When John Paul Jones was engaging a much abler ship than his own Bon Homme Richard in the British Serapis he ran the bow of his ship into the stern of the Serapis.\u00a0 When the British commander mockingly asked “Has your ship struck?” Jones answered,<\/p>\n
“I have not yet begun to fight.”<\/p>\n
And later on as his ship was badly damaged and again he was asked if he’d surrender he declared,<\/p>\n
I may sink, but I’ll be damned if I strike!<\/p>\n
His ship did sink but he had already captured the Serapis at this point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When John Paul Jones was engaging a much abler ship than his own Bon Homme Richard in the British Serapis he ran the bow of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[701],"tags":[26,984,983],"class_list":["post-2671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-quote-of-the-day","tag-american-exceptionalism","tag-american-revolution","tag-john-paul-jones"],"yoast_head":"\n