During a brief pause, Pearson, the British captain, called out, "Have you struck your colors ?" at which Jones shouted back, "I have not yet begun to fight." Before morning the Serapis surrendered and in the forenoon the victorious Bonhomme Richard sank.

Europe rang with the exploit; not merely those easily thrilled by a spectacular engagement, but those who looked deeper began to ask themselves whether the naval power that must be reckoned with was not rising in the West.
Meanwhile, Washington kept his uncertain army near New York.

The city swarmed with Loyalists, who at one time boasted of having a volunteer organization larger than Washington's army.

These later years seem to have been the hey-day of the Loyalists in most of the Colonies, although the Patriots passed severe laws against them, sequestrating their property and even banishing them.

In places like New York, where General Clinton maintained a refuge, they stayed on, hoping, as they had done for several years, that the war would soon be over and the King's authority restored.
In the South there were several minor fights, in which now the British and now the Americans triumphed.