is rarely won in the first hour, and the temptation to strike the colors comes when things look worst. The words on the shirt are Dale’s. The refusal under them was Jones’s.
Wear the Standard
Our I Have Not Yet Begun to Fight — John Paul Jones, 1779 tee carries the line America remembers from that night off Flamborough Head. It is American-made: a Bayside 5100 blank, 100% cotton, 6.1 oz heavyweight, printed to order in the USA, about two weeks from order to door. Sizes S–3XL, $44.99 (S–XL), $48.99 (2XL) and $49.99 (3XL). Find it with the rest of our American Revolution shirts.
Frequently Asked Questions
Did John Paul Jones really say “I have not yet begun to fight”?
No one can prove it. The line was first recorded in 1825 from the memory of his first lieutenant, Richard Dale. Jones’s own report says only that he answered “the most determined negative,” and other early accounts give different words. All agree he refused to surrender.
Where does the quote “I have not yet begun to fight” come from?
It comes from Henry Sherburne’s 1825 biography of John Paul Jones, which printed Richard Dale’s account: “Jones himself answered, ‘that he had not yet begun to fight.’”
When and where did the battle take place?
On September 23, 1779, off Flamborough Head on England’s east coast, between Jones’s Bonhomme Richard and HMS Serapis, a 44-gun frigate escorting a British convoy. The Serapis surrendered at about half past ten that night.
What happened to the Bonhomme Richard?
She was too badly damaged to save. Jones moved his crew to the captured Serapis, and the Bonhomme Richard sank on September 25, 1779.
Is there an “I have not yet begun to fight” shirt made in the USA?
Yes. The 1765 Apparel Co tee is an American-made Bayside 5100, 100% cotton, 6.1 oz, printed to order in the USA, sizes S–3XL from $44.99.
Sources
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Heavyweight tees, American-made, dirt to shirt — catholic t-shirts, christian shirts for men and american revolution shirts, from the veteran-owned house that writes these dispatches.
