There's already been a movie about it, but I doubt that it was any good. Even Master and Commander had to change the American enemy to a French one as Hollywood wouldn't make a film where the Americans lost, even if it was pure fiction!

Certainly Jones was a brave and daring commander, but not really so well by some of the lionising he was subjected to in later years and since his death. He probably didn't say 'I have not yet begun to fight', but that is what he is remembered for. Nelson was quite careful to have some memorable dying words 'Thank God that I have done my duty' which he said more than once to make sure that people got it right, but ask almost anyone and they'll say it was 'Kiss me Hardy', except the homophobes who maintain it was 'Kismet, Hardy'. Poor Lawrence is remembered for 'Don't give up the ship' in spite of the fact that that is exactly what they did ten minutes later.

Reading about sea-fights it is difficult to get a neutral view, because usually there were no neutrals present, and if they were, they were only in one place. But you do learn that the actions are sometimes decided by one or two chance events.

The bursting of one or two of the Bonhomme Richard's ancient 18 pounders could have been quite disastrous, cost him his best gun crews at his heaviest guns. Of course what Pearson should have done at this point was to hold off and batter Jones with his heavier guns.

The next chance event was the interaction with the prisoners. If the prisoners had risen and attempted to take the ship instead of being convinced to man the pumps (in fact relieving some of Jones' own crew) then it might have been a different story. This could have happened because of the presence of a large contingent of marines or because of the forcefulness of Jones' character. Maybe a bit of both.

When the ships grappled it was the Bonhomme Richard which was the better manned and armed, again the effect of the large marine contingent (the Serapis would have had about 50 marines). As the ships closed the Serapis had quite a few upper deck casualties. The next chance event was an American grenade setting off British ready-use cartridges (a precursor of British battlecruisers at Jutland!) causing up to 50 casualties.

Still these stories do make fascinating reading, don't they? I've been reading them since a boy,both fact and fiction, starting with CS Forrester. And it's great fun to be able to share that interest with other 'catters.